The Casket Letters - Monkey Swallows the Universe

Track list:

1. Statutory Rights
2. Bloodline
3. Science
4. Matterhoney
5. Gravestones
6. Little Polveir
7. Elizabeth & Mary
8. Ballad of the Breakneck Bride
9. Paper, Scissors, Stone
10. When the Work Is Done

Running time: 34 minutes
Released: 2007

When I listened to The Bright Carvings whilst in the US for work earlier in the year I said I hoped I would make it to this one this year. I have, just later than I might have expected. I have fond memories of this album... though I think it is probably more accurate to say that I really like Bloodline. If I am lucky there might be some interest in the tracks around it.

We open with a whimsical little number, a nice lyrical quality to the singing and a simple but pleasant tune to back it up. The vocal is the driver here, low in volume and sounding hopeful, the longer notes are lovely. Then we launch into the catchy opening of Bloodline, with a tappable tune that has stuck in my head for the past decade. I occasionally come back to this one now and again. It has a nice pace, a catchy hook, and a really nice vocal. With more mature ears it sounds very youthful and a little vapid but the catchiness is still there and it inveigled its way in to my consciousness long ago enough now that it is well established. I can hear that its a little light in places - further arrangement of the strings would have added something I think - but the crescendo to the chorus is a heartstring-tugger, and the singing is delightful. It ends rather abruptly, and there is nothing of similar interest to follow, alas.

Science ditches the tempo, but gains a little more life after it reaches the chorus. This takes indiepop and dials it up to tweelve. I do like the cello providing the bassline though, and the song grows into itself a little as it goes. I knew very well what I was getting into on this listen.

One of the things I find about indiepop is that it is incredibly mood dependent. If you're in a mood to not take things too seriously it will sound better. There are (generally) too many holes to really delve into and pick apart if you start looking for flaws. Thankfully I'm content enough to just rol with it tonight. This album runs a gamut of different tempos and tones, but most are slowish, and the best sounds are when our singer is soft and central. Nat Johnson's voice suits a light touch song - just a little stringy noodling - very well. Bloodline doesn't really make the most of her voice, but brings much more interest in catchiness to make up for this and elevate the track as a whole. Some of the other tracks though, the only interest at all is in that voice.

Oh, I'd forgotten just how charmingly disarming Little Polveir can be. The arrangement is twee out the wazoo, but at the same time it is so approachable and it supports Johnson's voice well. I'm less keen on the wordless section, but it it just a small part of a whole that should fall right down, but somehow stays afloat. I had completely forgotten the tone-change that follows - much darker sounds, electrified and a more OTT "look at me" vocal. The contrast with what has gone before is interesting, but I actually find that the threatening rumble in the guitars doesn't work that well here. I think that is because the pace is actually quite slow, and there isn't much intricacy to the growl.

To exemplify the tonal shifting around, the next number is a lyrically dark ditty with a twangy tune that stretches the tweeness and insouciance too far. The male/female duet approach doesn't work that well either, as the male voice just isn't a good one.

I am struggling to think this was only released in 2007; it feels older than that. You can tell they were pretty young, too. Listening now, in my mid 30s, feels oddly voyeuristic in some ways as a result. My laissez-faire attitude to the disc has suddenly evaporated. I'm not feeling the charm anymore. The record is over. I consider wielding the knife but stay my hand out of nostalgia.

Case / Lang / Veirs

Track list:

1. Atomic Number
2. Honey and Smoke
3. Song for Judee
4. Blue Fires
5. Delirium
6. Greens of June
7. Behind the Armory
8. Best Kept Secret
9. 1,000 Miles Away
10. Supermoon
11. I Want To Be Here
12. Down I-5
13. Why Do We Fight
14. Georgia Stars

Running time: 43 minutes
Released: 2016

This one almost passed me by earlier in the year, but once I caught wind I had to grab it. I was never a fan of k.d. lang, but Neko Case and Laura Veirs on the other hand both had multiple albums in my collection, even before I went out and bought up what I didn't have of Veirs' work after loving Carbon Glacier. My initial impressions weren't amazing, but simply pretty solid. Moments of wonder - particularly from Case's depth of vocal expression - but not a stunning album taken as a whole. I think I listened through it three or 4 times on the commute but always then my attention was elsewhere. There are a lot of tracks in not much time, so lets get to it.

Atomic Number is a breezy opening. Soft singing individually in the verses, lines shared between voices which then combine for the chorus. I like the chorus more; it feels more real somehow - I think because Case in particular sounds a little throttled in the verse and not at all in the harmony, where she dominates. The backing is fairly generically sweet, and actually a little characterless; it lives and dies on the singing. That is a criticism that I think applies beyond the single track.

