Monk'D Dayna Stephens

• 1 Brake’s Sake (feat. Ethan Iverson, Stephen Riley & Eric McPhearson) 05:54
• 2 Humph (feat. Ethan Iverson, Stephen Riley & Eric McPhearson) 04:32
• 3 Coming on the Hudson (feat. Ethan Iverson, Stephen Riley & Eric McPhearson) 06:15
• 4 Just You and Me Smoking the Evidence (feat. Ethan Iverson, Stephen Riley & Eric McPhearson) 06:25
• 5 Ugly Beauty (feat. Ethan Iverson, Stephen Riley & Eric McPhearson) 06:03
• 6 Stuffy Turkey (feat. Ethan Iverson, Stephen Riley & Eric McPhearson) 04:06
• 7 Hornin’ In (feat. Ethan Iverson, Stephen Riley & Eric McPhearson) 05:39
• 8 Ruby My Dear (feat. Ethan Iverson, Stephen Riley & Eric McPhearson) 06:15
• 9 Monk'D (feat. Ethan Iverson, Stephen Riley & Eric McPhearson) 04:41
• Total Runtime 49:50

Info for Monk'D

Monk’D, the new album from Dayna Stephens, will be released October 10 on his in-house label, Contagious Music. Recorded in a single day at the legendary Rudy Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, the album features pianist Ethan Iverson, tenor saxophonist Stephen Riley, and drummer Eric McPherson in a stripped-down, deeply personal tribute to Thelonious Monk.

Whatever their personal leanings, every jazz fan worth their salt knows this: Thelonious Sphere Monk changed the game. With jagged rhythms, off-kilter harmonies, and a touch that struck like punctuation, Monk didn’t just bend the rules of jazz — he made a whole new blueprint. His tunes are now jazz gospel: studied, quoted, reimagined, yet still impossible to fully pin down.

Here, Stephens steps into a different role entirely. Known primarily as a saxophonist, he sets down his horn on Monk’D to take up the acoustic bass — an instrument he has played since his Monk Institute years, taking a couple lessons from Christian McBride, Ron Carter, and a host of other top bassists who have appeared in his own bands. The decision is both personal and practical: Stephens wanted to explore Monk’s music from the bass chair, shaping the feel and harmonic grounding from the inside out.

Stephens’ bass résumé is formidable. From 2004–2006, he toured with Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, and from 2003–2006 with the dynamic Miss Faye Carol. He’s performed on bass with Roy Hargrove — including a special Valentine’s Day event at the Jazz Gallery with Lionel Loueke, Aaron Parks, and Greg Hutchinson — and has shared the stage with Eric Harland, Billy Hart, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Sam Yahel, Peter Bernstein, and Joshua Redman, among others.

Though bass is not his primary instrument, Stephens makes room for select engagements each year, drawn to its unique balance of support and leadership. “When I choose a bassist for my saxophone trio or quartet, I’m choosing who will lead the band,” he says. “They control the root notes of all the harmonies, and most importantly, the feel of the pulse that everyone within earshot feels internally. That role is one I crave to be in when I get the chance.”

Raised in the Bay Area and immersed in Monk’s music since his teens — first through a mixtape from his father, then performing Monk tunes in high school and college — Stephens says his time at the Monk Institute “shaped the rest of my career.” Over the past two decades, he has earned widespread acclaim as one of the most distinctive saxophonists of his generation, with albums such as The Timeless Now (2007), Peace (2014), Gratitude (2017), and Right Now! Live at the Village Vanguard (2023). His most recent release, Hopium (2025), was praised by JazzTrail for its “free-flowing, serpentine saxophone performance” and “post-bop vitality.”

The idea for Monk’D came from longtime friend and supporter Mark Weiss, who suggested pairing Stephens with Iverson. “The thought came to me right away that we should play and produce a tribute honoring the great Thelonious Monk,” Stephens recalls. He carefully selected lesser-known compositions from Monk’s catalog, crafting arrangements that subtly shift meter, alter form, or fuse multiple tunes — as with the hybrid suite “Just You and Me Smoking the Evidence,” which combines “Just You, Just Me,” “Evidence,” and Stephens’ own contrafact, “Smoking Gun.” Other tracks, like “Ruby, My Dear” and “Ugly Beauty,” are left untouched in structure, guided instead by the band’s interpretive clarity.

