Blues Five Spot is a Thelonious Monk composition recorded live at the Five Spot Café in New York in 1958, during Monk's late 1950s quartet era between Coltrane and Rouse. It is a long, bluesy 12-bar piece dedicated to the club, showcasing Monk's angular piano lines and inventive rhythms. The original performance features Johnny Griffin on tenor, Ahmed Abdul-Malik on bass, and Roy Haynes on drums, with a rarer sextet version including Donald Byrd and Pepper Adams. Blues Five Spot was issued on Riverside albums In Action and Misterioso and later collected on the Complete Live At The Five Spot 1958 two CD set; a standalone Blues Five Spot release appeared on Milestone in 1984. AllMusic dates the Blues Five Spot album release to 1961. Genre: Jazz, Post-Bop, Piano Jazz. The tune captures the energy of the New York club scene and Monk's ability to reinvent the blues through his distinctive phrasing.
