Mar 2, 2026 9:58 PM
In Memoriam: John Hammond Jr., 1942–2026
John P. Hammond (aka John Hammond Jr.), a blues guitarist and singer who was one of the first white American…
Columbia/Legacy Jazz will release four Thelonious Monk reissues, reworked and supplemented with previously unreleased tracks, on August 19.
As a follow-up to albums re-released last year, the 20-year anniversary of the pianist’s death, Orrin Keepnews has resurrected more 1960s Monk from the Columbia vaults comprising Criss-Cross, It’s Monk’s Time, Solo Monk and Underground.
Each album contains the original liner notes and cover art along with new notes from Keepnews and essays by Dick Katz or Peter Keepnews.
Criss-Cross (1963), Monk’s second Columbia release, with Charlie Rouse on tenor, John Ore on bass and drummer Frankie Dunlop, includes a solo version of “Don’t Blame Me” along with alternate takes of “Tea For Two” and “Eronel.”
Eleven months and two concert albums later, Monk’s third Columbia studio album, It’s Monk’s Time (1964), had Butch Warren on bass and Ben Riley on drums mixing originals and standards. The reissue has three bonus tracks including a complete version of the closing “Epistrophy” and an alternate take of “Shuffle Boil.”
Solo Monk (1965) originally included 12 tracks, five of which were new to Monk’s repertoire at the time. The reissue has 31 minutes of additional music including seven alternate takes from the same sessions and two tracks, “Introspection” and “Darn That Dream,” originally issued on the 1979 double-LP Always Know.
Monk’s final Columbia LP, Underground (1968), has alternate takes of Monk compositions “Boo Boo’s Birthday,” “Ugly Beauty” and “Thelonious.” Jon Hendricks also appears, improvising lyrics on “In Walked Bud.”
Columbia’s long campaign of Monk reissues has helped to preserve the innovative music he made over 40 years ago. As Monk friend Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter wrote in the original notes for Criss-Cross, Monk “is agreed by one and all to be synonymous with ‘genius’.”
For more information, go to www.legacyrecordings.com or www.thelonious-monk.com
Hammond came to the blues through the folk boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s, which he experienced firsthand in New York’s Greenwich Village.
Mar 2, 2026 9:58 PM
John P. Hammond (aka John Hammond Jr.), a blues guitarist and singer who was one of the first white American…
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