Pianoless Monk covers with an outside twist, fronted by clarinet. The trio are big-name local players who obviously relish the chance to really dig into these compositions, some of which are pretty obscure (to me, anyway). Ben Goldberg's clarinet takes front stage, but pay attention to Devin Hoff on bass and Scott Amendola on drums too, as they contribute some good ideas (track 6 comes to mind) and nifty solos.

These guys are all busy in other bands all the time, but they did lots of gigs as the Plays Monk trio for years before recording this CD, so they've had lots of time to work the material inside and out, and to cohere as a group.

1- Spinning mid/fast, nicely dizzy
2- Midtempo. Nice drums & bass intro.
3- Upbeat. Midtempo with a wide-sweeping kind of swing.
4- Slow upbeat mood, with a bit of old-time-jazzy romance
5- Perky, with subversive bubbling bass & drums in the intro
6- Hard-digging bassline, kind of a sneaky feel.
7- Melody gets ground out on bass. A relaxed mid/fast feel.
8- Quick and twirly
9- Easygoing saunter
10- Peppy and propulsive, mid/fast. Nice clarinet work.