Monk plays the piano like he's a restless guest in your house. First he's sitting down, then he's up looking out the window. He's comfortable, but he's waiting for something and he's not telling you what.

Thelonious Monk was on a roll in 1957. Finally, the jazz buying public understood his genius and accepted him in the ranks of other jazz innovators of the day like Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, etc. He finally got credit where it was due.

I think Monk's genius is on full display here. Though, I will say it's pretty remarkable that Monk doesn't solo much on this recording. Since this is a larger band, he let the other guys stretch a little more. What is noteworthy besides the obvious musicianship are the compositions. Monk wrote some of the greatest jazz tunes ever recorded like "In Walked Bud," "Blue Monk," "Ruby, My Dear," "Round Midnight," "Straight, No Chaser," "Locomotive," "Boo Boo's Birthday,"Green Chimneys" to name a few. All of these tunes are jazz standards and are covered by just about everybody who sits down at a piano or picks up a horn.

His group on this 1957 session for Riverside Records were the following: Gigi Gryce on alto saxophone, Coleman Hawkins, John Coltrane on tenor saxophones, Ray Copeland on trumpet, Wilbur Ware on bass, and Art Blakey on drums. This lineup is simply one of Monk's best of the 50s. His next best lineup was for Columbia: Charlie Rouse on tenor saxophone, Larry Gales on bass, and Ben Riley on drums.

The music on this recording will not only please Monk fans, but will also cause you to pick up more albums down the road. Highly recommended.

Widely hailed as a masterpiece, but to me it's just another good Monk album. This does contain my favorite version of my favorite Monk song, an extended "Well, You Needn't" features numerous memorable solos: there's also a tender if slightly overlong "Ruby My Dear" and a swinging, fun "Off Minor"; there's also a painfully cheesy, thankfully brief "Abide with Me" (still, those are some unbearable 55 seconds), and rather unenlightening takes on "Epistrophy" (a remake of an old Blue Note single - the Blue Note take is far better, I can say that without any doubt whatsoever) and "Crepscule with Nellie" (which would later get several more touching readings on future Monk albums, most notably Criss Cross). So while it's a distinctive good time, and has a great cover, it's not as solid as several other Monk releases. Still pretty good, though.

Every time I LOVE an album, it always ends up being from 1957. That aside, "Monk's Music" is an absolutely GREAT album. And wait until you hear the SACD recording quality in STEREO. It's tremendous. Hawkins on tenor is like a dream. Coltrane is great on here as well, but I can't help imagining Charlie Rouse on here instead of Coltrane. I have always felt that Rouse was the greatest tenor to ever have played with Monk. My second favorite for Monk, on tenor, is Johnny Griffin. If you're not familiar with Gigi Gryce, check out his early work. He got a little weird later on in his career, but his fifties and earlier work is superb on alto. Copeland on trumpet fits like a glove on this album and Wilbur Ware does a great job on bass, but ART BLAKEY as usual, ALWAYS knows WHAT to play and WHEN to play it, no matter WHO he is playing with. This is a desert island choice. Magic to me.

Man, this is one great CD. This and "Straight No Chaser" are my two favorite Monk titles, and Monk is my favorite jazz artist. It doesn't get much better than this for me - until I came across this SACD hybrid version. I love it! They obviously remastered the CD using DSD (instead of just grabbing the latested PCM remaster and sticking it on the disc along with the SACD layer) because this CD layer blows every other remaster of this title out of the water. It's 1957, this is one of the first stereo jazz recordings made, and they got it right.