Harmonious Monk

“Harmonious Monk's performances are exuberant explosions of creativity.  Brave souls playing bold improvised music, and still managing to pack the dance floor.  I love watching these guys play!  Tons of interaction with each other and the audience, and a very high level of musicianship from top to bottom.  Highly recommended.” - Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey Bassist

“Harmonious Monk has stepped up and become the latest face of modern jazz to Tulsa’s younger audience, turning a new generation on to the genre. These guys are the real deal. What you should do is find them and appreciate what we’ve got before their muse leads them off and onto a national platform.”

FULL ARTICLE: http://www.urbantulsa.com/article.asp?id=2948 - Urban Tulsa Weekly (http://www.urbantulsa.com/index2.asp?issue_id=293)

"Jazz is a living and ever changing musical art form. The music has
always been in need of new solo voices, new composers and new stylistic
directions. "Harmonious Monk" is a band that provides the contemporary
jazz world with a breath of fresh air, vitality and originality. Without such innovators, the music would die. I am proud to call them students, friends and colleagues!" - Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Tulsa

“Harmonious Monk's music is on the cutting edge of what’s new and exciting in the world of jazz. The raw talent that these guys pour out from the stage is far beyond their years. I have never been disappointed with a show and especially look forward to live improv sessions when ever I can. If you're tired of the cookie cutter clutter that so many bands are producing take a break to something new and inventive with Harmonious Monk.”  - Charlie Seven from RSU Radio 91.3 Claremore, OK

Fame's limelight


By MATT ELLIOTT World Scene Writer
4/20/2007

Harmonious Monk takes the next step in band's evolution


Tulsa jazz band Harmonious Monk will play the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame for the first time Sunday.

The show, the first time the group has been showcased in what has become the premiere jazz series in Northeast Oklahoma, comes as the group is writing new material and preparing for a summer tour.

Harmonious Monk, a band that produces a sound that blends smooth jazz with a case of funk indigestion, comes armed with a new bass player, Nigel Frye, and the experience that comes from months of playing shows.

Guitarist Sean Al-Jibouri, a University of Tulsa student who plays with the college's guitar ensemble, said the band is looking forward to playing the Hall of Fame. It'll be a change for Harmonious Monk, as the band has generally played for younger audiences, although its members have played the hall with other groups.

Chuck Cissell, the hall's chief executive officer, "has been really supportive and nice with us. He's been a really great encouragement," said Al-Jibouri, who works part time teaching guitar lessons at an Owasso music store.

The band, which
includes saxophonist Andy McCormick and drummer Andrew Bones, will be performing music from artists that include Duke Ellington and Antonio Carlos Jobim.

Harmonious Monk will be headed to all corners of the country this summer, on a tour that could prove hard on the band members' pocketbooks as well as their sleep patterns.

"I remember last summer. I actually ran out of money the last week we were out of town," Al-Jibouri said. "I just bummed off the rest of the band members."

The band spent the summer sleeping in McCormick's parents' van, camped in Colorado, stayed with some friends when it could, and even had a rare motel room.

Sometimes the band would get caught wandering a city until 4 a.m., looking for a cheap place to catch a couple hours of sleep before hitting the road again.

This summer, the band will need a van or a small bus to get around in, he said.

"It's really rewarding, really fun. We just like playing music. It's just fun to get out and meet people all over the place that we've never played for before." - Tulsa World

Harmonious Monk has won the Best Jazz Act Award for the 2006 Spotniks Award presentation.. - Tulsa World

”The last band of the night was local hero and my personal favorite, Harmonious Monk. This quartet from Tulsa is one of the most talented and innovative bands around. Their seamless fusion of jazz, R & B, hip-hop, and jam-funk is the essence of cool and brings a level of energy that is infectious and leaves the crowd no choice but to dance, jump, clap, and just feel good about life. They showed complete mastery over their instruments and held the grooving crowd in a zen-like trance.”

FULL ARTICLE: http://www.utulsa.edu/collegian/article.asp?article=2770 - The Collegian (University of Tulsa Newspaper)

"I had the extreme pleasure of seeing and hearing the young and talented Harmonious Monk in Tulsa, OK last week: emphasis on pleasure. I have not heard a jazz quartet like this in a long time. Most jazz bands this enjoyable have been 20 years their senior and have experience to thank for their cream of the crop position. HM, who knows – I just know they’re good, well beyond their years.

Perhaps this is because they practice subtlety amongst the display of chops? Fluid lines intertwined with staccato full band accents remind me of NYC jazz: think mid ‘80s Mike Stern, Michael Brecker and John Scofield, but with a larger set of influences from which to extract and not afraid to sound pleasant too. They seem to have figured out a perfect mix of easy to listen to (not to be confused with “easy listening”) melodies with harmonic and rhythmic surprises. Never a dull moment. Check out their clips online at (http://www.myspace.com/harmoniousmonk).

To top this off they are a great bunch to work with. I provided audio support at their Dfest (http://www.dfest.com) showcase using a trio of Bose L1 Personalized Amplification Systems (http://www.bose.com/musicians). Most of the bands showcasing here needed a primer on the difference between excessive volume and good sound, especially in small brick-and-glass venues: you can have one or the other, but not both. Harmonious Monk was the exception. Sean Al-Jibouri on electric guitar was ready with his amp on “just enough” so I could mic it and use the L1 to distribute to everybody. Bo on bass plugged directly in to his L1 and sounded great everywhere – not burying the room in boom. Andy (Doug) McCormick on sax had his own sax mic making my job easy - plug 'n' play. And last, but not least, Andrew Bones on drums knew what “dynamics” means. He drove the band through lows and highs without over-saturating this highly reverberant room with high SPL cymbal and snare – in a word: control.

