A few days after the April 1957 incident at the Café Bohemia , Monk invited Trane to record the first piece they had worked on together , “ Monk ’ s Mood ”, in a trio with bassist Wilbur Ware , to complete the album Thelonious Himself . Two more sessions followed on June 25 and 26 , resulting in the album Monk ’ s Music . On July 4 , having recovered his cabaret card , which had been withdrawn for drug use in 1951 , the pianist made his big comeback on the New York club scene in a trio at the Five Spot , the hippest club of the moment , where he was joined by Trane from July 18 . They played there until November and teamed up again in September 1958 , when Naima brought along a tape machine and recorded a few tracks that would later be issued by Blue Note in 1993 ( Live at the Five Spot , Discovery !). The saxophonist was transformed by his contact with Monk , of whom he said :
I learned from him in every way – theoretically , technically . I would talk to Monk about musical problems , and he would sit at the piano and show me the answers just by playing them . He also got me into the habit of playing long solos on his pieces , playing the same piece for a long time to find new conceptions . It got so I would go as far as possible on one phrase until I ran out of ideas . The harmonies got to be an obsession for me .
While this harmonic obsession may have been prompted by Monk ’ s sometimes invasive playing , it may also have been inspired by the spaces he would leave – when , for example , “ he might take a minor chord and leave the third out and it ’ ll just be voiced the right way to have that minor feel ”– and by his absences , when he would walk away from the piano to listen to his band , dance on the spot , or have a drink at the bar , leaving his musicians to play without him .
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