Thelonious Monk – Monk’s Dream

Thelonious Monk. The first word comes to mind is originality. Even when he played a ballad, he made it his own. In Monk’s Dream, he reinvented the soothing “Body & Soul” with his unique, fractured chord changes. The second word comes to mind is witty. His improvisation on “Bolivar Blues” sounded like a child hitting one key at a time, yet the sequence is brilliant. He was indeed a genius with a sense of humor. Monk’s Dream also displays the fantastic collaboration between Charlie Rouse’s fluidity and Monk’s angularity.