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Monk's Dream


Monk settled down into a format of bass drums piano and tenor sax. Monk's Dream is one of the better albums using this format with Rouse on tenor. It has a mix of standards (Sweet and Lovely, just a Gigolo, Body and Soul) and Monk's originals.

Someday I have to sit down with a discography and see what standards Monk recorded, and how many times each. My idea is that he loved certain select songs and played them over and over again, rather than trying to play every song out there. Sweet and Lovely is most definitely one of his most recorded tunes. These songs almost become his in the same way that his own signature compositions were. When I was young, in fact, I thought Monk had written Sweet and Lovely.