DATE: Friday, June 30
TIME: 7:30 P.M.
TICKETS: $30 (with free post-show wine get together)

Rez Abbasi, guitar/bandleader; Nels Cline, Julian Lage, David Gilmore, Miles Okazaki, Liberty Ellman, Steve Cardenas, Anders Nilsson and Mike Baggetta, guitars; Stephan Crump and Jerome Harris, bass; Colin Stranahan, Richie Barshay and Mark Whitfield Jr, drums

No classic jazz composer’s art so lives and breathes night after night on bandstands across the country and around the world like that of Thelonious Monk. Melodically, harmonically, rhythmically and texturally, Monk’s music is always itself – fresh and accessible, surprising and renewable – even as it is interpreted by generation after generation, yielding new possibilities no matter the instrumental and stylistic variables. “Round Midnight,” “Straight, No Chaser,” “Epistrophy,” “In Walked Bud,” “Well, You Needn’t,” the list of timeless tunes goes on and on.

This season finale, and the capper of Sound It Out’s four special events marking the fifth-anniversary month of the series, will be an all-star celebration of Monk’s music – but, uniquely, via guitars, featuring an exciting revolving lineup of six-stringers: Rez Abbasi, Nels Cline, Julian Lage, David Gilmore, Miles Okazaki, Liberty Ellman, Steve Cardenas, Anders Nilsson and Mike Baggetta. Joining these guitarists will be Stephan Crump and Jerome Harris on bass, as well as Colin Stranahan, Richie Barshay and Mark Whitfield Jr on drums. Ticket proceeds will go to help fund Greenwich House Music School, whose wonderful hospitality makes Sound It Out possible.

On a sad note, this concert will be dedicated to the memory of pianist Geri Allen, who passed away on June 27 at age 60. A broadly inspiring figure in jazz, Geri happened to be, among many other things, a wonderfully individual interpreter of Monk’s music, her performances as deeply felt as they were deeply considered.