CHARLES TOLLIVER ORCHESTRA
Exclusive Concert Event:
THE THELONIUS MONK ORCHESTRA AT TOWN HALL, 1959: REVIVING A LANDMARK
Saturday, 10/13/07, 8 pm
Page Auditorium
$38 • $30 • $22 • $5*
A self-taught trumpet wizard and virtuoso arranger, Charles Tolliver attended
Monk’s 1959 Town Hall show as a teenager, and has kept faith
with the African American rhythms, large sounds, and group dynamics of
the orchestral form. Who better to revisit the legendary concert that demonstrated
how Monk’s compositions could be scored for a big band?
For Following Monk, the man who’s played with Art Blakey, Sonny
Rollins, and Max Roach revisits Hall Overton and Monk’s monumental collaboration
with an entirely new set of transcriptions, which Tolliver made
from W. Eugene Smith’s never before heard Jazz Loft tapes of the original
Town Hall rehearsals. In 1959, arrangements by Monk and Overton highlighted the
playfulness and power of Monk’s music. Tolliver’s 2007 update looks
to restage the tensions that made the first performance so electric: pianist
and orchestra, individual and group.
In a single show at Duke’s Page Auditorium, Tolliver will lead his critically acclaimed orchestra through the entire ’59 concert, start to finish, from “In Walked Bud” to “Little Rootie Tootie” — one of the only times this storied section of the Monk catalogue has been played in nearly 40 years.
"[Tolliver's] charts jab and duck like a boxer, punctuating the air with horn blasts and quick drum fills"
—Time Out Chicago
Charles Tolliver Tentet:
Stanley Cowell – piano
Rufus Reid – bass
Victor Lewis – drums
Todd Bashore – alto saxophone
Craig Handy – tenor saxophone
Howard Johnson – baritone saxophone
Kenyatta Beasley – trumpet
Jason Jackson – trombone
Vincent Chancey – french horn
Aaron Johnson – tuba
Charles Tolliver – arranger & conductor
Concert Program:
Piano solo, “In Walked Bud”
Piano with rhythm section, “Blue Monk”
Piano with rhythm section & tenor sax, “Rhythm-A-Ning”
Charles Tolliver Orchestra (Tentet)
“Thelonious”
“Friday The 13th”
“Monk’s Mood”
“Little Rootie Tootie”
“Off Minor”
“Crepuscule With Nellie”
“Little Rootie Tootie”
Charles Tolliver Orchestra on the web: