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Inspired by such trailblazers, Thelonious Monk, who came to prominence in the mid 50s, built an original and enduring repertoire distinguished by its striking use of English. There was the cute informality of "Bye-ya", the romantic, poetic imagery of "Crepuscule with Nellie" and the paradoxical "Ugly Beauty".

In that oxymoronic masterpiece, Monk captured a pivotal debate in aesthetics and human nature. The piece suggests that two diametrically opposed impressions can be intimately related. The attractive can also be the repulsive.  The reader-listener is forced to engage with a quandary for which there is no ready-made answer. Monk is an artist who makes you think.  

"Ugly Beauty" is a musical marvel - it does not shift between its titular extremes, back and forth, but rather it sits between them, ambiguous and teasing. It is blues with a spare, leisurely but enticing melody; the saxophone and piano contrive to float in space while the drums and double bass gently skip forward. There is something hazy and nonchalant in the air, the sense of a lingering question mark, of whimsy and subtle suggestion.

Monk's work has exerted a considerable hold on several generations of listeners and players, with international devotees including Britain's Jonathan Gee and the late Swede Esbjorn Svensson. And the recent release of a previously unissued 1968 concert, Palo Alto, has triggered a frenzy similar to that which greeted John Coltrane's "lost" album Both Directions At Once when it was found in 2018. On this new recording, Monk's quartet, which features the tenor saxophonist Charlie Rouse, gives commanding performances of  much-loved originals such as "Well, You Needn't" and "Ruby My Dear" and of the Tin Pan alley staple, "I Love You (Sweetheart Of All My Dreams)". Monk also plays a captivating unaccompanied version of "Blue Monk". 

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