Why is Milt Jackson & Thelonious Monk Quintet’s Milt Jackson With John Lewis, Percy Heath, Kenny Clarke, Lou Donaldson and the Thelonious Monk Quintet on my best 1,000 albums ever list?
Exquisite 1950s-era New York City jazz replete with vibraphone tidings and jazz lounge vibes.
What does Milt Jackson & Thelonious Monk Quintet’s Milt Jackson With John Lewis, Percy Heath, Kenny Clarke, Lou Donaldson and the Thelonious Monk Quintet mean to me? What does it make me feel? Why is it exciting or compelling?
So, jazz is one of those areas in which I know what I like, but I don’t have nearly the vocabulary or experience articulating What I Love About Jazz as much as, say, rock music.
With that out of the way, the jazz music I tend to dig most is when there’s a groovy, swinging, bouncing, or compelling hook for me to latch onto, while also allowing the musicians to improvise and do the jazzy things that they do best.
Performance, style, and vibe all play a role too, of course, and on this album the vibe is super chill, elegant, and groovy all at once. Its use of marimbas and vibraphones set it off too as something truly special.
Check out “Bags’ Groove” (and dig the name of that track as well), where the deployment of the vibraphone alone is worth the price of admission.
By the way, I’m pretty confident this is vibraphone in use here – as opposed to marimbas – which this guy on YouTube very helpfully explains.
And then “Tahiti” throws down a vibe that immediately reminds me of Mad Men, one of my favorite TV shows… even though we’ve established that this album was recorded either eight or twelve years before the (fictional) first season of that show, and that that (fictional) show of course wasn’t produced until well over half a century later. But still: it’s Mad Men-y, okay?
A little corroboration, if you’ll indulge me. “Tahiti” brings Mad Men composer David Carbonara’s great “The Twenty-Third Floor” to mind.
Okay, I’ll stop with the Mad Men for now.
Finally, check out “Misterioso,” which has a little bit more of an unusual, atonal flavor, giving it that mysterious-io air I suppose. I’m into it.
Personal stuff that’s somehow related to Milt Jackson & Thelonious Monk Quintet’s Milt Jackson With John Lewis, Percy Heath, Kenny Clarke, Lou Donaldson and the Thelonious Monk Quintet
With the use of vibraphones here, I feel the need to give a little shout to some of my oldest friends, who were in a band back in our college days in Binghamton, New York called Soul Patch, and have proverbially “gotten the band back together” with a chunk of the original line up under the new Sol Patch heading.
Check ‘em out here doing their thing, with “Fat Shuga Snack.”
My man Adam Shpall is on lead guitar and vocals, and my dude Dan Sieber is all over the percussion and vibraphone scene.
Some stats & info about Milt Jackson & Thelonious Monk Quintet – Milt Jackson With John Lewis, Percy Heath, Kenny Clarke, Lou Donaldson and the Thelonious Monk Quintet
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Jazz, Martini Lounge, Lounge Music, New York City Jazz
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4 out of 5 stars
- When was Milt Jackson With John Lewis, Percy Heath, Kenny Clarke, Lou Donaldson and the Thelonious Monk Quintet released? I’m seeing all kinds of release dates for this one, but let’s go with what All Music notes: there are two recording dates for this album, one in 1948 and the other in 1952, with the album release taking place in 1952.
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #982 out of 1,000
Milt Jackson & Thelonious Monk Quintet’s Milt Jackson With John Lewis, Percy Heath, Kenny Clarke, Lou Donaldson and the Thelonious Monk Quintet on Spotify
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective take on what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.