Music matters: Thelonious Monk: The Complete Riverside Recordings

The middle decades of the 20th Century were a golden age of jazz. Dozens of world-class musicians all over the United States produced music that defined the era, from bop to cool jazz to hard bop, free improvisation and fusion. Three names tower over all: Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk. Today, I’m talking about Monk, thanks to the timely reissue of this magnificent box set of the recordings on which he came into his own. My review is here.