In December of 2022, Frank Carlberg released Trio-Reflections 1952 on 577 Records.   In October and December of 1952 Thelonious Monk, joined by (the mysterious) Gary Mapp and Art Blakey and Max Roach, went in to one of the early iterations of Rudy Van Gelder’s studio. Those two dates (plus a 1954 date that yielded another two pieces), recorded on a out-of-tune piano with tinny fidelity, produced with his trio some of the most glorious music of Monk’s recording career and in all of American improvised music, Monk Trio on Prestige.   On this recording we revisited that music and created our own impressions of it (no use trying to recreate it; we wouldn’t have been able to do it and they did it perfectly the first time anyway). “Reflecting Reflections” features various quotes by Monk collected by fellow musicians. On “Nicknames” you hear various monikers given to Monk (mostly by journalists) while accompanied by abstractions of a Monk piece originally written for his son (“little Rootie Tootie).  70 years after the original recordings, we want to celebrate this beautiful classic work with our own takes of the same pieces while tipping the cap to the master.