V.S.O.P. #44 ART MONROE: I NEVER DREAMED

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The Art Monroe Trio was a regular fixture on the Jazz scene in Washington, D.C., during the 1970's and 1980's.  Art was the chair of the music department at a college in Columbia, MD, during the day while he performed at Blues Alley, the One Step Down, Lisner Auditorium and various clubs around town.  He is joined by trio regulars Paul Langosch on bass and Mike Smith on drums.  This is the first of two recordings that were released on VSOP RECORDS in 1986 and 1988 respectively.   Royal Stokes fine notes from the album do a fine job of describing Art's career and this recording:

 "That's where I first got to playing jazz," recalled Art Monroe in a recent interview with this writer.  He was referring to the two-and-a-half years he spent with the Brooklyn Navy Yard Band at the end of the 1950's.  The large concert unit contained a band-within-a-band, much as the big bands of yesteryear had, and it was with this combo that Monroe first honed  his jazz chops.  His fellow players included the trombonist Bill Watrous, who would later work with Quincy Jones, Woody Herman, and others.

"It was a good time to be in New York," muses the Kentucky-born Monroe.  "I spent a lot of time in clubs-I used to go over to Birdland to hear Horace Silver, Oscar Peterson and Wynton Kelly and I'll never forget one show I caught at the Fox Theatre in Brooklyn.  It had George Shearing, Miles Davis with John Coltrane, and the show ended with Count Basie with Lambert, Hendricks & Ross and Joe Williams.  It was a fabulous time for jazz in New York," enthuses Monroe.

Forty years of piano playing lie behind the keyboard artistry captured in this album.  Monroe, like many another youngster who grew up in rural or small town America during the 1940's, was enrolled with a music teacher and compelled to plant himself on the piano bench for an hour every afternoon upon arriving home from school.  That began at age six and, to this day, Monroe is thankful for the enforced routine.  His parents assured the six year old that he could quit when he reached high school, but by his teens he was studying the classics, listening to R&B on Memphis radio stations, and playing in local dance bands.  In other words, he was hooked.

Soon after his Navy hitch came to an end, Monroe took up residency in the Washington area, where he remains to this day, having resided in Columbia, MD for the past dozen years.  His deep commitment to the idiom notwithstanding,  Monroe has, along with many other jazz artists, found it necessary to earn a living with a day gig.  Happily, the 46 year old pianist and composer has accomplished that within the field of music, some of it in jazz itself, for he chairs the Music Department of Howard Community College, Columbia, MD.  The icing on the cake, for Monroe, has been the opportunity to produce at the institution a recent concert jazz series featuring the likes of vibist Gary Burton, guitarist Barney Kessel, and the Buddy Rich Orchestra.  A bonus for Monroe's students has been the workshops included as part of the concert package.

At those concerts and workshops you'll find Monroe in the audience, but any other night you might find him on the other side of the footlights.  His has been a familiar presence to the Washington jazz audience for two decades.  He has played the jazz club circuit including Blues Alley and the One Step Down, and has performed in concert at Wolftrap Farm Park, George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium and the George Meany Center.  His forty-five minute "Suite For Jazz Quartet and Voices" was performed in concert by the composer and his combo at Howard Community College Smith Theatre.

If Monroe's many-irons-in-the-fire approach to music startles you, take it from a writer and broadcaster who has interviewed hundreds of jazz artists that the idiom is stranger neither to the renaissance style jack (or jill) of many talents nor to the 18-hour-a-day workaholic.  Monroe is grateful that he has always been able to work in music exclusively because -and his very choice of expression says worlds of the jazz player's characteristic devotion to his occupation- "that's where my heart is."

The opening cut,  ON THE FOURTH, is well named for the pianist returns again and again to the Roman candle explosions of the sparse melodic line.  Immediately it is established beyond question that this is a trio, not a piano player supported by bass and drums.  One hears constant musical commentary by each of the three on what the others are saying.  I like the firmness of Monroe''s attack on this -he is definitely a two-handed player.  Langosch's handle on the beat is unerring and relaxed on this straight-ahead number and Smith takes a series of very crisp breaks.

Monroe's touch is soft as he almost kneads the keys on CLOUDS and bass and drums are appropriately laid back for the Bill Evans-like mood of the composition.

A SPRING BREEZE is as much Langosch's number as Monroe's.  Here is a bassist with not just technique to spare but original musical statements to make.  Smith's restraint here, stirring soup with the brushes, is commendable.

The first side, a sort of pastoral suite in its choice of titles, concludes with GONE WITH THE WIND, one of the albums' two standards, all the other tunes being by the hand of the pianist.  It is a fine rendering of the 1937 song and proof of Monroe's mastery of discipline and structure as well as his keen sense of the emotional needs of the listener.  I especially like his way of bringing the theme back into focus after the bass solo and his reprise of the melody as the number winds up.

I NEVER DREAMED, for my money, is a tune that is made for a lyric and let's hope that some wordsmith gets busy on it soon.  Do I hear a little Horace Silver in Monroe's funky touch here?  (Monroe has confessed to early inspiration from that source.)  Langosch falls right into step with a solo that crackles and pops and Smith ticks away splendidly on a tight hi-hat for this romp.

The pianist is alone on the Gershwin classic OUR LOVE IS HERE TO STAY, and, frankly, that's just how he should be for this number.  His modified Tatumesque flourishes are as delightful as his subtle altering of the rhythmic pattern of this great ballad.  It was wise of Monroe to include this solitary performance for it confirms his control and creativity as a loner.  And that's an important point to make and it is certainly made in high style here.

Now that Monroe has made that statement, however, on GILLY'S TUNE, it is the turn of his partners to make theirs.  Langosch is up front first and he hands in a monster of a solo, a display of skill and invention that will be a revelation to those who have not kept up with the quantum leaps the young crop of string bass players have made in moving their instrument out onto stage front as a vehicle of solo expression.  Smith is also let loose for a carefully designed statement that comes off as pure spontaneity - or maybe it's the other way around.

Art Monroe's first album, "Stained Glass Window," of last year, and also with Langosch and smith, was a most satisfying set and both documented and established the pianist as a mature artist with much to say and the gifts with which to say it.  This second effort is even more impressive with its balance of originals and standards, its team work, and its emotional rewards.  It will make the listener want to catch the trio live, an opportunity we here in Washington and its environs are regularly provided.  Then again, maybe the threesome will be doing some traveling like they're doing in these grooves.

                                                                       ROYAL STOKES,

                                                                                          1986

    (Royal Stokes was a jazz critic for the Washington Post and a regular contributor to JazzTimes, Down beat, Ms. and other publications.  He also hosted a regular show on WPFW-FM, Washington's Pacifica station, entitled "I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden say...".)

Session Producer:  Art Monroe

Recording Engineer:  Paul Mufson

Recorded at Black Pond Recording, Rockville, MD

Mastered at Sage & Sound, Hollywood, CA

Mastering Engineer:  Jim Mooney

Music Supervision:  William Wagner

Cover Design: Nova Graphics

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