This remnant will be replaced soon. The FAQ is back, with a new design! What is "Jump Monk"? A song by Charles Mingus. No, it isn't an original. It is also labelled (see 3-12-88, aka 3-12-89 and 3-12-90) as "Gamehendge Jazz" or "Gamehenge Intro", though this is not part of TMWSIY nor does it appear to have relation to the Gamehendge saga. "Charles Mingus was a prominent jazz composer and bass player from about the mid-50s until his death in the late 70s. He had a very distinctive sound, and for a time he wasn't widely appreciated because his music was so unique and hard to categorize (sound familiar?). However, he's now regarded as one of the great jazz composers. He was a very dark, disturbed, and angry man, but he was also capable of great warmth and love -- and you can hear all of it in his music. His song "Jump Monk", which Phish has covered, was written as a tribute to jazz pianist/composer Thelonious Monk, another one of the greats (the title came from the fact that Monk was always jumping and dancing around). Trey said he used part of the chord progression to "Jump Monk" in "Stash." I checked the chart in "Charles Mingus: More than a Fake Book" (an excellent collection put together in part by Andrew Homzy, who hangs around r.m.bluenote), and it's very obvious that Trey wasn't kidding. So if the rest of you Phishites are looking for somebody new to dig into, give Ming a listen." (Joshua Paxton circa 1993) "We won't record any covers. ... I don't think that most of the covers we do are in an original enough fashion to merit putting them on an album. .. Its something we just don't put that much energy into. The covers that we learn, we learn because they're great songs and we play around. ... It's kind of more like educational material than it is something that we want to ... put our stamp on." -- Jon Fishman, 4/22/92 interview with Shelly Culbertson This page last updated February 03, 2007. All contents © 1992-2007 Ellis Godard. All rights reserved.