The quartet tracked the entire album in a single session, with minimal rehearsal and maximum trust. “The collaboration process was as easy and joyful as any record I’ve ever made,” Stephens says. He and Riley rehearsed briefly as a duo the night before; Iverson and McPherson learned the music on their own. The chemistry was immediate. “We all have one thing in common: we love Monk.”

Beyond the arrangements, Monk’D leans into period detail and tactile authenticity. Stephens used gut strings on his bass; Riley played a vintage Buescher 400 tenor saxophone (manufactured between 1941–1959); and the studio housed a piano Monk once played — not the one Iverson recorded on, but present as a source of inspiration. Of the scratches Monk left on its lid, Stephens laughs, “Apparently Rudy Van Gelder was not happy about that.” The album was engineered by Maureen Sickler, Van Gelder’s longtime assistant and steward of the studio’s legacy. Stephens even approached the mix with Monk in mind, referencing several of Monk’s original albums to guide the track-by-track panning decisions.

Two pieces Stephens highlights are “Humph,” for its playfulness and joyful bass–drum trading, and “Coming on the Hudson,” which reimagines Monk’s original in 3/4 with a recurring lurch back to 4/4 on each chorus — including during the solos. “I loved how everyone uniquely handled that moment,” he says, singling out McPherson’s triplet undercurrent for particular praise.

Monk’D doesn’t attempt to tidy Monk up or smooth him out. It puts his music back on the edge where it belongs — alive, personal, and full of questions.

Stephen Riley, tenor saxophone
Ethan Iverson, piano
Dayna Stephens, bass
Eric McPhearson, drums

Dayna Stephens
is globally recognized as a saxophonist, composer, arranger and educator. His new quartet with Emmanuel Michael, Kanoa Mendenhall and Jongkuk Kim have a new recording set to be released on Cellar Live in early 2024.

He was also the first place recipient of the 2019 DownBeat Critics Poll in the category Rising Star-Tenor Saxophone. His 10th album, Right Now! Live at the Village Vanguard, was released on October 3, 2020 and features Aaron Parks, Ben Street, and Greg Hutchinson. Earlier that year he released his 9th album Liberty to critical acclaim. It was his first trio recording that features Ben Street and Eric Harland. Both 2020 albums were produced by Matt Pierson and released on Dayna’s own label, Contagious Music. In collaboration with drummer Toronto native Anthony Fung the futuristic electronic band Pluto Juice was born and produced it’s self titled first release in July 2021.

NPR’s Kevin Whitehead had this to say about Liberty, “Dayna Stephens can cry and rip it up on tenor, but at heart, he’s a streamlined melodic player. His handsome down-the-middle tone is not too heavy or light, though he can lean either way. His sound is sleek, with very light vibrato. And the lines he improvises are uncluttered and well-organized. His horn sings”. J. Hunter of Nippertown says, “Stephens’ latest outing—recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s history-filled studio—delivers an elegant, uncompromising look at how less can definitely be more.” In describing Liberty’s trio format Jay N. Miller from The Patriot Ledger applauds, “while the concept may seem esoteric, the triumph of Stephens’ latest work is how accessible and even intoxicating it is.”

Among Dayna’s latest endeavor is a collaborative group born in Toronto called Pluto Juice. Co-led with drummer Anthony Fung this futuristic electronic group features Dayna mostly on EWI and Keyboards along with Electric Bassist Rich Brown and Guitarist Andrew Marzotto band Pluto Juice was born and produced it’s self titled first release in July 2021.

