Friday the 13th (1953). Thelonious Monk /"maybe even fun" mode/

Monk image via Wikipedia

After my previous post about cell phone shaming by the NY Philharmonic, it's time to go back into "maybe even fun" mode.

WFMU has a streaming playlist based around Thelonious Monk's Friday the 13th. Well done, Kurt Gottschalk.

David Luebbert at SongTrellis has the chords.

MonkZone on the song:

First recorded on Friday the 13th, 1953, it refers not only to the day but the turn of events-tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins was delayed because of a car accident and trumpeter Ray Copeland fell ill and French horn virtuoso Julius Watkins had to fill in at the last minute. The result was a remarkable session, including a swinging interpretation of this deceptively simple repeating bar theme.

Hey, it's fun to focus on music again rather than audience etiquette...

Update: I'm an hour into Kurt Gottschalk's Friday the 13th playlist. It's well curated and the announcer is knowledgable and has a cool radio voice. To top all that, he suggests Anthony Coleman's version of Friday the 13th is "Morton Feldman-eqsue."

 Looking forward to Friday, April 13th. Dunno what happens on Friday, June 13th.

Related articles

• Work (1954). Thelonious Monk /swinging from another planet/ (rgable.typepad.com)
• Thelonious Monk: Thelonious Alone in San Francisco (Review) (popmatters.com)
• Thelonious Monk - Raise Four (fleamarketfunk.com)