Listening to Now: Thelonious Monk - "Straight, No Chaser"

By Richard K. Barry

I take a course in jazz improvisation at the Toronto Conservatory with Michael Occhipinti. He's a great player and teacher. It's one of those courses in which they take people with varying abilities and try to show them a few things.

One of the neat parts about the course is that, at the end of the term, Michael books a local club at which each of the sections struts their stuff with half a dozen tunes. My class's set included Monk's "Straight, No Chaser." Great song, and though I'm sure we sounded nothing like the master and his friends, we did our best.

Here's a clip of the original.