I’ve been a casual fan of NRBQ since about 1992, when I happened to see them when Richard Thompson opened for them. I remember three things about them: 1) Their guitarist Al Anderson was fantastic. 2) Their pianist Terry Anderson was a maniac who at one point was pounding on the keyboard with his dilapidated piano stool. 3) They were loud as FUCK!
I’ve become a Thelonious Monk fan in just the past few years, but Terry Adams has been one for more than 50, and has long dreamed of making this album. I don’t know if you’d call them kindred spirits, but Adams obviously has a deep afinity for Monk’s music, which he approaches with reverence but also with the kind of freewheeling anything-goes attitude he brought to NRBQ. “There’s an air about Monk’s music that I feel should go beyond the written parts,” he says in the press material for this album. “You can hear it on his performances even when he’s not playing. Some people don’t approach it that way. This music is in a special place and the performer of it should be too.”
Adams has arranged a dozen Monk tunes, mostly deep cuts, with the exceptions of “Monk’s Mood,” “Straignt, No Chaser,” and “Ruby, My Dear.” He gathered some of the musicians he’s been working with for many years to play them, including multi-instrumentalists Scott Ligon and Jim Hoke, longtime NRBQ bass-guitarist Pete Donnelly, Klem Klimek on saxophones, bassist Pete Toigo and drummer Conrad Choucroun. They held two rehearsals and played a live date in Burlington, Vermont, in 2012. The result is a wildly entertaining slate of Monk music, much of it like you’ve never heard before.
Take the opener, “Reflections,” which Adams introduces (and outros) with a long windup on the pipe organ before switching to a straight piano trio. (You can hear “Reflections” streaming at the Elmore website.) “That Old Man,” which Monk recorded as “Children’s Song,” is played more like a children’s song than the original, in a mid-tempo shuffle that brings out Adams’ most playful side – and Hoke contributes ocarina to the intro and outro. I haven’t heard an ocarina on record since John Sebastian’s solo debut in 1970!
Ligon is featured on the guitar for a delightful take on “Ugly Beauty” that includes some breathtaking harmonies from Adams on piano. And, well, I can just reel off some of the other highlights: Amazing unison and counterpoint between Adams and Klimek on tenor on the real rarity “Gallop’s Gallop.” “Straight, No Chaser” as a chunky country shuffle with Hoke pulling amazing sounds out of his pedal steel guitar. “Hornin’ In” as a foot-stomping rocker that NRBQ probably played on many a night – this one features Hoke and Klimek on alto and tenor, respectively, and they kill it. (You can stream it at PopMatters.) A totally straight sextet version of “In Walked Bud” with fine solos from Ligon on guitar and Hoke on alto, and of course Adams on piano. The longest piece is a pensive “Monk’s Mood” featuring Hoke on chromatic harp and pedal steel, just lovely! I don’t think I’ve ever heard “Humph” before, but this fast blues is definitely on my (by now quite long) list of favorite Monk tunes – Ligon wails on the guitar in front of the trio on this one.
I can’t think of a release this year that has surprised me more than Talk Thelonious. Rocker Terry Adams and the group billed as “NRBQ +” turn out to be one of the hottest jazz bands around. Who knew?
Clang!, 2015
