Monk* – Solo Monk

Really solid sounding, quiet vinyl too. Much cheaper than a 2 eye copy and probably not much difference in sound.

Stunning pressing... the piano sounds ALIVE. So well captured you can feel it being played in a way few records reveal a piano. The playing by Monk involves less of his sillyness elsewhere and really reveals his talent at its best.

This album was my introduction to Monk. I'm so glad to finally have it on CD.

This is a nice pressing. Dead quiet vinyl. Sound is lovely. Nice rounded edges. Solid.

Vinyl is dead quiet, good mastering on this one. A bit of distortion on the louder passages, but I have to imagine this is on the tape due to the nature of the recording. Nice pressing.

Here's a collection of Thelonious Monk solo piano interpretations of several old songs as well as a few of his originals. His stride piano roots are very apparent here; later he would develop the edgy angular, dissonance for which he is most famous. These renderings are rather vanilla by comparison. On this record, his most harmonically advanced piece is "These Foolish Things". Monk's playing is confident, ponderous, and thoughtful.

Highlights here include "Ruby My Dear", "Ask Me Now", and "Sweet And Lovely". If you compare those three pieces to his later readings of same, you can tell how hard he reworked those tunes.

Recording is very clean and piano sounds full and natural. There's not much low frequency, but it is equivalent to the piano being used.

This is a '70s repress. Recommended.

Pallas quality Pressed in Germany
SQ superb, flat and centered.
Great RE.

The remastering work is good but sadly the pressing is very noisy, likely due to non-fill. My copy does not have a ton of non-fill but because it's a solo piano album, the characteristic shhhhh sound of the non-fill is really exposed and annoying. It looks like this is already out of print. If so, I recommend that you avoid sealed copies of this one. Maybe try to find a used copy that you can try and return if needed.

Itinerant history of making a solo monk on CD

First CD release
Solo Monk ‎(CD, Album, RE) CBS/Sony 32DP 666 Japan 1987
This CD uses the master tape stored for record production in Japan
The sound is a little worse than the US master due to dubbing

Second CD release
Solo Monk ‎(CD, Album, Club, RE, RM) Columbia, Legacy CK 47854 US 1992

This has a reverb effect with varying mixing (like monaural)
It sounds like it was recorded from a distance like a classical piano recording, and there is no original atmosphere

Third CD release
Monk Alone: The Complete Columbia Solo Studio Recordings 1962-1968 ‎(2xCD, Comp) Columbia, Legacy C2K 65495 US 1998

At this time, the sound source from the original master tape was finally made into a CD
It seems that all the CDs issued after this use this sound source.

This opinion is just what I hear and judge
So please note that it is not always accurate

This is a great copy for a beautiful album. Pressing has good dynamics, not flat, not over compressed...joyful !