Small Big Discussion On Arranging.

raffaeleb wrote:

Who in the world could manage to make arrangements like Monk as if they were Monk?

I say, what sense would it make to arrange like Monk? It would serve a formative purpose, and then one does whatever they please.

The real problem is proposing something artistic and coherent

No one is untouchable, not even Bach, let alone Monk, so if someone starts from one of his pieces and wants to bring out something original, they are more than welcome. Anyone who takes the trouble to rearrange something does so to give it a personal touch, their own reimagining, unless they want to do a stylistic reconstruction, which is more an exercise than a complete form of expression. And besides, if that's the case, to enter Monk's spirit one would have to be Monk, not just play his pieces as they are in the real book, and then the same argument could be made for any other important jazz musician.... in my opinion, jazz is by excellence the music that should feed on contaminations, re-elaborations, personal reinterpretations, so why should Monk be excluded from this, out of some sort of mystical reverence..? Does Monk's color not come through? And what, should raffaeleb's color come out instead of Monk's..... and if all the other elements of the band are happy, there must be a reason...

Esbjörn Svensson's trio remade Monk's songs in a very interesting way; in some cases it goes almost into acid jazz, but with great taste and refinement.

I agree with the previous comments; furthermore, Jazz and non-Jazz alike, composers have always taken popular material or works from previous composers and revised them according to their own "canons."

Of course, as was being said, the difficult part is producing something artistic ... rather than just producing Monk, and I think he would agree

I would extend the discussion also to classical music, how does one interpret Bach... or others? We don't have the same mindset, and this is not only because we are different individuals but above all because we live in a different era.

Thank you all for the contributions.

I agree with all of you.

I will keep you informed about the follow-up