Well, pretty much. Back in the early fifties, Thelonious Monk wrote a tune, so the story goes, for his son Thelonious Jr. called “Little Rootie Tootie.” He recorded it for Prestige, which was not all that excited about Monk’s limited sales. Then after Monk moved to Riverside, the tune was redone, with Hall Overton rewriting Monk’s solo for a ten-piece band, available on the album/CD Thelonious at Town Hall.
Overton’s arrangement was a true classic, in my opinion, and it’s inspired a number of repeats, available here. First is a two-part video, dating from 1989, featuring a performance by a group of Italian performers who don’t seem to be known here in the U.S., “Giorgio Buratti, acoustic bass; M.Pintori drums; L.DiVirgilio keyboards; R.Manzin alto sax; G.P.Ferrari electric guitar.”
Next up is the WDR Big Band, with McCoy Tyner on piano and John Marshall on trumpet, from April 2008.
And then the Sir Real Band, from 2007.
And the Joe Zawinul Syndicate, live in Munich 1989
And here’s the Adelphi Magnet High School Band, apparently playing in the high school cafeteria, but doing a damn good job nonetheless.
Hall Overton was asked to orchestrate more Monk tunes in 1964 when Monk moved to Columbia, but somehow the magic wasn’t quite there. I don’t know how it was that Overton managed to write the only “great” big band arrangements for modern jazz. And I don’t know why no one else has been able to figure out how he did it.
