MONK LIVE IN PARIS, 1967. VOLUME TWO Set for Release
Clark Terry, Phil Woods, Johnny Griffin and Jimmy Cleveland join Monk's quartet on the expanded live recording.
The Thelonious Monk Estate has announced Monk Live In Paris, 1967. Volume Two, out October 9, 2026 via Rhythm-A-Ning Entertainment. The second installment features Thelonious Monk, one of the defining composers and pianists of modern jazz, with his longstanding quartet of Charlie Rouse on tenor saxophone, Larry Gales on bass and Ben Riley on drums, joined by trumpeters Clark Terry and Ray Copeland, alto saxophonist Phil Woods, tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin and trombonist Jimmy Cleveland.
Terry plays on 'Blue Monk' and 'Epistrophy Theme'; Copeland, Woods, Griffin, Rouse, Cleveland, Monk, Gales and Riley play on all three musical selections.
Released April 24, 2026 on 180-gram vinyl and digital platforms, Monk Live In Paris, 1967. Volume One marked the first official Estate issue of recordings from the concert after unauthorized editions had circulated for years. It presented Monk's quartet alongside Copeland, Woods, Griffin and Cleveland in changing combinations and announced that the complete nine-piece group, including Terry, would come together on Volume Two. DownBeat awarded the first installment four and a half stars and called it 'revelatory unburied treasure,' while All About Jazz described it as a 'beautifully recorded' addition to Monk's musical story.
After the artist introduction, all nine musicians play 'Blue Monk' and 'Epistrophy Theme.' The 15:10 'Oska-T' fills Side B with Copeland, Woods, Griffin, Rouse and Cleveland joining Monk, Gales and Riley.
T.S. Monk describes his father's compositions as 'living frameworks, not fixed objects,' with melody, harmony and space changing from one performance to the next. He describes Monk onstage in terms of 'humor, daring, patience, and deep sense of swing,' and says the same tune could sound completely different from night to night.
T.S., who performed in his father's band as a drummer, remembers Monk giving musicians considerable freedom over when they joined a performance. He might ask someone, 'You feel like playing? I want you to play,' or tell him to 'pick your spot.' The ensemble expands and contracts throughout the Paris concert, with musicians appearing in different configurations.
T.S. also recalls that 'when it came to the rhythm, Monk set the rhythm.' For T.S. as a drummer, simply keeping time was not enough: he had to listen closely, converse within the rhythm section and respond to the soloist.
T.S. says the Estate chose the Paris recordings in part to showcase the caliber of musicians who toured Europe with Monk. The engagement was part of George Wein's Newport Jazz Festival touring operation, and Copeland, Terry, Woods and Griffin all had previous musical associations with Monk. T.S. notes that Monk's quartet and his work with Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane, Art Blakey and Max Roach are well known, while his European touring with larger ensembles is less familiar.
Griffin and Rouse represented successive periods of Monk's quartet: Griffin preceded Rouse, who became Monk's longtime tenor saxophonist. Both appeared with Monk elsewhere on the same tour, including Stockholm, Rotterdam, Berlin and Mainz.
The three compositions date from different periods of Monk's career. Co-written with drummer Kenny Clarke, 'Epistrophy' went by several early titles, including 'The Theme,' reflecting its use by the Minton's Playhouse house band to open and close sets. 'Blue Monk,' first recorded in 1954, became one of the pieces Monk returned to most often. Monk first recorded 'Oska-T' in 1963. T.S. remembers watching his father work on the tune for 'weeks and weeks' at Pannonica de Koenigswarter's home even though, to his young ears, it consisted of 'just these little phrases.' The Paris performance runs 15:10 and occupies the entire second side.
The Estate began trying to recover circulating Monk recordings in the late 1980s and 1990s, contacting private collectors and bootleg communities and asking them to return the music to Monk's family. Recordings gradually came back through that effort. T.S. already knew Rudy Van Gelder from making two of his own albums with him, and Van Gelder digitally remastered the Paris concert in 2002. The family intended to release the recordings then, but T.S. says manufacturing, distribution, advertising and public relations required capital and infrastructure the Estate did not have at the time.
More than two decades after Van Gelder remastered the recordings, the Estate returned to the project in a vastly different independent music landscape. Digital distribution and direct communication with listeners had made an independent Estate-led release more practical. Monk's grandchildren had also joined T.S. and the rest of the family in the archive's creative, editorial, production and marketing work, creating what T.S. calls 'three generations of stewardship.' The Estate prepared the recordings for this authorized release and commissioned new liner notes to provide historical context, all with the family's direct authorization and participation.
T.S. calls the process 'bootlegging the bootleggers' — reclaiming recordings that had circulated outside the family's control and issuing them with the family's authorization. He points listeners in particular to what Monk plays behind Rouse, Griffin, Terry, Woods and Copeland: his harmonic choices, rhythmic ideas, use of space and responses to the soloists. T.S. connects those elements to Monk's wider influence on modern jazz. 'These releases allow people to hear that influence happening in real time, on the bandstand,' he says, 'rather than simply being told about it after the fact.'
Tracklist
Artist Introduction — 2:00
Blue Monk — 5:10
Epistrophy Theme — 1:20
Oska-T — 15:10
Personnel
Thelonious Monk — piano
Clark Terry — trumpet ('Blue Monk,' 'Epistrophy Theme')
Ray Copeland — trumpet
Phil Woods — alto saxophone
Johnny Griffin — tenor saxophone
Charlie Rouse — tenor saxophone
Jimmy Cleveland — trombone
Larry Gales — bass
Ben Riley — drums
Digital remastering by Rudy Van Gelder at Van Gelder Recording Studio, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, in 2002. Originally produced by Thelonious Monk Productions, Incorporated for Thelonious Records, Incorporated.
Thelonious Monk · Monk Live In Paris, 1967. Volume Two — Rhythm-A-Ning Entertainment · Release Date: October 9, 2026
Thelonious Monk · Monk Live In Paris, 1967. Volume One — Rhythm-A-Ning Entertainment · Release Date: April 24, 2026
