'Round Midnight

He was an iconic pianist and composer who became a huge part of the modern jazz movement.

He's famous for his improvisational style and also for writing songs like Round Midnight.

Ivory Jo Hunter was born in 1914.

R&B and blues singer, songwriter, and pianist.

The guy that gave them that new vocabulary to free them from the chains, I call them the chains of bebop, was Thelonious Monk.

And when you look at Thelonious Monk's catalog, right? Was Round Midnight V-Bop?

Was

Ruby My Dear V-Bop? Was It Fish or Feet V-Bop? Was Monk's Dream V-Bop? You can go down through his hundred tunes and you'll find maybe one or two tunes that were V-Bop tunes, if you want to stretch what V-Bop was.

Yeah, yeah.

And Dave Rubik's got Take Five, Billy Strait got a couple of tunes, Duke's got a bunch of tunes, but nobody has more standards than Thelonious Moon.

Every other tune he wrote was outstanding, from Straight No Chasin' to Round Midnight.

It's the most recorded tune in history of jazz.

And we're going to leave you with another iconic voice.

This time it's going to be Ella Fitzgerald and Round Midnight.

And we might add a little bit of Thelonious Monk's version of that song.

Thanks for listening.

And we'll see you next Sunday when words and music will shine a light on songs about lights.

It begins to

tell Round Midnight Midnight I'd do pretty well Till after sundown Supper time I'm feeling sad But it really gets

bad

piano plays softly Thank you. . . .

Thank you.

Cocktailation evenings at the Penthouse in Thelonious Monk around midnight.

And remember, gentlemen, a true playboy never rushes.

He lets the music play, the ice melt, and the evening take care of itself.

Coltrane was the essence of a certain kind of jazz sensibility, passionate and expressive and utterly dedicated to the seriousness of his art.

All this week, Radio 3 are celebrating his music in the essay and round midnight, and earlier we were joined by the presenters of those programmes, the saxophonist Sir Waiter Kinch and the jazz historian Ashley Kahn.

When did Coltrane first make his mark, I asked Kahn, and what was it that he bought to jazz music?

When it comes to John Coltrane, we're talking about someone who shifted from being pretty much a journeyman, unknown, someone in the background, to someone being one of the most important voices in modern jazz in roughly about two and a half years.

Ashley Kahn and Soweto Kinch talking about John Coltrane.

Incidentally, Soweto's new album soundtrack to The Apocalypse is out in November and he's going to be performing at the Barbican with the London Symphony Orchestra on November 19th.

And you can catch up with any of those Radio 3 programmes on Coltrane, The Essay and Round Midnight on BBC Sounds.

And real Coltrane completists might be excited to know that the legendary Tiberi Tapes recordings of Coltrane performances are going to be released in November.

Yes.

But I am curious, do you guys have any favorite alternate takes of any tunes that are out there? Maybe even some that are better than the ones that the original album placed instead? I once heard Miles Davis' first quintet do an alternate take of 'Round Midnight on a compilation album called Miles Plays For Lovers, and I swear I like that one better than the one that made the record.

So I was curious if you had any of your favorites out there.

Thank you.

That's music by Maynard Ferguson.

And that is his Reading of a Monk classic, Round Midnight.

Maynard Ferguson was a member of Stan Kenton's band, and he performed the theme from the classic boxing movie Rocky, entitled Gonna Fly Now.

And before that, you heard music from a local band, Dawn Weber and Friends.

Music from their jazz album, and she told us... that she'll be seeing us in our dreams, but the name of the cut is entitled, I'll See You in My Dreams.

The music of the Christian McBride Big Band.

Without further ado, volume one.

That is his reading of a classic that was sung by a vocal group called the Shirelles.

They're not doing...

They're not playing Round Midnight.

It's not some Thelonious Monk type of thing.

No, there's no Vince Giraldi trio.