Tony Kofi - Plays Monk: All Is Know (2004/2019)

This is the debut album as leader from one of the UK's hottest jazz properties - saxophonist Tony Kofi. Kofi's rise through the ranks has been one of the greatest stories in the UK's jazz scene over the last 10 years. Starting out as part of the legendary Jazz Warriors, Tony Kofi went on to work with nearly every important band on the UK scene throughout the 90s, from the acid jazz of Lonnie Smith and US3 to the searching bands of Branford Marsalis, Julian Arguelles and David Murray. This album is the culmination of 5 years' study by Tony and the musicians associated with his Monk Liberation Front project, and heralds the arrival of this great talent as a bandleader, fully formed as a soloist and with a real A-Team rhythm section behind him (Jonathan Gee, Piano; Winston Clifford, drums; Ben Hazelton, bass plus Orphy Robinson, vibes). The musicians take the familiar, and not-so-familiar, themes of Thelonious Monk, giving them a true contemporary feel while never losing sight of the tradition they represent