- Record Label: Impulse!
- Release Date: Sep 18, 2020
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Oct 1, 2020On this album he is in especially playful and inventive form, perhaps because at a high school gig with no critics around he could afford to take risks. The numbers are nearly all those Monk standards familiar from numerous well-known recordings and endlessly replayed by later pianists, but they are reimagined in ways that make them seem utterly fresh.
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Oct 1, 2020It seems unlikely that Monk and his quartet would have known about what was happening in East Palo Alto, but they’ve clearly been buoyed by the crowd’s youthful energy, and they deliver some of the fiercest, most spirited versions of their core repertoire in response.
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Oct 1, 2020For what's essentially a bootleg recording, the sound quality of the 47-minute set from 27 October 1968 is surprisingly strong. ... It sits comfortably amongst Monk's finest recorded works.
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Oct 1, 2020It’s refreshing to hear from the icon directly, especially with his quartet in such fine form.
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Oct 1, 2020The recording has a dry, boxed-in character that, for better or worse, defines the listening experience. In strictly psychoacoustic terms, the band feels disembodied from the audience, from the room, and from itself.