Thelonious Monk - Live at the Jazz Workshop Complete (1964/2001) FLAC

The tapes of these two 1964 San Francisco shows stayed locked up at Columbia Records until the label drew a double-LP from them shortly after Monk's death in 1982. Never issued on CD in the U.S., that album is now superseded by this packed document that nearly doubles its length, restores edited portions of several performances, and adds a dozen performances that sometimes better the original recordings. Monk, saxophonist Charlie Rouse, bassist Larry Gales, and drummer Ben Riley are unsurprisingly on point for the dates, which are filled with numerous classics from the Thelonious book.

Disc one, which features most of the original release, is highlighted by a solo "Memories of You" and a full-quartet "Just You, Just Me" that say much about Monk's emotive capabilities; playful and beautiful, the back-to-back standards are some of the finest gems of his Columbia tenure. Seven of the second CD's first eight cuts, apparently done on the somewhat less shaky sophomore evening, would themselves have made a five-star single album in themselves. The exuberance and care of these renditions of "Well You Needn't," "Bright Mississippi," "Nutty," and other Monk inventions make the Complete Jazz Workshop a linchpin in the genius's onstage catalog.