Brilliant Corners is surprising in some ways and not at all surprising in others. On one hand, it’s surprising that it comes from Thelonious Monk, who himself said the piano had no wrong notes, and who has been described as having “two left hands”. Whereas his playing style prior to this album is avant-garde, harshly dissonant, and intentionally sloppy, here it is cleaner, more delicate, less all over the place, yet still exquisite. Brilliant Corners was Monk’s first commercial success after years of struggle, and this may be why. After years of developing bebop, pushing the limits of jazz as far as they could reasonably go, Monk settled down and recorded five extremely catchy tunes. That’s the thing about jazz – the height of its weirdness was the height of bebop. After World War II, things started to calm down and jazz became more accessible, where the opposite usually tends to occur in other genres of music. Brilliant Corners is some straight hard bop, with twelve bar blues and swing standards, and (sometimes) it’s fun to dance to. The melodies get stuck in your head just like that.

               On the other hand, Brilliant Corners is not at all surprising. While the instrumentation is relatively simpler and easier to listen to, the structure of the compositions is in outer space. Consider the opening title track, notorious for its twenty-five incomplete takes, ultimately stitched together in post-production. It’s an impressive composition, with plenty of tempo and time changes, and it’s a little harder to dance to than most of the other tracks. Other songs are challenging in different ways, like “Bah-Lue Bolivar Bah-Lues-Are”, a blues tune stretched over thirteen minutes, allowing each instrument to spend ample time exploring the space of the blues. Nevertheless, Monk’s piano playing on this record often stays in the background. The focus is not on the piano so much as the composition of the songs. Monk brings in two friends who are quite familiar to us from the last album – Sonny Rollins (tenor saxophone) and Max Roach (percussion). They cement this record firmly in the hard bop tradition, joined by Ernie Henry on the alto sax, and Oscar Pettiford on the bass. Paul Chambers and Clark Terry contribute their talents for the last track “Bemsha Swing”. The fantastic musicianship is only matched by the compositions themselves, whether it be challenging like “Brilliant Corners”, lovely like “Pannonica”, or bombastic like the epic closer, “Bemsha Swing.”

               The use of dissonance comes out just a little bit here and there, such as in “Bemsha Swing”, but is almost totally absent from “Pannonica”, a song with a gorgeous melody (which seems to be a contrafact to Duke Ellington’s “Satin Doll”). Monk plays both the piano and the tinkling celeste, taking hold of an insanely catchy, gorgeous theme. The song pays tribute to Pannonica de Koenigswarter, a beloved patron of jazz who hosted numerous parties in the Bolivar Hotel and helped Monk’s career get off the ground. Thelonious Monk does save some spotlight time for his own piano, on “I Surrender Dear”, a cover of the classic standard by Harry Barris. Here, we can see a little bit more of Monk’s eccentric playing, as he moves back and forth from a flowing melody, to creating a very subtle swing beat with the bass notes. We really do see the extent of Monk’s piano talent, as he creates several different voices on the piano with just his two left hands. That solo piano track leads perfectly – so perfectly – into the piano intro of “Bemsha Swing”, which uses blasting horns and timpani to close the record with a slam bang finish. “Bemsha Swing” is the only standard on the record to have been recorded previously, on Monk’s 1954 self-titled record. Listening to those two versions side by side clearly shows Monk’s evolution as a musician. In 1954, “Bemsha Swing” is piano heavy, erratic, wild, and crazy. On Brilliant Corners, it’s no less wild, but much more intentional, clean, and danceable.

               Compared to other major jazz composers like Duke Ellington, Monk wrote relatively few standards – yet it should come as no surprise that these tunes remain some of the most popular to perform. They push boundaries and create unforgettable melodies and moods. They are at once opaquely complex and painstakingly delicate. It’s really just what one should expect from one of jazz’s most accomplished songwriters.