Teodross Avery: Harlem Stories: The Music of Thelonious Monk
WJ3 Records

As a Berklee College of Music freshman, eighteen-year-old Teodross Avery joined itsThelonious Monk Ensemble, which might help explain why, nearly thirty years later, the saxophonist sounds so comfortable inhabiting the man's music on Harlem Stories. That wasn't even his first exposure either, as three years earlier he'd been exposed to Monk's Dream on his dad's stereo. To say, then, that Avery's developed a deep connection to Monk's tunes is a huge understatement, the ten performances on the release, his ninth as a leader, all the evidence required to settle the matter.

One of the more fascinating things about the release is that two different quartets appear, with the leader (on soprano and tenor) and bassist Corcoran Holt joined by pianist Anthony Wonsey and drummer Willie Jones III on the first half and pianist D. D. Jackson and drummer Marvin “Bugalu” Smith on the second. There are, naturally, differences between the groups' playing, yet fundamental to both is that inimitable Monk sensibility. The tunes' melodies never get old, and they swing as hard as ever; in Avery's own words, “Those songs just play themselves.” As deep a st udy as Harlem Stories is, it never sounds overly analytical. Instead, the players hit the ground running and let the music speak through them with immediacy, the result visceral, high-energy treatments. In tackling the material with such single-minded intent, Avery and company hardly seem affected either by the fact that both outfits replicate the quartet format Monk himself favoured in his groups with Rollins, Coltrane, and Rouse.

Executed in a dynamic hard bop style, “Teo,” Monk's homage to producer Teo Macero, proves an ideal scene-setter. Bolting from the gate, the performance sees Avery riding high and trailing long, winding lines with aplomb. Jones III and Holt provide furious thrust while Wonsey keeps things grounded before lunging into his rollicking solo, the pianist smart to refract Monk through his own personal prism rather than imitate. In place of the rather languorous treatment the tune's sometimes given, “Monk's Dream” receives a buoyantly swinging one from Avery. Blues-drenched in places and boldly explorative in others, his tenor solo presents a relentless outpouring of ideas, and unbounded energy oozes from the take when the four are so telepathically dialed in. The addition of percussionist Allakoi Peete to “Ruby, My Dear” adds to the sultry cha-cha feel of the version, Avery perhaps adopting the approach because Monk wrote the piece for his Cuban-born first girlfriend, Rubie Richardson. “Evidence” swings hard, Jones III powering the band and Avery soaring in a high register. Capping the first band's appearance on the album is “Rhythm A-Ning,” taken at a torrential pace and a smidgen of “Oleo” working its way in for good measure.

The second unit contributes looser though no less committed performances. Compared to the opening quartet's hard bop approach, the one with Jackson and Smith executes the material with an intuitive responsiveness that feels more contemporary. That said, the second band never handles the tunes so liberally they feel any less like Monk's handiwork. Avery's soprano playing on “Ugly Beauty” calls Steve Lacey's 1959 Reflections to mind a little bit, especially when Smith's cymbals-rich support recalls Lacey's drummer on the set, Elvin Jones. Avery stays with soprano for an expressive reading of “Pannonica,” the composition Monk famously wrote for the Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter, after which the always challenging “Trinkle, Tinkle” receives an inspired reading that sees Jackson navigating its treacherous waters with authority. “Boo Boo's Birthday,” which Monk wrote for his daughter Barbara's fourteenth birthday, closes the album with a melodically enticing spin featuring the pianist at his most playfully “Monkish.”

October 2020