Playing with pureness of intention, Dayna admits he’s always searching to find what’s “singable.” That search often results in live improvisations and written compositions that challenge traditional concepts of harmony, pushing

phrasing and sending beautiful and unintentional melodies in unlikely directions. Dayna’s soulful lines have resonated through the halls of such internationally renowned venues as the Village Vanguard, Blue Note Jazz Club, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Birdland, Yoshi’s, The Blue Whale, Marians Jazzroom in Switzerland, Blue Note Milano, Philharmonie de Paris, Le Duc des Lombards, Red Rocks and San Francisco Jazz Center.

Rhythmic dialogue excites the Brooklyn-born, Bay Area-raised artist, as both an improviser and a written composer. His creative expression leads him to uncover different rhythmic interpretations of harmonic ideas as part of a spontaneous interchange with other players. These evolving interpretations help serve Dayna’s commitment to the authenticity of the moment, whether he’s playing live or in the studio. And his rhythmic inquiry has earned him the attention and admiration of some of the music’s most beloved drummers—many of whom have collaborated with him on recordings, on the bandstand and on the road, including Al Foster, Idris Muhammad, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Billy Hart, Marcus Gilmore, Bill Stewart, Eric Harland, Johnathan Blake, Jaimeo Brown, Brian Blade, Victor Lewis, Lewis Nash, Jorge Rossy, Jeff Ballard and Justin Brown.

Dayna has traveled and recorded with a cross-section of such distinctive voices, including pianists Kenny Barron, Aaron Parks, Fred Hersch, Billy Childs, Geoffrey Keezer, Taylor Eigsti, Herbie Hancock, Muhal Richard Abrams, Brad Mehldau, and Gerald Clayton; trumpet players Roy Hargrove, Tom Harrell, Sean Jones, Terell Stafford, Philip Dizack, Ambrose Akinmusire, Michael Rodriguez, and Terence Blanchard; saxophone players Wayne Shorter, Walter Smith III, Mark Turner Jaleel Shaw, Ben Wendel, Chris Potter, and John Ellis; bass players Ben Street, Rufus Reid, Kiyoshi Kitagawa, Joe Sanders, Linda Oh, Doug Weiss, Larry Grenadier and Harish Raghavan; vocalists Cecile McLorin Savant, Alicia Olatuja, Gretchen Parlato, Becca Stevens and Sachal Vasandani; and guitar players Julian Lage, Charles Altura, Mike Moreno, Lage Lund, Pete Bernstein and John Scofield, and Carlos Santana.

To hear his music is to fall in love with whatever instrument Dayna uses to channel his ideas. Through a tendency toward experimenting with both tone and texture in a harmonic context, he embraces a range of instruments—and their varying degrees of warmth—including double bass. A master of tenor, alto, soprano and baritone saxophones and Nyle Steiner’s EWI (electric wind instrument), Dayna’s openness and sensitivity as an artist have allowed him to stretch as a composer and arranger. Through the years, he has created and interpreted pieces for San Francisco’s Peninsula Symphony Orchestra, Berklee College of Music and the Oakland East Bay Symphony—for the latter of which he wrote a wide-screen arrangement of Dave Brubeck’s “The Duke” and his own piece “Haden’s Largo” (for Charlie Haden) that premiered at Oakland’s Paramount Theatre for its 2013 Celebration of the Music of Dave Brubeck Concert.

A graduate of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, where he studied under artistic icons Terence Blanchard, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, Dayna began his formal studies with a full scholarship at Berklee College of Music in Boston. He currently teaches at Manhattan School of Music and William Paterson University in Wayne New Jersey. As an undergraduate, he was diagnosed with the rare kidney disease focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) which resulted in a six-year course of dialysis that began in 2009, grounding him in the New York area and preventing him from touring internationally until he received a kidney transplant in October 2015 from a donation chain facilitated by his aunt. Aside from his own projects Dayna’s label Contagious Music released “Yekum”, by pianist/ composer Eden Ladin’s which was his debut recording released in 2018 and Billy Mohler’s “Anatomy” released in June 2022, his 2nd recording as a leader which has received great recognition world wide. Billy 3rd release "Ultraviolet" is set for release in fall 2023.

This album contains no booklet.