Thelonious Monk Brilliant Corners (Small Batch Series) Numbered Limited Edition One-Step 180g LP (Mono)

Michael Fremer Rated 11/10 Music, 10/10 Sound!

Thelonious Monk's Brilliant Corners is a landmark title in the pianist's celebrated catalog. The 1957 album not only introduces several Monk originals, but also features an all-star lineup, including Sonny Rollins, Max Roach and Paul Chambers.

Small Batch Series features lacquers cut from the original tapes (AAA) by Bernie Grundman and pressed on 180g vinyl at RTI using Neotech's VR900 compound. This one-step lacquer process (as opposed to the standard three-step process) allows for the utmost level of musical detail, clarity and dynamics while reducing the amount of surface noise on the record.

Each copy is individually numbered and encased in a foil-stamped, linen-wrapped slipcase featuring an acrylic inset of the original artwork. Housed in a reproduction of the album's original tip-on jacket from Riverside Records and protected by an archival-quality inner sleeve. New liner notes from Ashley Kahn completes the package.

Released in April 1957, Brilliant Corners was transformative for Monk's career, delivering him a major comeback. The album was met with wide acclaim, including from DownBeat's Nat Hentoff, who proclaimed it "Riverside's most important modern jazz LP to date." In 2003, the album was among the first 50 recordings chosen for the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry, while over the decades, Brilliant Corners has ranked regularly as an essential jazz title.

I bet some listeners might prefer the 'stereo' edition, which has a slightly fatter lower mid bass that gives Max Roach's drum kit greater 'wallop'. And probably, as with the Miles 'One Step', where the hard, somewhat harsh but accurately reproduced muted trumpet 'offended' lovers of the noisy, somewhat compressed Prestige original , some will find this 'One Step' a bit 'in your face', but not I! While the Neotech VR900 vinyl compound can sometimes sound soft, here it does not, but it surely is dead quiet. The quiet further expresses the skilled front to back layering in Jack Higgins' live mix...on 'Bemsha Swing' from the second recording session, where the sound is quite different and Roach's drum kit is pushed further back on the soundstage, the NeoTech VR900's quiet (plus probably the 'One Step' process), proves its worth. You really catch all of what Roach is doing.