Thelonious Monk
Piano Solo on
Nutty

About

Thelonious Monk's piano solo is the second of two improvisations on this live recording, following Griffin's tenor saxophone. Taking two choruses of the 32-bar AABA form in B-flat at 148 BPM, Monk delivers a solo on his own composition that is unmistakably his own creation. His playing makes liberal use of silence, dissonance, and rhythmic displacement, each phrase arriving with the unpredictable timing and harmonic angularity that are hallmarks of his utterly singular approach to the piano.

Thelonious Monk was 40 to 41 years old at the time.