Thelonious Monk: Brilliant Corners (LP)

Brilliant Corners was Thelonious Monk s third album for Riverside Records and the first for this label to include his own music. The complex title track, with its multiple time signature changes, required over a dozen takes in the studio, and is considered one of Monk s most difficult compositions. The album features such stars as Sonny Rollins and Max Roach, as well as some of the pianist/composer s most creative writing ever. Brilliant Corners was given a five-star rating in Down Beat by renowned jazz critic Nat Hentoff, who stated that, This is really a mood album, the kind of mood that envelops corners that can be called brilliant but are more inimitable than that increasingly indiscriminate adjective might connote. This is Riverside s most important modern jazz LP to date. The album also received a five-star rating in All Music Guide, with Lindsay Planer writing that, No serious jazz collection should be without it.