“This is the apogee of Monk’s vision. Music that’s insane and gorgeous, droll and dire, ardently crafted to be so perfectly wrong that it robs you of your predictions and replaces them with ever unfolding alms of unexpected rapture. The harder you fight it, the more frustrating it is. Maybe the life work of Thelonious Monk was to crack apart and invert the rusted shell of the piano and open a portal into the bedraggled contradictions and breathless off-tempo grind of being black in America. This was his power over you and over the world. He reveled in confusing the outsider. And when that outsider has enslaved, beat, hung, dragged, murdered, raped, starved, and excluded your people for centuries, then it’s more than a game of intellectual keep-away. It’s an effort for spiritual freedom. But, of course, it’s a short one. Because everything you make will eventually belong to someone else. This is the American Way.” (more…)