One of my all time favorite album’s has got to be Chick Corea’s “Now He Sings, Now He Sobs” - an amazing adventure from start to finish. It’s an exploration of the lines between playing “inside” the form of a tune, and going beyond. On the reissue of the original LP onto CD, there are a few tunes not included on the initial release. One of those tunes is Thelonious Monk’s “Pannonica.”
Chick’s version was the first version that I listened to, and compared to the original, it’s a bit more up-tempo than the original version by Monk. In that spirit, I wanted to record this with a bassist who I knew had all the virtuosity of Miroslav Vitous (who appears on “Now He Sings, Now He Sobs” - Or Bareket! Or and I have recorded a few videos together now, you can check them out here.
The tune has a bunch of harmonic twists and turns, and goes to some unexpected places, which makes it a lot of fun to improvise over. I hope you’ll check out some other versions of this tune, and maybe even add it to your repertoire!