1. Brilliant Corners
2. Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues
3. Pannonica
4. I Surrender, Dear
5. Bemsha Swing
Now THIS is some jazz right here. Complete with pretentious quotation marks. With this, we finally enter the fascinating world of hard bop and the experimentation that marked jazz music in the 1950s. And it's about time! After all the relatively plain albums that I've had to review so far, this album was very pleasing.
This album is rather discordant yet harmonious at the same time. The title track seems like it could fall apart into atonality at any moment, yet it somehow sticks together even though you have no idea how. Now that's musicianship! The whole album has the feel of being held together by a tiny thread, yet somehow it feels amazingly musical and cohesive at the same time. I'm not really sure how to describe it. It's still catchy (particularly the 'Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues' main melody) but not excessively so. The solos are particularly notable. The drum solo on the title track sounds like someone trying to play the drums while incredibly drunk, only to sober up for about 30 seconds, and then passing out. Monk's solo rendition of 'I Surrender Dear' is both frayed at the edges and beautiful at the same time. I have no idea how the hell he pulled it off. Such is the mystery of modern jazz!
By modern standards, this isn't exactly the most challenging and experimental music there is but I can imagine this sort of thing would've caused quite the stir for your average music fan in 1957. And it's made me think more than all of the other albums so far. I'm not sure I've ever heard an album that was so contrasting, so fragmented and jumbled and yet so entrancing. 9/10
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