Of all the many different songs that I love, some have stayed with me for so long, have shaped me so thoroughly, that they have become a sort of permanent marker in my personal history.

I have a fairly clear memory of walking down Rothchild Street in Tel Aviv at an all night street fair, when I was around 18 years old. The street was filled with specially built stages, with live music playing down every major avenue. I was walking along with some friends when I came across one of the stages with a big, well lit white grand piano, and a pianist who was playing this song - I’m Confessin’ (That I Love You) - An old Jazz standard. I remember I had to stop and look in awe, that I had to take in everything that was happening: The music, the night sky, the big white piano, the pianist playing by himself, the crowd that kept walking by. Something about it was just perfect.

I don’t remember if the pianist was playing this particular version on I’m Confessin’, but a few years after that night I found this album and this song on it, and felt that I had unearthed a treasure.

Thelonious Monk is arguably one of the greatest American artists of the 20th century. Bebop, Stravinski, Gospel, impressionism, all wrapped up in one swinging bundle - what more could you ask for? Monk’s genius is unparalleled, his compositions instantly recognizable, and his playing completely transforms anything he chooses to adapt. Musicians know that it is nearly impossible to play a Monk tune without trying to sound like Monk - it just feels like there’s no other way to do it!

I treated this transcription almost like a classical piece - I wanted to play all the tiny nuances, ghost notes and weird chords as if they were thoroughly composed and worked out beforehand - which again goes to show the incredible level of real-time composition that Monk had at his fingertips.

Whether this arrangement is the only way Monk could play, or a very deliberate choice out of the many piano styles that were available to him, this was and remains one of my favorite solo piano pieces, and a favorite of many of the people I got to play it for. Something about the feeling behind this interpretation belongs to the truest essence of music in my opinion, which feels like just about the highest value I can ascribe to any song out there.