I am fitting this in on a Sunday evening, before going back to work after a week off tomorrow. I am tired and virtually braindead after a weekend of roleplaying both days. Saturday was brutal because I'd woken up at 3am that day and not got back to sleep.  I mention this to appologise (to my future self reading this back, I guess) for the lack of detail of insight here. From that point of view the gentle and familiar music - in the sense of playing up to genre-typing, not my own familiarity with the specific tracks - is actually a blessing. It sort of rolls along easily, even when the text of the lyrical content is darker, as on Song for Judee, which Veirs leads nicely.

I said above that I was never a fan of k.d. lang; in truth I was never really aware of her music, even as I was aware of the name. I don't quite know how this built into a sneering attitude, but it did - the stupidity of youth would be my excuse.That is all the comment I can muster on Blue Fires, and even Delirium, with Neko Case off her full tilt, and bells backing up that deeply resonant lushness is half gone by the time I am done. Braindead, yes. I think this is the high point of the disc for me, based on the aforementioned car-based exposure, but I kinda hope it isn't as the song is less impactful each time I hear it. I was wooed by it first time because that voice is amazing, but since then I am hearing more of what it lacks compared Case's best work. I can't put a finger on those things in my current state - of course I can't, useless boy! - but whilst the singing is full-blooded, the arrangement falls flat.

This is all pleasant enough though hardly setting my world alight... until the first harmony on the chorus of Behind the Armory which is just lovely. The softly trilling guitar and string arrangement carries a so-so tune, thankfully augmented by some wind instruments as it goes, but the timbre and touch of the vocal here is gorgeous, even if the song ends abruptly. The transition to the next track is a really stark one too - as Best Kept Secret is a pacier number with prominent percussion. At 3 minutes 17 seconds long, this is one of the longer tracks on the album, and it feels it. In part this is a result of how bland I find the tune, but really I actually think it is more a comment on how exposure normalises things for us. The short tracks breed expectation of more of the same and the faster pace of this song means it crams more in, which means it feels like it should end sooner than it does and the 3.17 feels like about half as much more than it needed.

I cannot be fair to this disc in this state, closing my eyes when I am not typing (and even when I am) as my lids grow heavy. Nothing really stands out because the whole sound is registering less well, and because the general tone of the record is set as a sort of easy walking pace. It is an incredibly accessible album in that regard - there is nothing challenging here, it is comfortable in sound. I suspect that I am simply engaging on the surface level and that the nuance and craft is buried a level below which that my tired mind can unlock right now. The patterns are so familiar and gentle it is easy to pick them up and sway along with them. I can't get any deeper than "simple and supportive backing" and "gosh those voices combine nicely - though perhaps that, the latter in particular, is enough. The album is strongest, I feel, when two or more of our titular singers are in action together.

Just as I type that, Down I-5 starts, and here Case's voice carries in a nice floating sense over an arrangement that is dominated by drums, with the melody, such as it is, quiet beneath them both. It has an open, big sky quality to it that is just beautiful. There are moments where the voices combine and intertwine on this track too, but its that floating lonely opening that makes the song. Typical; how life likes to make us contradict ourselves like that. Anyway, the disc is almost done.

Georgia Stars has the sound of... something else I can't pin down. This is led by Veirs and perhaps it just sounds like a Veirs song but I don't think it is that simple. There is a particular quality to the notes and tone here. The twang and snap of the bass, lead guitar and percussion create a very distinctive sound and it annoys me that I cannot place what I think it sounds like. Oh well; that thought will have to go unaddressed as the music stops - the song is done and so is the album, and this post.

Cartography - Arve Henriksen

Track list:

1. Poverty and Its Opposite
2. Before and Afterlife
3. Migration
4. From Birth
5. Ouija
6. Recording Angel
7. Assembly
8. Loved One
9. The Unremarkable Child
10. Famine's Ghost
11. Thermal
12. Sorrow and Its Opposite

Running time: 51 minutes
Released: 2008

I can't escape the jazz wormhole yet. Thankfully this one is more contemporary, and Scandinavian. Woo! I don't actually know what to expect here, but Henriksen was a contributor to Atmosphères, which I adored the first half of, and the other Norwegians from that project play here too. I am more hopeful for this than the listen just gone, and that had a few nice moments so...

