condition (record/cover): NM / NM
Obi included.
Paris, June 1954: Thelonious Monk alone at the piano for the French Vogue label - his first solo recordings, made on his first trip to Europe, at a time when large parts of the jazz establishment still treated him as an eccentric rather than a master. Every hesitation, every crushed interval, every perfect wrong note completely exposed, with no rhythm section to soften the architecture. This is Monk's mind in its purest documented state: the tunes already immortal, the touch like nobody before or since. Among the most intimate documents in the entire discography, and a session French collectors have always guarded jealously. Japanese Vogue pressing.