Oct 23, 2024 10:10 AM
In Memoriam: Claire Daly, 1958–2024
Claire Daly often signed her correspondences with “Love and Low Notes.”
The baritone saxophonist, who died Oct.…
Thelonious Monk and Larry Gales perform during 1968.
(Photo: Lee Tanner/Impulse)A surprise gig in 1968 by Thelonious Monk that was captured on tape by a school janitor is set for a Sept. 18 release as Palo Alto (Impulse). The album originally was slated for a July 31 release.
“That performance is one of the best live recordings I’ve ever heard by Thelonious,” T.S. Monk, the pianist’s son, said in a press release. “I wasn’t even aware of my dad playing a high school gig, but he and the band were on it. When I first heard the tape, from the first measure, I knew my father was feeling really good.”
While amid a three-week run at San Francisco’s Jazz Workshop, Monk received a call from Danny Scher, a student at Palo Alto High School, asking the bop progenitor to make an appearance at his South Bay school. There had been tensions among Black and white students at the school, according to the release, and the nation still was grieving the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. The Vietnam War also was tearing at the country’s conscience at the time.
“I always looked at music as a way to put issues on hold or up to a mirror, whether they be political or social,” said Scher, who’d go on to work for concert promoter Bill Graham. “On October 27, 1968, there was a truce between Palo Alto and East Palo Alto. And that is what music does.”
Monk and his ensemble—tenorist Charlie Rouse, bassist Larry Gales and drummer Ben Riley—headed south that day in the Schers’ van and subsequently launched into the 47-minute, six-song set that constitutes Palo Alto. The release, while filling out a unique and resonant moment in American history, also marks the first album in a planned five-year collaboration between Impulse and the Monk estate’s Rhythm-A-Ning Entertainment to bring more of the pianist’s work to light. DB
Palo Alto track listing:
Ruby, My Dear
Well, You Needn’t
Don’t Blame Me
Blue Monk
Epistrophy
I Love You (Sweetheart Of All My Dreams)
Updated Sept. 8
Claire Daly, right, performs with tenor saxophonist George Garzone at Dizzy’s in 2023.
Oct 23, 2024 10:10 AM
Claire Daly often signed her correspondences with “Love and Low Notes.”
The baritone saxophonist, who died Oct.…
Quincy Jones’ gifts transcended jazz, but jazz was his first love.
Nov 5, 2024 1:00 AM
Quincy Delight Jones Jr., musician, bandleader, composer and producer, died in his home in Bel Air, California, on…
“I treat every day like it’s Thanksgiving,” said Roy Haynes.
Nov 19, 2024 12:57 PM
Powerhouse jazz drummer and bandleader Roy Haynes died Tuesday in Nassau County, New York. He was 99. One of the few…
John McLaughlin likened his love for the guitar to the emotion he expressed 71 years ago upon receiving his first one. “It’s the same to this day,” he said.
Nov 7, 2024 2:17 PM
In the aftermath of World War II, the deprivations felt throughout the United Kingdom were particularly acute in John…
Lou Donaldson was one of the originators of the hard bop movement in jazz back in the 1950s.
Nov 12, 2024 12:12 PM
Alto saxophonist Lou Donaldson, the final surviving member of the original Art Blakey quintet that in 1954 introduced…