It is a very muted start, in line with my mood. I am being ineffectual in my desire to get much done this week whilst off work. My body and brain not feeling up to the menial chores that need doing, in need of rest and relaxation instead. The soft backing is tense, the muted trumpet squeezing out strangled sounds, not clear notes and not bright sounds. The track is interesting and slightly edgy as a result. There is enough going on in the background to build a crucible for the oddly throttled horn, so it doesn't just sound like someone failing to play. With a less well crafted context it could, I am sure. It is quite an uncomfortable opening track, and even when the trumpet opens up into some more expansive sounds in the latter part of the tune it keeps an edge to it. That discomfort is quite compelling though, and I miss it as it closes.

I am surprised when Before and Afterlife has a vocal. Spoken. Recorded such that it overlays itself imperfectly in places. The odd blast from the trumpet behind it, other sounds appearing here and there. The opener was uncomfortable, this is more so. The voice is very... I dunno, comforting in timbre but made spooky by the glitches and deliberate distortions of the recording. It feels ghostly in that regard - there, but not there fully. An echo. Deliberate I am sure, given the track title. When the voice fades there is taut backing and a lonesome tune left behind, sounding like the accompaniment to a horror scene, exploring a deserted place in a certain era (the trumpet will forever evoke the early-mid 20th century; Hollywood saw to that). As much as I find this compelling, I was glad when the track ticked over and Migration was more... familiar? No, that's the wrong word. Its a more typical contemporary jazz trumpet track from my limited experience. The trumpet is lonely and there are electronics amongst the percussion and other bits and pieces supporting the solo melody. Cold soundscape. Precisely what I would have expected before I picked this up I reckon, based on my entry into this particular genre. There is a nice softness to the rhythm, and suitably sparse melodic bits and pieces back there. Not too much to smother the singular horn.

It is that singularity that draws me to this instrument; I am, at heart, quite a lonesome soul. I think I relate to the isolated sounds and strains, the context of the other players being the sea of people we all wade through - sometimes literally, sometimes only figuratively - every day of our lives. Like the lonely trumpet, I feel like I stand outside that sea, separated from others even as they are there and even though without them there would be nothing. Ugh - torturing a metaphor is something I seem to be good at.

Anyhow, a couple more short tunes have flown by whilst I was waffling my self-pity and singular angst; enough of that. Suffice to say that I am feeling a degree of isolation coming through in the tones here, but I would be surprised if I didn't.

Recording Angel may have a very stretched vocal. It's hard to tell, but in places it sounds like snatches of words. This tune is fairly chilling, edgy and stretched. There is a plaintive nature to the horn here and a hopeless one at times, too. The backing reminds me a little of prog rock or ambient music with its long, over-held tones but the effect is very sparse and cold. Cartography is the making of maps; this feels like traversing an unmapped icy wasteland - fraught and unwise.For all that, I really like it. I was at a gig a couple of weeks back and having a conversation with the friend I went with about discomfort in music. Some of the songs played had post-apocalyptic themes, and she found these less appealing because the theme was uncomfortable. Me? I liked them because they were very evocative, painting bleak but vivid pictures. The relevance to this album? She went on to say that's one reason she doesn't like jazz - discomfort about where things were going or what would happen next. I suspect that was meant in relation to more stereotypical (even traditional) jazz with improv and solos aplenty, but I think it applies to this type of bleaker contemporary piece too.

Me, I conjure images to accompany it. Evocation again.

Oh my... shivers. The opening notes on Loved One are so strained it sends convulsions down my nervous system. The horn is so... all over the place here, it is really pushing the limits of discomfort. Screeching. There is a pulsing effect to it too, breath stopping and starting perhaps? It sounds like a dying plea, desperation and despair. Not what I would associate with the track title. This pushes even my ability to appreciate the bleak from start to the point it finishes in what feels like mid-stanza.

I cannot but see trumpet tunes as (mostly) sad soundtracks generally, and this album is doing nothing to dissuade that perception. It is fair to say it is a very dark album, born of sunless Norwegian days, perhaps, and certainly suiting this time of year where light is at a premium. Channeling the cold and ice from without to within through the medium of music, and without giving you literal chills. I cannot necessarily see myself ever listening to this again but man, I am very glad I have given it a proper listen. It is not an easy album, but it is fascinating. Thermal is again a spoken story, and with the title of the final track reminiscent of the opening one, it feels palindromic in nature.

That said, the final track is a mournful melody, but with richer sound - both from the horn and through the addition of some strings and choral elements, so in fact it ends nothing like it begins. All in all... fascinating. So much so that I want to go read what others thought of its mix of discomfort, cold, loneliness and whatever it is that actually made it work. I still can't put my finger on that.

