Thelonious Monk: Bluehawk (Alone in San Francisco, 1959)

Monk's typical B-flat blues! The theme is really simple (a four notes motif), but Monk play a lot with the contrast between long-held notes and staccatto notes ; I tried my best to write all these subtleties down. During the solo he occasionnally plays stride, and who will complain?

Even though Monk stays true to the basic structure of the blues, he adds some nice harmonic colours here and there, with the BbM7 and the FM7-Bb7 – I also like the Dbdim in the turnarounds. He ends with a very unique chord, a Bb7 wit the flat 9th and the natural 9th!

Listen here.

PDF, 5 pages.