Monk's "Dreamland"

If you haven't yet read it, be sure to check out Ethan Iverson's recent post, Thelonious Sphere Monk Centennial: Primary and Secondary Documents. It's an excellent overview of Monk's recording career, his compositions, Monk biographies, articles, tribute recordings, and Monk-related documents.

I'd like to offer some comments on just one song mentioned in the article, "Dreamland." Monk may or may not have written it. Recordings exist from 1958, 1969 (available as part of a Mosaic Records DVD box set), and 1971. Monk never copyrighted it.

Iverson posts two charts for Monk's "Dreamland," one that was done by Paul Motian (without barlines), and a version re-charted by Bill Frisell (with barlines). You can find the charts towards the end of Iverson's article, along with a discussion of the tune. 

Here's the 1958 version. Monk did not approve this track for release, and it was not included in the original "Thelonious in Action" album pictured below; Orrin Keepnews eventually released the track on an album called "Blues Five Spot" (1984), after Monk passed away in 1982. On the 1984 album it was titled "unidentified piano solo."

Here is Monk's only studio recording of "Dreamland," done in London for Black Lion Records in 1971: 

When the 1971 track was released, the record company titled it "Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland." Most people who are familiar with "Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland" would call this a mistake, as Monk's tune seems to have nothing to do with the old 1909 waltz that has been recorded countless times over the years. 

Although Monk's tune is definitely not "Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland," I do hear some similarity to the original verse (introductory lead-in) of the 1909 tune. Here are Elizabeth Wheeler and Harry Anthony singing the tune, starting with the verse, recorded in 1909:

Here are the first two pages of the original sheet music, showing the verse (click to enlarge):

Here are the opening bars to each song, with "Meet Me..." transposed to Eb, for easier comparison. In "Meet Me...," if you remove the third note in bars 1, 3, 9, and 11, you will see a melodic curve very much like "Dreamland."

It seems at least possible that Monk took the melodic shape of the verse to "Meet Me" as a starting point, then wrote his own tune. In his recordings, Monk plays "Dreamland" straight through as an arrangement, with no real improvised solo, much as he did in his performances of "Crepuscule With Nellie."

Iverson writes that he is "unconvinced that ['Dreamland'] is not just some old parlor piano tune we haven’t found yet, mainly because the bones of Monk’s original ballads are so much more idiosyncratic than the quite conventional 'Dreamland.' " That's a good point - the changes don't resemble other Monk tunes - but the chord progression in Monk's "Dreamland" is not in a style you'd typically find in a 1910s or 1920s parlor tune. To me, the harmony sounds more 1930s or 1940s (of course, Monk might have done some reharmonizing).

Note that the melody of "Dreamland" falls on the #11 of a dominant chord in bars 4 and 8, and on the b9 in bar 16. Also note the pickup/triplet shape in bars 3 and 7. These are characteristic bop features, although it's always possible that they were added as part of a Monk interpretation.

There's a notation at the top of the first page of the 1909 sheet music that cautions us:

PLEASE NOTE:--Owing to the phenomenal and unprecedented success and sale of this beautiful song, there have been placed on the market, imitation "Dreamland" songs with very similar titles.

This song written and composed by LEO FRIEDMAN and BETH SLATER WHITSON is THE ORIGINAL song of this title and WE CAN PROVE IT.

If Iverson is right that Monk's "Dreamland" is an old parlor tune, one might guess that it could be one of those "Meet Me Tonight" knockoffs that the sheet music warns us about - but the style of both melody and changes is all wrong for 1909. 

In his definitive biography Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original, Robin D. G. Kelley writes,

"Dreamland" has been mislabeled and misrepresented many times...I have reviewed both songs ["Meet Me..." and a song titled "Dreamland" by Goetz and North], along with dozens of other songs with the title "Dreamland" (Harry L. Newman's "Take Me Back to Dreamland," Harold Arlen's "Hit the Road to Dreamland," Francis Paul, "Dreamland," ad nauseum). None of these songs bear any resemblance to what Monk played on those two occasions. After ten years of searching, querying, and digging, I have come to the conclusion that...it is a Monk original. Perhaps it is a sketch of a song never quite finished.

My own opinion is that there's a pretty good case that Monk composed the tune, taking off from a paraphrase of the verse to "Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland."


Finally, here's one last video, a 1950s Les Elgart big-band version of "Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland." Sitting in the sax section of local big bands, I played this arrangement countless times, but it took a few gigs before I recognized the original melody buried in the arrangement:

An Incredible Jazz Concert, 50 Years Later

One of my formative early musical experiences was a concert I attended in 1966, my last year of high school. I was a dedicated jazz fan, and a fairly decent high school musician. I played tenor in the school jazz band, but my musical education was more on classical clarinet at that point.

In the 1965-66 academic year, Stanford University (a few miles from my house) booked a series of "Jazz Year" concerts - an amazing lineup that included Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and other major jazz figures. I persuaded my parents to buy us tickets to two of the concerts. The first one, on January 23, 1966, was a double bill with Thelonious Monk's quartet and John Coltrane's ensemble.