Carnegie Hall Concert - Gerry Mulligan / Chet Baker

Track list:

1. Line For Lyons
2. For An Unfinished Woman
3. My Funny Valentine
4. Song For Strayhorn
5. It's Sandy At The Beach
6. Bernie's Tune
7. K-4 Pacific
8. There Will Never Be Another You

Running time: 70 minutes
Released: 1974

One jazz epic down, another to go. This is the second hour-plus disc in a row, and again coming from the same big box of jazz classics. Two old school horn players; not a lot of hope that this will work for me. Lets see.

There is no preamble here, it just dives into a melody right away. TV jazz; soft, bland and inoffensive are the first thoughts that assail me as it gets going. Perfectly pleasant but devoid of a selling point. This is a concert recording, as the title states, and the audience make themselves known in the form of the applause that is clearly audible as the horns pass the main theme from one to the other, or to their supporting cast.  There are some little incongruities here; the keys sound electric and all kinds of tinny. The beeping, curtailed nature of those notes is at odds with the oh so standard forms exhibited. The guitar part stands out some for the same reasons.

Whereas Carmen Sings Monk was a large number of generally short pieces, this album is a 10 minutes shorter with 10 fewer tracks. If the opening number is anything to go by then these will swill around for the best part of 10 minutes each and then conclude without leaving any strong impressions on me at all.

I find the opening of the second tune much more engaging than any part of the first one. There is a bit more... something. Personality, I guess. The first track was so standard and traditional it failed to stand out. Here there is a bit more play in the rhythm, a bit more of a bottom end to the sound, and the horn leads us a wandering line over the top of quite a frenetic arrangement. It has some life, some liveliness to it. The guitar solo ditches the best of that - the clean, clear tones are at odds with the messier, dirtier sounds behind it and the contrast doesn't work too well. That said, I am liking the tune generally, and it has surprised me in that, which is good. There is a funky edge to things, and here the keys don't have the tinny electric sound so I think maybe I just didn't pick out the parts right before?

Anyhow, the primary problem with For an Unfinished Woman is its length. I wish it was wrapping up now - its done its bit. Alas there are another two minutes to go, as the spotlight merry-go-round spins around the band, then the main players retake the stage for the outro. This elongation stretches the interest a little thin, offering little in return. Knowing when to stop is a good thing.

There is a brief intro muttered to track three, I don't catch it beyond the name of the tune. The theme itself is a lonely trumpet, which could be from almost any era. It tugs on my biases, and my appreciation of the instrument even as it is deathly slow and causing me to yawn. It is a horrible wet November day outside, getting seriously dark already and it's only 16.20. I hate this time of year. Darkness and chilliness; the rain an added insult. I find myself yawning a lot as the laid back tune potters along, barely concealing the noise of traffic on the soaked road outside. It is, like the opening number, very pleasant in that sort of bland nothing kind of way. Harmless, but not something you would seek out.

No; it's better than the first track. The slow pace gives it character, and some of the horn-work has real charm to it. They are playing together now, a hint of conversation, call-response, and parallel narrative to close the track out. That was very nice, actually.

We are then into the soft electronics as primary backing. There is something about the jangly, slightly unreal nature of their sound that turns me off. Old movie soundtrack quality, bland and fading behind some soppy scene of disinterest to me. I look up having let my mind wander to find that I am only half way through this purgatory. This utterly unidentifiable, lost in a crowd meandering is over 9 minutes of dullness.

The next track is also a touch over 9 minutes, and begins with a breezy pace to it. The tempo is welcome as an antidote to the tune before - I can imagine that working really well for waking up an audience that may have become dozy - but not enough on its own to sustain an interest. It sounds like a cop-show soundtrack this time, old time car chases and sun-lit streets in some American town or other. Fast notes slide by like under-watered trees and overly perfect front yards. The first applause break is loud, as loud as any thus far, which makes me think they had been stirred into life. I like the staccato keys here, but not much beyond that and the bass. Those two elements give the track its flavour and vision; the other people cycling in and out offer attempts to enhance the solid base but uniformly fall flat. The hum of the bass in particular carries a purpose that is just not quite matched by the wandering nature of the tunes that are laid down over it. I find myself losing interest, but far further into the piece than I thought I would be.

