J. R. Monterose
Encyclopedia
J. R. Monterose born Frank Anthony Peter Vincent Monterose, Jr. in Detroit
, Michigan
,
was an American
jazz
tenor
(and occasional soprano
) saxophonist.
, New York
, where his family moved a few months after his birth. He began formal clarinet
studies at thirteen, but was largely self taught as a tenor saxophonist, which he took up at fifteen after hearing Glenn Miller
band soloist Tex Beneke
. His earliest stylistic influences were Coleman Hawkins
and Chu Berry, but, as he told critic Leonard Feather
, he also found harmonic inspiration in pianists, citing particularly the example of Bud Powell
and the instruction of Utica-based guitarist and pianist Sam Mancuso in helping him learn how to use chord changes.
's touring orchestra. After a brief return to Utica, he joined the Buddy Rich
big band in late 1951. Though the band had some excellent bop-oriented musicians (Rich, Dave Schildkraut
, Allen Eager
and Philly Joe Jones
) he soon left, citing the lack of soloing opportunities. "After six months I was drugged with my own playing," he declared in a 1956 interview, "and I went back home and spent the next couple of years working in little joints but with good men."
In New York City
in the mid to late 1950s, Monterose was a featured soloist with Claude Thornhill
's orchestra and with vibraphonist Teddy Charles
' modernist groups, Charles Mingus
's Jazz Workshop and Kenny Dorham
's short-lived Jazz Prophets. Dorham, Monterose told critic Mark Gardner in 1975, "was one of the greatest leaders and players I ever played for. . . . A wonderful musician." He also recorded two sessions as leader, J. R. Monterose
(Blue Note, 1956) produced by Alfred Lion
with liner notes by Leonard Feather
and The Message (JARO, 1959) produced by Manny Albam
with Nat Hentoff
providing commentary.
The record of Monterose's life thereafter, however, is one of sparsely documented itinerancy, pursuing his ever evolving craft in small time U.S. venues and during extended stays (late 1960s through the mid-1970s) in Belgium
, The Netherlands and Denmark
, with occasional low-profile recordings (In Action, Body and Soul) recorded in such places as Cedar Rapids
, Iowa
, and Wageningen
, The Netherlands. His preference for small group work in out of the way places would shape much of his subsequent career, contributing to the musical growth upon which he was always so intently focused but ultimately relegating him to an undeserved obscurity.
The last decade and a half of Monterose's life was spent gigging mostly at various upstate New York venues, including the Lark Tavern in Albany
. Live recordings at the Lark and other upstate New York venues such as Opus 40
have been released by Croscrane Records. A 1981 duet recording with old friend Tommy Flanagan
(A Little Pleasure, Reservoir) presents Monterose at his best and features some rare and very fine work on soprano. His visit to play Copenhagen
's Jazzhuz in 1988, recorded by Danish Broadcasting, has been released by Storyville under the title T.T.T. Other live recordings from his final years, when he was in less than robust health, are available on the Croscrane specialty label.
, Sonny Rollins
and John Coltrane
, but steadfastly refused to be pigeonholed in any particular style. "I've tried all my life to avoid copying. If I can't be myself, there's no point being in jazz." It was precisely this uncompromising insistence on going his own way, both musically and geographically, that moved jazz historian and writer David Brent Johnson to describe Monterose as "The Best Tenor You Never Heard."
With Charles Mingus
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
, Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
,
was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
tenor
Tenor saxophone
The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...
(and occasional soprano
Soprano saxophone
The soprano saxophone is a variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument, invented in 1840. The soprano is the third smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists of the soprillo, sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass, contrabass and tubax.A transposing instrument pitched in...
) saxophonist.
Early life
J.R. or JR (derived from Jr.) Monterose grew up in UticaUtica, New York
Utica is a city in and the county seat of Oneida County, New York, United States. The population was 62,235 at the 2010 census, an increase of 2.6% from the 2000 census....
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, where his family moved a few months after his birth. He began formal clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
studies at thirteen, but was largely self taught as a tenor saxophonist, which he took up at fifteen after hearing Glenn Miller
Glenn Miller
Alton Glenn Miller was an American jazz musician , arranger, composer, and bandleader in the swing era. He was one of the best-selling recording artists from 1939 to 1943, leading one of the best known "Big Bands"...
band soloist Tex Beneke
Tex Beneke
Gordon Lee Beneke , professionally known as Tex Beneke, was an American saxophonist, singer, and bandleader. His career is a history of associations with bandleader Glenn Miller and former musicians and singers who worked with Miller. His band is also associated with the careers of Eydie Gorme...
