'Brilliant Corners'

Thelonious Monk played piano. On the song "Pannonica," he also played the celeste. It's a piano-like instrument that uses hammers to produce a very soft, metallic sound. It's beautiful (thus the name) and reminds me of the sound used whenever the trolley rolls through on Mister Roger's Neighborhood.

I always admire the jazz junkies that can memorize all of the players on a particular album.

Ernie Henry played alto saxophone. He played with many others include Dizzy Gillespie and Charles Mingus through the 1940s and 1950s. He died almost mysteriously at 31 in 1957 apparently due to drugs just after finishing this album.

Sonny Rollins was 20 by the time he was playing with the likes of Monk. He still plays outliving all of his contemporaries. He, too, was mixed up in drugs, notably heroin having been busted for using as a teenager.

Oscar Pettiford was of Native American and African American heritage. Two years after recording the bass for Monk, he inexplicably moved to Denmark (maybe the schools are good there) and died a year later, in 1960s. He was 38. There is no actual explanation for his death. Rumors range from murder to a viral infection to complications from a previous car accident.

Max Roach is actually one of the foremost musicians on this album and one of the greatest jazz drummers of all time. He lead a long, full life, footnoted by his work in the civil rights movement in the 1960s.