I am struggling to find words. I don't like falling back to a boring "track 1... blah, track 2... blah, track 3... blah" format but with a selection of longer tracks like this that feels inevitable unless I either sit without writing for a while or digress into other topics. These posts are meant to be a stream of consciousness, an immediate reaction to the music that I own and catalog and whatever else is in my head at the time, not a play by play report. I have been mulling this over during a pacy but characterless piece which leaves me with no immediate opinion to share. I think that probably means it is rather dull.

Jazz guitar. I remain to be convinced. I am sure it can be played well, but there is something about the timbre of guitar jazz of this vintage that rubs me the wrong way. I think I like my guitars dirty and energetic and the super clean, clear sound that appears on jazz recordings like this one is too noodle-y, too self-referential and self-important. I think I have the same issues with many rock guitar heroes - all pose, no purpose; all skill, no soul; all touch, no torch. Suffice to say that the guitar has a prominent part in the 11 minute epic that is our penultimate number and I find the track flowing off my ears like water from a duck's back. I just don't care - not that this monolith doesn't have good points, but they are rather buried under the mountain here.

I am trying to mentally organise my next four days. There are a number of things I want to achieve in my week off and I have not made the best start today. Not a complete wash, but not far off for one reason or another. The crappy weather certainly didn't help (being uninspired when looking up and out doesn't help my naturally low motivation), though luckily I was out and back in the dry for my errands earlier. I am struggling to pin down a plan; hopefully the next listen won't be an hour plus - because these things feature in plans for every day this week. Making up for lost time, but they do pin me here, especially because I am busy most evenings and all next weekend. It's a hard life.

Anyhow, our protagonists are into their final act, another bright and breezy number, but one that is devoid of engagement, all a little flat for me. The disc had a couple of good numbers on it, and a few more moments of real class. It certainly wasn't a horrible listen, but the majority was no more than diverting, elevator music and soundtracks rather than something I might want to sit down to.

Carmen Sings Monk - Carmen McRae

Track list:

1. Get It Straight (live)
2. Dear Ruby
3. It's Over Now
4. Monkery's the Blues
5. You Know Who
6. Little Butterfly
7. Listen to Monk
8. How I Wish
9. Man, That Was a Dream
10. 'Round Midnight
11. Still We Dream
12. Suddenly (live)
13. Looking Back
14. Suddenly
15. Get It Straight
16. 'Round Midnight (Alternate Take)
17. Listen to Monk (Alternate Take)
18. Man, That Was a Dream (Alternate Take)

Running time: 79 minutes
Released: 1988

Another big box of jazz entry. There is no way I would have stumbled across this outside of a bulk purchase. Whilst Monk has been an interest of mine since I first realised I liked jazz I have no sense of Carmen McRae at all. This is a long one, too - running to almost 80 minutes with bonus tracks, alternate takes etc. Could be great, or could be that it rubs me wrong. We shall see.

We begin with a live recording of Straight, No Chaser with a double bass and then Ms McRae scatting the tune, before bringing in a lyric that has been added. A wider arrangement then picks up and we have horn, keys and drums as well as the bass. It's likeable enough I guess but feels a bit too "lounge" somehow, and then veers off into the territory of rotating spotlights/solos - with whooping and applause added in the mix between each because live version. I don't like the singing much - there isn't a great deal of it, but it sounded out of place to me, which means this could be a long afternoon.

This post is long overdue - I have let a couple of weekends slide by without making it, and the length of this disc means no chance at all for the midweek evening attempt. Even now, as I start, I am a little unsure as to whether I will make it through 80 minutes, but I am giving it a go. Pleasantly the vocal on Dear Ruby feels more in line with the pace and tone of the piece. Here, after the first vocal section ends, it is the horn that sounds out of place when it strikes up. That said, the gentle meandering melody grows on me, and I like the soft volume of the keys behind it. Again, it is very lounge-like, but here it suits better. I wonder if that is because I am less familiar with Ruby, My Dear - though I do have a Monk version of the tune which is half the length of this one. As it concludes (like the first number it had a long instrumental sandwiched between two lyrical verses) I find myself thinking this could be a very mixed bag.

On It's Over Now McRae uses her voice to simultaneously carry Monk's tune and her lyrics. That is a very nice touch. Then she again steps aside to allow her coterie of musicians to perform the tune, vocalisations appear to break up the flow a bit thereafter. Not lyrics, just sounds, until the song takes back the stage - though here is almost sounds like she is speaking the lines just with a bit more emotion than normal. Her voice is husky, which is quite nice, but I don't find it particularly melodic. The version of Blue Monk has a patiently slow cadence to it, a nice lazy sound. Even though the singing does not take my fancy, and the insistence on a bass solo wastes a good 30 seconds or so of my day, I find myself well disposed to the track until the saxophone... well it just has too much of an edge to it compared to the rest of the playing. Its harsh sound rubbing me the wrong way.

