Thelonious Monk	Ben Riley

Monk & Mary Lou

Ben Riley and Geri Allen Pay Tribute to Two Jazz Masters

Memories of T
Thelonious Monk once told drummer Ben Riley, “Just because you’re the drummer don’t mean you have the best beat.” Not the easiest words for a drummer to digest. But in his time with Monk, Riley found that, for those with ears to hear, Monk’s words were rich with meaning.

“What he really meant was that you should always listen to see who has the best beat,” Riley said, “because one musician will usually like a certain tune more than others in the group, and his beat is going to be the best. And if no one has it, then you, as the drummer, have to take it.”

Watch Video (Quicktime)

Now Riley pays tribute to his former mentor with the Monk Legacy Septet. The piano-less group finds novel ways to explore harmony and rhythm through trumpeter Don Sickler’s inventive arrangements of Monk’s music. For each of the 11 tunes on the group’s first album, Memories of T, Sickler drew on a specific recording, re-voicing Monk’s solos and innovative comping for the band’s three saxes, trumpet, and guitar.

“I knew I had to try to get inside of Thelonious, to try and capture his energy and translate it into horns and guitar,” Sickler said. “It’s such a thrill for the rest of us musicians, to get to play this music with Ben.”

Geri Allen	Mary Lou Williams

"Zodiac Suite” Revisited

It’s a blessing for jazz fans that Mary Lou Williams’ innovative compositions, arrangements, and pianism are being rediscovered. Williams, a contemporary of Monk, had a fruitful career that stretched from the swing era (arranging for Andy Kirk, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington, who called her “perpetually contemporary”) through bebop and beyond.

Listen to Geri Allen performing the Zodiac Suite (eMusic)

Listen to a WFIU radio program about the Zodiac Suite (Real Audio)

More about Mary Lou Williams

Williams’ “Zodiac Suite” was first performed at New York City’s Town Hall in 1945. A collection of 12 modernistic compositions honoring notable figures born under each sign of the Zodiac, the Zodiac Suite combined “hints of what was taking shape at [Harlem nightspot] Minton's with traditional touches, like the boogie-woogie bass figure that runs through "Gemini" like a slowed-down Chattanooga choo-choo,” said Francis Davis in the Village Voice. “Williams's piano miniatures solidified her reputation as both proto-modernist and flamekeeper”.

In 2006, pianist Geri Allen reinterpreted the groundbreaking work on her CD, Zodiac Suite: Revisited. The Village Voice called the recording “the best Geri Allen CD since her three encounters with Charlie Haden and Paul Motian in the late ’80s.” Allen, who portrayed Williams in Robert Altman’s 1996 film Kansas City, delivers a rare live performance of this groundbreaking work.

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