


Because of when, where and how this music was recorded, and due to Monk’s selection of musicians to accompany him, the latter set today is considered one of the pianist’s most intriguing albums and the first successful attempt at capturing his live performances on tape. Keepnews is here to record Monk’s sets to be released later that year on two albums Thelonious in Action and Misterioso. Just a few steps from the bandstand, Orrin Keepnews, record producer and owner of Riverside Records, and engineer Ray Fowler sit behind the controls of a two-track tape recorder. He places his long, slender fingers on the keys, preparing to hit that first note, as his sidemen watch in anticipation. It’s Monk, in deep concentration, oblivious to the faint chink of cutlery and quiet conversation and laughter still filling the air. The walls are plastered with mirrors, photos and posters, curtains, and tapestries, saw dust covers the floor, but there isn’t a stage, only some slightly raised flooring at the end of the room, barely wide enough to fit a drum kit and an old upright piano.īehind it sits a towering figure, immersed in thought, backlit clouds of smoke wafting around him. Upon walking through the doors of the Five Spot Café, a popular storefront bar in the Bowery neighborhood between the East and West Village, you find yourself in a crowded, dark den shrouded in a haze of cigarette smoke, a small, but rewardingly intimate setting, the atmosphere tinged with the bite of a gin cocktail. 7, 1958, a hot, humid summer night in New York City.
