Underground

by Thelonious Monk

Underground cover art
  • Type: Album
  • Released: 1968
  • Label: Columbia
  • Country: United States
  • Length: 40:28
  • Community rating: 5/5 from 5 ratings

Artists on this release: Charlie Rouse, Larry Gales, Ben Riley

Album Notes & Community Reviews

The final studio album from Thelonious Monk's long-running and celebrated quartet. Famous for its iconic, Grammy-winning cover art depicting Monk as a French Resistance fighter, the album features several new compositions. The track 'Ugly Beauty' is historically significant as the only waltz Monk ever officially recorded, applying his signature angular harmonies and rhythmic displacements to the 3/4 time signature to create a piece that is, true to its name, both jarring and strangely beautiful.

Genres

Descriptors: piano, bluesy, witty, classic, profound

Tracklist

  1. Thelonious (3:18)
  2. Ugly Beauty (7:23)
  3. Raise Four (4:37)
  4. Boo Boo's Birthday (5:57)
  5. Easy Street (5:56)
  6. Green Chimney's (9:01)
  7. In Walked Bud (4:16)

Credits

  • Thelonious Monk - primary artist, piano, written-by
  • Larry Gales - bass
  • John Berg - design [cover design]
  • Richard Mantel - design [cover design]
  • Ben Riley - drums
  • Arthur Kendy - engineer [engineering]
  • Fred Plaut - engineer [engineering]
  • Gil McKean - liner notes
  • Horn/Griner - photography by [cover photo]
  • Teo Macero - producer [produced by], producer
  • Charlie Rouse - tenor saxophone [tenor sax]
  • Alan Rankin Jones - written-by
  • Jon Hendricks - vocals [vocal], written-by

More from Thelonious Monk: full discography