‘Round Midnight – Thelonious Monk

180 gram audiophile vinyl LP

The present LP compiles some obscure gems from the Riverside years. Monk’s first recording of his most famous composition, “’Round Midnight”, was privately made by Timme Rosenkrantz in November of 1944. He later recorded it for Blue Note in 1947, and for Vogue in 1954. But he always reworked his own compositions, and in order to produce the version that would be issued on the Riverside LP Thelonious Himself, Monk tried various approaches to the tune at the piano, which were fortunately recorded and are presented on Side A. “Played Twice”, “There’s Danger in Your Eyes, Cherie”, and “I Should Care” are different versions from the ones presented on the original Riverside albums Five by Monk by Five, Thelonious Alone in San Francisco, and Thelonious Himself, respectively, and “Little Rootie Tootie” was an encore for Monk’s February 28, 1959 Town Hall concert. The song had already been performed in the program but its start wasn’t properly recorded, so Monk played the tune again and the original album edited the first notes of this encore into the earlier version. This is the unedited encore reading, which closed the show.