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Vanguard Jazz Orchestra

It's hard to get a steady gig in New York. When you've had one for more than four decades, it's worth celebrating. Such is the case for the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. It's been playing every Monday night at the famed Village Vanguard since the mid-1960s. To commemorate the milestone, the 16-piece ensemble released Monday Night Live at the Village Vanguard last year and won a Grammy for its efforts. The disc features tunes from a repertoire — equal parts bold, bullish and debonair — established by founders Thad Jones and Mel Lewis.

There's something about live recordings at the Vanguard. Maybe it's the ambient noise. You get the same feeling from recordings like Bill Evans' Sunday at the Village Vanguard. Clinking glasses, animated chatter, sporadic applause, a woman's laugh. It feels right. Unless the audience brings cocktails, it's unlikely you'll hear glasses clinking at Connecticut College (8 p.m., Nov. 6. John C. Evans Hall, 270 Mohegan Ave., New London. $11-$22. 860-439-2787, onstage.conncoll.edu), but we're sure it will feel right.

If you missed Robin D. G. Kelley's appearance last month in North Haven, check out his book, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original. Kelley, a professor of history at the University of Southern California, spent 14 years on the book, including two sorting through a storage shed left behind by Monk's widow, the late Nellie Monk. The result is this massive book, as big as the life it chronicles.

Monk remains mythic. His hats, his habit of moaning while playing, of getting up and walking and dancing around the stage, and his impish sense of humor (he loved pranks) — all of these conspired to create a mystique that often worked to the musician's advantage but that obscures the historian's view. And by the time he emerged into the mainstream, a certain racial lens was at work that only clouded our perspective. Monk was often described by white writers as "intuitive," "uncommunicative," "possessing a child's vision," "untrained" and a jazzbeard with no interest in "serious music." To my ears, that's a kind of Noble Savage-speak. At any rate, Kelley aims to straighten the record. Monk was well trained and hard-working. And he loved classical music. Kelley hopes to balance Monk's brilliance and historic achievements with his quirks and serious problems (bipolar disorder) to take the true measure of the man. Dedicated readers of jazz history and students of Cold War and Civil Rights Era culture won't be disappointed.

editor@newhavenadvocate.com