Sitting down to do this has had a soporific effect on me. I think it is a form of relaxation. Jazz music almost certainly helps with that, lots of soft sounds. I find my ear tracking the bass line on You Know Who, its soft reliability guiding my tired mind through the busier tune. I am off work tomorrow - and the rest of the week; I hope to get these pages back on track (amongst many other things). On just about every track here Carmen McCrae starts us off, then backs away, before returning to close. It feels a little formulaic. Her song is more prominent on some numbers than others, but the pattern has been set. I am still not taken with her voice, even when on a track like Little Butterfly she gets a bit more room to really sing. The bass and keys have been consistently enjoyable. I may have moaned about the bass solo above, but it wasn't the playing of it that annoyed me, so much as the presence of said solo.

Oh dear - she tried to go high note there and didn't quite reach it. That was a mistake. Some of the sax playing feels like a mistake too, slightly at odds with the timbre and tone set by the core structure of piano, bass and drums. Its not universally so though, rather it seems to blight certain tracks or even specific passages. I find the vocal as liable to miss as the horn, which is a shame.

Having said that, the way the sax opens us up on How I Wish, supported by feathered drums and a wandering bass, is an example of how it can be done right. Some way into this tune it hits a harsh note that shakes me out of appreciation for a second but for the most part there is a lovely bluesy tone and a soft fuzz to the sound. This song stands out from the others thus far because McRae comes in after a long intro, basically with her and the keyboard replacing the saxophone. I find the song a better fit for the singer here too, until she again shrieks a little too high. There is a nice soulful sound to her voice in places, but much of the time it sounds like it is fighting with the tune and the arrangement rather than complementing it and at no point do I find her utterings compelling. It sounds to me like she pushes herself to far towards notes outside her natural range, where that effort would have been better spent by putting more life into the sections that are definitely within her register.

There are things I like here, even moments where I like the singing, but alas, she sings in such a way that I am always expecting a moment I don't like to be just around the corner. Every time she goes up higher, I cringe. 'Round Midnight is particularly bad for this, made worse because for much of this number her voice is in really good accord with the music behind it. I find it astonishing that this album apparently got her a Grammy nomination for vocal performance because she just doesn't deliver a reliable and enjoyable rendition on any of the first 10 tracks. Moments, yes, complete tracks, no. Add to that the fact that much of the time she is taking a back seat to her arrangements and the nomination is a bafflement to me.

To avoid being too negative... when it all slows down with lots of space left by our structural trio and where the sax is nowhere to be heard there is some really lovely playing. The tunefulness of Still We Dream is a treat, for example. McRae does a nice In Walked Bud too... I love the rhythm of this tune anyway and she again carries tune and lyric together in a breathy approach that takes on that rhythm. Alas, that is but the first part of the track. This is another live number and it devolves into the round robin solo problem. When McRae's voice rejoins to close out the track it is far less engaging and the timbre is off. The opening is stellar, the rest falls away disappointingly.

The bad outweighs the good here for me. As I hit the last "new" track (the final five are reimaginings of what has been before) I find myself detached, uninterested, yet also a touch conflicted. Whilst it is fair to say that the singer hasn't grabbed me, some of the tunes are lovely and well performed and it seems a shame to sacrifice the keys, bass and percussion for a few faults in the vocal. That is the way I am leaning though, a clean sweep.

The alternate, studio recording, of Suddenly/In Walked Bud has a brighter tempo but less soul. The studio recording of Get It Straight sounds more goofy when she vocalizes the opening. It is almost as if my mind, made up, is contriving these retakes to confirm the decision it leant on. I much prefer the alternate interpretation of 'Round Midnight. There are fewer cringe moments when the tune goes beyond the comfortable range, but it is also soporifically slow and overlong for something stuck towards the end of a long album I have not much enjoyed. At the end of the day, I really don't think adding lyrics and a vocalist add anything to Monk's underlying tunes. They feel unnecessary and tacked on, because that is exactly what they are. This is just underlined further when the lyrics added are as lifeless and trite as on Listen to Monk for example. Having sat through it a second time the valueless nature of the lyrical content is only too obvious.

The final track leaves a better last impression, both the singing and the tune are better, the latter being really nice (not for the first time). However it is too little too late; I have several Monk recordings and I don't need these versions.