"Round Midnight" (sometimes titled "Round About Midnight") is a 1943 composition by American

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

pianist A pianist ( , ) is a musician who plays the piano. A pianist's repertoire may include music from a diverse variety of styles, such as traditional classical music, jazz piano, jazz, blues piano, blues, and popular music, including rock music, ...

Thelonious Monk Thelonious Sphere Monk ( October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the Jazz standard, standard jazz repertoire, includ ...

that quickly became a

jazz standard Jazz standards are musical compositions that are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive List ...

and has been recorded by a wide variety of artists. A version recorded by Monk's quintet was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1993. It is one of the most recorded jazz standards composed by a jazz musician.

Composition and Monk's first recording

It is thought that Monk composed the song sometime in 1940 or 1941. However, Monk's longtime manager Harry Colomby claims the pianist may have written an early version around 1936 (at the age of 19). The song was copyrighted September 24, 1943, in C minor under the title "I Need You So", with lyrics by a friend of Monk's named Thelma Murray. The first recording was made by

Cootie Williams Charles Melvin "Cootie" Williams (July 10, 1911 – September 15, 1985) was an American jazz, jump blues, and rhythm and blues trumpeter. Biography Born in Mobile, Alabama, Williams began his professional career at the age of 14 with the Yo ...

on August 22, 1944, after the pianist Bud Powell persuaded Williams to record the tune. Monk first recorded the song on November 21, 1947. It later appeared on the Blue Note album '' Genius of Modern Music: Volume 1'', and Monk recorded it several times after that. His first version was transcribed by Lionel Grigson in ''A Thelonious Monk Study Album'' (Novello, 1993). \relative c' Jazz trumpeters

and

Dizzy Gillespie John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie ( ; October 21, 1917 – January 6, 1993) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, composer, educator and singer. He was a trumpet virtuoso and improvisation, improviser, building on the virtuosic style of Roy El ...

further embellished the song, with songwriter

Bernie Hanighen Bernard D. Hanighen (April 27, 1908 in Omaha, Nebraska – October 19, 1976 in New York City, New York) was an American songwriter and record producer, best known for " When a Woman Loves a Man", and writing lyrics to the jazz composition " 'Ro ...

adding his own lyrics. Williams composed an eight bar interlude, played by the ensemble on his recording. This interlude is not included on any of Monk's recordings and is rarely if ever played. The lyrics were copyrighted November 27, 1944, and again April 13, 1945, under the title "Grand Finale". Both Williams and Hanighen received co-credits for their contributions. The commonly played intro to "Round Midnight" was originally composed by

for the end of his arrangement for "

I Can't Get Started "I Can't Get Started", also known as "I Can't Get Started with You" or "I Can't Get Started (With You)", is a popular song. It was written in 1936 by Vernon Duke (music) and Ira Gershwin (lyrics) and introduced that year in the revue ''Ziegfeld Fo ...

", but later adopted it to the intro for "Round Midnight". Gillespie later reused the arrangement for "I Can't Get Started", and recorded it for '' Birks' Works'' and '' Something Old, Something New''.

Later versions

The song is sometimes incorrectly called "Round About Midnight", as

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th century music, 20th-century music. Davis ado ...

used this as the title of his 1957

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American reco ...

album ''

'Round About Midnight ''Round About Midnight'' is a studio album by the jazz trumpeter and composer Miles Davis with his quintet. It was released through Columbia Records in March 1957, and is Davis's first record on the label. The recording took place at Columbia's ...

'' that included a version based on Dizzy Gillespie's arrangement. It became a signature song for Davis; his performance of it with Monk at the 1955

Newport Jazz Festival The Newport Jazz Festival is an annual American multi-day jazz music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island. Elaine Lorillard established the festival in 1954, and she and husband Louis Lorillard financed it for many years. They hire ...

, which was heard by producer George Avakian, was crucial in securing him a recording contract with

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American reco ...

. He had previously recorded the song in the studio two other times, once for Prestige in 1953 and again in 1956 as released on '' Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants''. Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers also apparently preferred to use the title "'Round About Midnight", as opposed to the original "'Round Midnight", in several recordings they made of the song. A recording by Jimmy McGriff was used as the 6pm closedown theme in the early days of

Radio Caroline Radio Caroline is a British radio station founded in 1964 by Ronan O'Rahilly and Allan Crawford, initially to circumvent the record companies' control of popular music broadcasting in the United Kingdom and the BBC's radio broadcasting monopol ...

in 1964. In 1971, Ron Grainer used a down-tempo variation by

to accompany a memorable scene from '' The Omega Man''. The song later appeared on a 2004 Gotan Project CD, '' Inspiración Espiración'', featuring Chet Baker. In 1986, the song was used as the title for the film '' Round Midnight'' which starred veteran saxophonist

Dexter Gordon Dexter Gordon (February 27, 1923 – April 25, 1990) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. He was among the most influential early bebop musicians. Gordon's height was , so he was also known as "Long Tall Dexter" an ...

in a fictional story about an expatriate American jazz musician living in Paris. The

soundtrack A soundtrack is a recorded audio signal accompanying and synchronised to the images of a book, drama, motion picture, radio program, television show, television program, or video game; colloquially, a commercially released soundtrack album of m ...

Herbie Hancock Herbert Jeffrey Hancock (born April 12, 1940) is an American jazz musician, bandleader, and composer. He started his career with trumpeter Donald Byrd's group. Hancock soon joined the Miles Davis Quintet, where he helped to redefine the role of ...

prominently features the song Round Midnight" along with a number of other jazz standards and a handful of original pieces written by Hancock. In 2002, Italian pianist Emanuele Arciuli commissioned a number of composers to create the ''Round Midnight Variations''. The composers included Roberto Andreoni, Milton Babbitt, Alberto Barbero, Carlo Boccadoro, William Bolcom, David Crumb,

George Crumb George Henry Crumb Jr. (24 October 1929 – 6 February 2022) was an American composer of avant-garde contemporary classical music. Early in his life he rejected the widespread modernist usage of serialism, developing a highly personal musical ...

, Michael Daugherty, Filippo Del Corno, John Harbison, Joel Hoffman, Aaron Jay Kernis, Gerald Levinson, Tobias Picker, Matthew Quayle, Frederic Rzewski, Augusta Read Thomas and Michael Torke.

Composition and Monk's first recording

Later versions

Notable recordings

By Monk

By others

References

Further reading