. His earliest stylistic influences were Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...
and Chu Berry, but, as he told critic Leonard Feather
Leonard Feather
Leonard Geoffrey Feather was a British-born jazz pianist, composer, and producer who was best known for his music journalism and other writing.-Biography:...
, he also found harmonic inspiration in pianists, citing particularly the example of Bud Powell
Bud Powell
Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell was an American Jazz pianist. Powell has been described as one of "the two most significant pianists of the style of modern jazz that came to be known as bop", the other being his friend and contemporary Thelonious Monk...
and the instruction of Utica-based guitarist and pianist Sam Mancuso in helping him learn how to use chord changes.
Professional career
Monterose's first professional experience was playing in upstate New York territory dance bands (1947–49). In 1950 he joined Henry "Hot Lips" BusseHenry Busse
Henry Busse Sr. was a jazz trumpeter known for work with sweet bands and big bands.-Early life:Born May 19, 1894 to a generational German Band family. Henry Busse studied violin and then trumpet under his Oompah Band leader uncle...
's touring orchestra. After a brief return to Utica, he joined the Buddy Rich
Buddy Rich
Bernard "Buddy" Rich was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was billed as "the world's greatest drummer" and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed.-Early life:...
big band in late 1951. Though the band had some excellent bop-oriented musicians (Rich, Dave Schildkraut
Dave Schildkraut
Dave Schildkraut was an American jazz alto saxophonist.Schildkraut first played professionally with Louis Prima in 1941...
, Allen Eager
Allen Eager
Allen Eager was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.Eager first played jazz as a teenager during World War II in the bands of Bobby Sherwood, Sonny Dunham, Shorty Sherock, Hal McIntyre, Woody Herman, Tommy Dorsey, and Johnny Bothwell...
and Philly Joe Jones
Philly Joe Jones
Joseph Rudolph Jones was a Philadelphia-born United States jazz drummer, known as the drummer for the Miles Davis Quintet.Philly Joe Jones was often confused with another influential jazz drummer, Jo Jones...
) he soon left, citing the lack of soloing opportunities. "After six months I was drugged with my own playing," he declared in a 1956 interview, "and I went back home and spent the next couple of years working in little joints but with good men."
In New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in the mid to late 1950s, Monterose was a featured soloist with Claude Thornhill
Claude Thornhill
Claude Thornhill was an American pianist, arranger, composer, and bandleader...
's orchestra and with vibraphonist Teddy Charles
Teddy Charles
Teddy Charles is an American jazz pianist, drummer and vibraphone musician. Born Theodore Charles Cohen in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, he began his musical career studying at Juilliard School of Music as a percussionist...
' modernist groups, Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
's Jazz Workshop and Kenny Dorham
Kenny Dorham
McKinley Howard Dorham was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and composer born in Fairfield, Texas. Dorham's talent is frequently lauded by critics and other musicians, but he never received the kind of attention from the jazz establishment that many of his peers did...
's short-lived Jazz Prophets. Dorham, Monterose told critic Mark Gardner in 1975, "was one of the greatest leaders and players I ever played for. . . . A wonderful musician." He also recorded two sessions as leader, J. R. Monterose
J. R. Monterose (album)
J. R. Monterose is the debut album by American saxophonist J. R. Monterose recorded in 1956 and released on the Blue Note label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine awarded the album 4½ stars and stated "J. R...
(Blue Note, 1956) produced by Alfred Lion
Alfred Lion
Alfred Lion was a Jewish German-born American record executive who co-founded Blue Note Records in 1939 Blue Note recorded many of the biggest names in jazz throughout the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.-Biography:...
with liner notes by Leonard Feather
Leonard Feather
Leonard Geoffrey Feather was a British-born jazz pianist, composer, and producer who was best known for his music journalism and other writing.-Biography:...
and The Message (JARO, 1959) produced by Manny Albam
Manny Albam
Manny Albam was a jazz baritone saxophone player who eventually put the instrument down in favour of a long and respected career as an arranger, writer, and teacher.-Biography:The son of Lithuanian immigrants, who was born in the Dominican Republic when his mother went into labour en route...
with Nat Hentoff
Nat Hentoff
Nathan Irving "Nat" Hentoff is an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media and writes regularly on jazz and country music for The Wall Street Journal....
providing commentary.
The record of Monterose's life thereafter, however, is one of sparsely documented itinerancy, pursuing his ever evolving craft in small time U.S. venues and during extended stays (late 1960s through the mid-1970s) in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, The Netherlands and Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, with occasional low-profile recordings (In Action, Body and Soul) recorded in such places as Cedar Rapids
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Cedar Rapids is the second largest city in Iowa and is the county seat of Linn County. The city lies on both banks of the Cedar River, north of Iowa City and east of Des Moines, the state's capital and largest city...
, Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
, and Wageningen
Wageningen
' is a municipality and a historical town in the central Netherlands, in the province of Gelderland. It is famous for Wageningen University, which specializes in life sciences. The city has 37,414 inhabitants , of which many thousands are students...
, The Netherlands. His preference for small group work in out of the way places would shape much of his subsequent career, contributing to the musical growth upon which he was always so intently focused but ultimately relegating him to an undeserved obscurity.
The last decade and a half of Monterose's life was spent gigging mostly at various upstate New York venues, including the Lark Tavern in Albany
Albany, New York
Albany is the capital city of the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Albany County, and the central city of New York's Capital District. Roughly north of New York City, Albany sits on the west bank of the Hudson River, about south of its confluence with the Mohawk River...
. Live recordings at the Lark and other upstate New York venues such as Opus 40
Opus 40
Opus 40 is a large environmental sculpture in Saugerties, New York, created by sculptor and quarryman Harvey Fite . It comprises a sprawling series of dry-stone ramps, pedestals and platforms covering of a bluestone quarry.-Overview:...
have been released by Croscrane Records. A 1981 duet recording with old friend Tommy Flanagan
Tommy Flanagan
Thomas Lee Flanagan was an American jazz pianist born in Detroit, Michigan, particularly remembered for his work with Ella Fitzgerald...
(A Little Pleasure, Reservoir) presents Monterose at his best and features some rare and very fine work on soprano. His visit to play Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
's Jazzhuz in 1988, recorded by Danish Broadcasting, has been released by Storyville under the title T.T.T. Other live recordings from his final years, when he was in less than robust health, are available on the Croscrane specialty label.
Influence and legacy
While Monterose considered himself an underground artist, his work, both as player and composer, remains esteemed by musicians, critics and aficionados of classic jazz. He never denied having been influenced by Stan GetzStan Getz
Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...
, Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins
Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins is a Grammy-winning American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. A number of his compositions, including "St...
and John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
, but steadfastly refused to be pigeonholed in any particular style. "I've tried all my life to avoid copying. If I can't be myself, there's no point being in jazz." It was precisely this uncompromising insistence on going his own way, both musically and geographically, that moved jazz historian and writer David Brent Johnson to describe Monterose as "The Best Tenor You Never Heard."
As leader
- 1956: J. R. MonteroseJ. R. Monterose (album)J. R. Monterose is the debut album by American saxophonist J. R. Monterose recorded in 1956 and released on the Blue Note label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine awarded the album 4½ stars and stated "J. R...
(Blue NoteBlue Note RecordsBlue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters...
) - 1959: The Message (Xanadu RecordsXanadu RecordsXanadu Records was a jazz music record label specializing in bebop throughout the 1970s and 1980s founded by Don Schlitten, recording and issuing recordings by some legendary names in jazz music.-Discography:...
) - 1963: Live At The Tender Trap, (Fresh Sound) with Al JarreauAl JarreauAlwin "Al" Lopez Jarreau is a seven-time Grammy Award winning jazz singer.- Background :Jarreau was born in Milwaukee, the fifth of six children. His web site refers to Reservoir, Inc., the name of the street where he lived. His father was a Seventh-Day Adventist Church minister and singer, and...
- 1970: Body And Soul (Munich)
- 1981: And A Little Pleasure (Uptown) with Tommy Flanagan
- 1988: T. T. T. (StoryvilleStoryville RecordsStoryville Records is a large international record label based in Copenhagen, Denmark, specializing in jazz and blues music. Besides its original material, Storyville Records has licensed and reissued many vintage jazz recordings that previously appeared on such labels as Paramount Records,...
)
As sideman
With Kenny DorhamKenny Dorham
McKinley Howard Dorham was an American jazz trumpeter, singer, and composer born in Fairfield, Texas. Dorham's talent is frequently lauded by critics and other musicians, but he never received the kind of attention from the jazz establishment that many of his peers did...
- 'Round About Midnight at the Cafe Bohemia'Round About Midnight at the Cafe BohemiaRound About Midnight at the Cafe Bohemia is a live album by American jazz trumpeter Kenny Dorham featuring performances recorded in 1956 and released on the Blue Note label. The album was originally released in 1956 in two volumes with a third volume released later on the Japanese Blue Note label...
(Blue Note, 1956)
With Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus
Charles Mingus Jr. was an American jazz musician, composer, bandleader, and civil rights activist.Mingus's compositions retained the hot and soulful feel of hard bop and drew heavily from black gospel music while sometimes drawing on elements of Third stream, free jazz, and classical music...
- Pithecanthropus Erectus (1956)