#Eddie de Verteuil

[roundmidnightroundmidnight]

'Round Midnight is a jazz standard composed by jazz pianist Thelonious Monk, and is the most recorded jazz standard written by a jazz musician. Despite Monk composing the tune, the first recording was actually by Cootie Williams, who helped Monk with its composition. Williams' original rendition predates Monk's by 3 years - being recorded on August 22, 1944.

I think it'll be interesting to see how different people interpret this standard, both across individual musicians' performances and across styles and instrumentations. I think that kind of variation is what makes jazz special and unique in the world of music - there's no single, correct, or "true" version of any song, just someone's own way, which is in constant communication with the performers and performances they learned from, borrowed from, and were inspired by. Compared to the back catalogs of classical music where there's room for expression but not the same room for experimentation, or to rock or pop which are so chained by copyright it's hard to iterate on shared songs, it's wholly unique.

Jazz can be impenetrable to people who don't know much about it, and I don't feel anything like an expert myself, but hopefully this is a good microcosm to hear different styles and approaches and for people to learn about the whole musical tradition broadly. For this experiment, this recording is the baseline, the root of the whole evolutionary tree. I encourage you to return to it occasionally, compare it to that night's recording of 'Round Midnight, see just how wide the tree of jazz can branch.

Performers in the August 22, 1944 session:

Trumpet: Cootie Williams Trumpet: Ermit V. Perry Trumpet: George Treadwell Trumpet: Lammar Wright Trumpet: Tommy Stevenson Trombone: Ed Burke Trombone: Ed Glover Trombone: Robert Horton Alto sax: Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson Alto sax: Frank Powell Tenor sax: Sam "The Man" Taylor Tenor sax: Lee Pope Baritone sax: Eddie de Verteuil Piano: Bud Powell Guitar: Leroy Kirkland Bass: Carl Pruitt Drums: Sylvester "Vess" Payne