Bemsha Swing is a jazz standard co-written by Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Monk

Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...

 and Denzil Best

Denzil Best

Denzil DaCosta Best was an American jazz percussionist and composer born in New York City. He was a prominent bebop drummer in the 1950s and early '60s....

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The tune is 16 bars in the form of AABA. It is in 4/4 meter but is often played with a 2-feel. The melody consists of a motif around a descending C Spanish phrygian scale (the A section) and a chromatic sequencing

Sequence (music)

In music, a sequence is the immediate restatement of a motif or longer melodic passage at a higher or lower pitch in the same voice. It is one of the most common and simple methods of elaborating a melody in eighteenth and nineteenth century classical music...

 of the same motif a fourth higher on an F Spanish phrygian scale (the B section). The chordal movement by contrast suggests a C Major tonality rather than C Spanish phrygian, its relative minor f (melodic or harmonic), or its relative Major, A♭ Major. However, the song ends on a D♭maj7(#11) rather than a C chord, a displacement which is characteristic of Monk compositions.

The song was first recorded by Monk on the sessions for the album Thelonious Monk Trio

Thelonious Monk Trio

Thelonious Monk Trio is an album by jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk featuring his earliest recordings for the Prestige label performed by Monk with Gerry Mapp and Art Blakey or Max Roach and one track with Percy Heath replacing Mapp. The Allmusic review by Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr...

 in 1952. It was later recorded with Monk as a sideman on the Miles Davis

Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

 album Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants. Monk revisited the song on his acclaimed 1957 LP Brilliant Corners

Brilliant Corners

Brilliant Corners is a 1957 album by jazz musician Thelonious Monk. It was his third album for the Riverside label and the first, for this label, to include his own compositions. The complex title track required over a dozen takes in the studio, and is considered one of his most difficult...

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Rock band, Red Hot Chili Peppers

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Red Hot Chili Peppers is an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles in 1983. The group's musical style primarily consists of rock with an emphasis on funk, as well as elements from other genres such as punk, hip hop and psychedelic rock...

 covered the song durng their 1989-90 Mother's Milk tour

Mother's Milk tour

The Mother's Milk Tour was a worldwide concert tour by Red Hot Chili Peppers to support their fourth studio album Mother's Milk.Mother's Milk instantly garnered more attention than the band's previous records and, as such, the venues the band performed in were able to accommodate far larger crowds...

 renaming their version F.U. and adding some lyrics. A live version can be found on their Out In L.A.

Out in L.A.

Out in L.A. is a compilation of rare tracks by the Red Hot Chili Peppers released November 1, 1994 on EMI. The tracks contained are varied with the inclusion of four remixes, live cover songs by Jimi Hendrix and Thelonious Monk , demos and joke songs...

 album. Bassist, Flea

Flea (musician)

Michael Peter Balzary , better known by his stage name Flea, is an Australian-American musician and occasional actor. He is best known as the bassist, co-founding member, and one of the composers of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers...

 is a huge fan of Thelonious Monk.

In 2002, jazz fusion

Jazz fusion

Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...

 guitarist Larry Coryell

Larry Coryell

Larry Coryell is an American jazz fusion guitarist.-Biography:Coryell was born in Galveston, Texas. He graduated from Richland High School, in Richland, Washington, where he played in local bands The Jailers, The Rumblers, The Royals, and The Flames. He also played with The Checkers from nearby...

covered the song from his album "Cedars of Avalon."