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Thelonious 4 pay tribute to a Jazz-titan

The Dutch group presents Monk’s music in the K9 in a new and refreshing manner

by Thomas Domjahn (engl. translation by Karin Boos)

The US-American Thelonious Monk (1917-1982) is considered one of the most important composers of modern jazz. Many of his 71 pieces in total, such as “Blue Monk”, „Round Midnight“ or „Episcopy“, have become classic jazz standards - first class jazz standards. The Dutch group Thelonious 4 around Andreas Metzler, originally fromKonstanz, have committed to re-interpret the music of the jazz titan Monk. In their performance in the K9 on Thursday evening they proved in a very refreshing manner to 20 paying listeners, how innovative and trend setting Monk’s music can still be today. “Just like us, there are a number of groups in jazz that specialize on Monk. But still the music remains attractive to us. Because we are very familiar with Monk’s music, we can take the freedom to break out of given forms and give the music our own touch” says Andreas Metzler - who grew up in Konstanz and lives in Amsterdam today - after the concert. Interestingly, the Quartett with Andreas Metzler on bass, Guillermo Celano (guitar), Iman Spaargaren (saxophon) and Jurjen Bakker (drums) makes do without a pianist, above all as Monk was an educated pianist. It was particularly on Guillermo Celano and his guitar, who gave the jazz pieces a rock- and blues-like image. Playing with the sound by using his foot-pedal over and over again, the Argentinean let the tones flow and slip away from his guitar only to re-capture them just second later. In a raffish manner, with his shirt unbuttoned half way, rolled up sleeves and a Lionel-Messi-memory-haircut his playing and joy in experimenting resembles at times that of Jimi Hendrix, for instance when he used a pencil to hit the strings of his guitar. The band functions as a collective In their five years of playing together, however, none of the musicians of the Quartett, which met during their musical studies at the Conservatory in Amsterdam, is explicitly distinguished. “Our band has no star or a leader; we work and function as a collective” tells us Andreas Metzler, who, as the only native German speaker in the group, took over announcing the pieces that evening in a Spartan but very sympathetic way. In fact, mostly he just named the title of the next piece. After two sets, which predominantly focused on Monk’s rather unknown and difficult pieces, and an encore (“Criss Cross”), the four musicians were bid farewell with a well deserved applause. The performance of the Quartett, which was organized by the Jazzclub Konstanz, proved that Monk’s music can be independently and individually spiced with new elements, without loosing the groove in the pieces.

Bildunterschrift:
Interpreting Monk’s music: Jurjen Bakker (drums) and Iman Spaargaren (saxophon) of Thelonious 4.