Here is how I remember it, almost exactly 50 years later:

The concert was in Stanford's Memorial Auditorium. MemAud seated about 1600, and was sold out. Monk came on stage 30 minutes late with his quartet (Charlie Rouse, tenor; Ben Riley, drums; Larry Gales, bass). The band sounded great, and it was a thrill to hear all the tunes played live that I had only heard on record. At one point during an extended Charlie Rouse solo, Monk got up from the piano bench to "stroll," i.e. walk around a bit and stretch his legs, while Rouse's solo continued with just bass and drums accompanying. Monk seemed to be having some trouble walking straight. It actually looked to me as though the stage was slanted, sloping down toward the audience. After doing a little recent internet research, I think that this may very well have been the case - Memorial Auditorium has a "proscenium stage," which could have included a "raked stage" feature. Monk played a set and two encores.

After an intermission, John Coltrane took the stage with his group: Elvin Jones and Rashied Ali, drums; Juno Lewis, percussion; Pharoah Sanders, tenor; Alice Coltrane, piano; Jimmy Garrison, bass; and Donald Garrett, bass and bass clarinet.

This was early 1966, after "A Love Supreme" had been released (I'd worn out the grooves playing that record), but before the release of "Ascension" or "Meditations." I was unprepared for what was coming.

Coltrane's group played an incredibly intense set, lasting an hour and 20 minutes. There was just one pause in the music; I guess that means there were two songs, maybe. It wasn't clear what the tunes were; there was no announcement, and I heard just a few recognizable pieces of melody. I could say that much of it was in triple meter, but with those three drummers, there were often different meters going simultaneously. Lewis Porter's The John Coltrane Reference quotes Phil Elwood's review in the San Francisco Examiner, listing the pieces as "Peace on Earth" and "Afro Blue." Ralph Gleason, in his San Francisco Chronicle review, listed "My Favorite Things" and "Crescent." For what it's worth, I remember hearing a fragment of "Afro Blue."

It was music at a high spiritual level and a high energy level, transcendent like "A Love Supreme," but perhaps more spontaneously organized. It was not as chaotic as the "Ascension" recording that was released shortly afterward. I recall extended solos from Alice Coltrane, Juno Lewis, and Jimmy Garrison. Coltrane gave his players more solo space than he took himself.

I had no idea that music could be this powerful. Gleason's review described "ensemble climaxes of stupendous intensity." Gleason called the concert "one of the most intense and exhilarating musical experiences I have ever had." It hit me the same way. I walked out of there a changed person. My parents were at the concert with me; I can only imagine what their reaction might have been. I don't think we discussed it.

This was one of the last times that Elvin Jones performed with the group. Some more details on this concert, and Coltrane's gigs immediately after, can be found in these pages of Porter's book.

While doing some internet searching for this post, I ran across this article in the Stanford Alumni Magazine by one of the organizers of the "Jazz Year." The author describes the audience as "underwhelmed" and "tepid." I don't recall, I was too blown away to notice. There was no encore; no encore was necessary.

I wonder if somewhere there is a recording of that concert.

The "Jazz Year" series also included concerts by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington with Ella Fitzgerald, the MJQ, Dizzy, Muddy Waters, Ray Charles, and Miles Davis. The Miles event (with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams, and Wayne Shorter) was the only other one I made it to. It was a privilege to have been at that event too, but Miles was pretty subdued and straight-ahead, in comparison.

Combo Projects! "Thelonious Monk Fake Book," "Just Gershwin Real Book," "Charles Mingus - More Than a Fake Book"

I've been coaching a jazz combo class on Saturday mornings for longer than I can remember - at least 25 years. The personnel have stayed pretty constant. Every five years or so, a bass player will move away or something, but we have some great continuity. Two of our current members were also founding members (Ralph on trumpet, Bob on bari).

We've had a few long-term projects. The first was my "List of Shame," a list of tunes that no self-respecting adult jazz improviser should ever have to read again (e.g., Take the A Train, All of Me, etc.). That list turned into my list of 100 Must-Know Jazz Tunes. Currently, every Saturday I will call two of these tunes, with reading strongly discouraged.

A couple of years ago we took on another project: playing through every tune in the Thelonious Monk Fake Book. The "Monk Book" is a collection of 70 Monk tunes, published by Hal Leonard. At the rate of one or two tunes per Saturday, this took us some while. We eventually completed the project, and had a lot of fun doing it. We played some tunes better than others, but we did check them all out. "Brilliant Corners" and "Trinkle Tinkle" were particularly challenging, but we gave them our best effort.

I can recommend the Thelonious Monk Fake Book as a well-researched collection of most of Monk's compositions. Chord changes are clean and jazz-friendly.

With that project finished, we then took on the Just Gershwin Real Book (Alfred Publishing). This book has charts for over 100 George Gershwin compositions, including the great tunes we all know, as well as a very large number of lesser, obscure ones. At two tunes per week, we are about a week or two away from finishing that project.

I can recommend the Just Gershwin Real Book as an extensive collection that will give you a sense of Gershwin's writing and the nature of his output, with a few hidden gems that you may not have known, along with many that are not exactly George and Ira's ticket to everlasting glory. The chord changes are not always clearly stated - the editors seem to have followed the path of omitting the original piano arrangements, but nevertheless trying to replicate the piano arrangements with chord symbols. This quite often results in charts that are cluttered with extraneous and non-functional chords. We got a lot of practice in editing charts on the fly - figuring out which changes to disregard, while sight-reading. It's a great collection, but not completely jazz-friendly.

It looks like our next project will be Charles Mingus - More Than a Fake Book, a collection of 55 Mingus pieces. This is a great product. Transcriptions are excellent; former Mingus sidemen were involved in the project. Lots of informative notes and Mingus lore are included.

This should keep us busy through 2015.