Bman's Blues Report

Charlie Rouse (April 6, 1924 - November 30, 1988) was an American hard bop tenor saxophonist and flautist. His career is marked by the collaboration for more than ten years with Thelonious Monk. Rouse was born in Washington, DC in 1924. At first he worked with the clarinet, before turning to the saxophone. Rouse began his career with the Billy Eckstine Orchestra in 1944, followed by the Dizzy Gillespie Big Band in 1945, the Duke Ellington Orchestra from 1949 to 1950, the Count Basie Octet in 1950, Bull Moose Jackson And His Buffalo Bearcats in 1953, and the Oscar Pettiford Sextet in 1955. He made his recording debut with Tadd Dameron in 1947, and in 1957 made a notable album with Paul Quinichette. In the 1980s he was a founding member of the group Sphere, which began as a tribute to Monk. Charlie Rouse died from lung cancer at University Hospital in Seattle at the age of 64.   If you support live Blues acts, up and coming Blues talents and want to learn more about Blues new...

Thelonious Sphere Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer considered one of the giants of American music. Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser" and "Well, You Needn't". Monk is the second most recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, which is particularly remarkable as Ellington composed over 1,000 songs while Monk wrote about 70. His compositions and improvisations are full of dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists, and are consistent with Monk's unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations. This was not a style universally appreciated; poet and jazz critic Philip Larkin dismissed Monk as 'the elephant on the keyboard'. Monk's ma...