Would I go see them again? Absolutely! You should too . J

--
Mark Chipeur
Senior Market Representative, Central USA
- Personalized Amplification System™ Family of Products
- L1™ Cylindrical Radiator Loudspeaker
Bose Corporation
Live Music Technology Group
Email: mark_chipeur@bose.com
Web: http://www.bose.com/musicians
- Mark Chipeur

article: http://www.tulsaworld.com/MusicStory.asp?ID=060804_Mu_s18_new

New chapter in musical tale
By MATT GLEASON World Scene Writer
8/4/2006

View in Print (PDF) Format



Improvisational riffs make new Harmonius Monk CD a gem

Harmonious Monk's new self-titled disc simply captures one version of the local progressive jazz outfit's ever-changing musical tale, explained drummer/percussionist Andrew Owen Bones.

In the recorded version of that story, Andy Doug McCormick blows a tenor sax in ways that honor bebop greats Wayne Shorter, John Coltrane and Joe Henderson.

Harmonious' bassist Bo Wayne Hallford, who is known for his goofy sense of humor, praised McCormick's halcyon sound as one that "makes you want to cuddle."

On "Pushed Slowly Away," the cuddle-worthy sound is matched with Hallford's plump, fretless bass lines, which flow beneath Sean Daniel Al-Jibouri's crystalline guitar notes.

Rounding out the band's sound is Bones, who once played an elaborate drum set but now prefers a minimalist approach.

On the mellow cut "Orbits," it's Bones' cymbal swells that were recorded and then played backward to trippy effect. And it was Bones who clanged subdued-sounding gongs on the track.

"They are tuned to notes," Bones explained about his gongs. "I realized at that time that they worked perfect for 'Orbits.' They are hitting

notes and harmonies with the melodic stuff that was going on. I didn't even know that would happen, I just wanted a gong there."
On another tune, "Crushing the People," the innovative percussionist actually played a milk jug.

"It's an old school milk jug that I found in my grandma's house," he said. "After she passed away, I found it in her garage. It's just got this beautiful, warm tone."

Harmonious can set a calming mood on songs such as "Orbits" and "Blue Cornbread," but by no means is it in danger of lulling its fans to sleep Kenny G-style.

Far from it.

In the wacked-out, Critters Buggin'-like ditty, "Captain Dookie," the band gets funky on a tune that was named for a chihuahua.

"It's named after my sister's pup," Bones said, "because it sounded like a dog running through a room, knocking over stuff."

"Captain Dookie" comes complete with spacy effects and features guest Dylan Aycock, aka DJ Komplex, scratching on turntables. Dig his signature sample quote, "What does it all mean?"

Jared Tyler, an acclaimed local artist himself, mixed the record and adds a gossamer-like, almost operatic melody played on an almost unrecognizable dobro played with an E-bow.

One of the other highlights of the disc comes when Al-Jibouri -- a fella who once had a penchant for playing behind his head Hendrix-style -- busts out with squealing metal riffs in a jazz tune.

Bassist Hallford recalled how those unexpected guitar heroics went over well with a high school-aged crowd at a punk rock club in Springfield, Ill.

"Everybody was like, 'Wow! What do you call that? Jazz-metal?' " Hallford said.

The leadoff cut on the CD, "Robot Sex Party," also finds Al-Jibouri veering into unexpected terrain with high, jittery guitar notes that stand in for, well, promiscuous robots in the heat of passion.

"Back in the day, we were way more into like making like odd meters and making the meters as f---ed up as we could," Bones explaining about the origin of "Robot Sex Party." "Now we're thinking more like projecting emotions, grooving and getting people thinking instead of just, you know, messing people up."



Harmonious Monk CD release party

When: 10 p.m. Saturday

Where: Tsunami Sushi, 309 E. Second St. Admission: free



- Tulsa World SPOT

“He’s like, the jazz uncle of Tulsa…” He, of course, is local jazz great, Brian Haas. This conclusion came after several minutes of a Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey love fest, where the members of Harmonious Monk gave much credit to the hugely successful jazz trio .
It’s refreshing to hear such reverence from young talent, but trust me, they’re being very humble. After all, they have a sushi roll named after them. Kind of. “Our favorite place to play in Tulsa is Tsunami Sushi,” they all agree. They say you can order the Harmonious Monk roll, but it’s not technically
on the menu.
After Andrew said repeatedly that he wanted to give Square readers something “graphic and nasty,” about the band, I admittedly left the interview disappointed. These guys are funny, sure, but they certainly
never alluded to anything racier than a story-from-the-road about ‘the ugliest girl in the world,’ which was hilarious, but (thankfully) not graphic. Two days later, at a show at Cain’s Ballroom, Andrew finally came through on his initial promise. During
the HM original, ‘Robot Sex Party,’ two very homemade, very awesome cardboard robots danced their way onstage and began getting their proverbial “groove” on, to say the least. The crowd of course went crazy, which just goes to show- Harmonious Monk never disappoints.
Local prominence aside, according to these guys it’s hard being a jazz band in 2007. “A lot of people are turned off by music without
words,” says sax player Andy McCormick.
“Yeah,” adds Andrew, “people’s attention
spans are so much shorter now.” He has a point- you know you’ll push a button to bypass the 3 seconds in between songs on a cd. So how do they avoid becoming jaded? They really love jazz music, and they want you to know that jazz loves you, too. - Square Magazine - Tulsa, OK