It was only fitting that Pee Wee's modernism be on display at the Newport Jazz Festival in July, 1963, when he was featured with Thelonious Monk's group. Mary [Russell's wife] and Pee Wee arrived at the festival a week early as house guests of George Wein, who had suggested the idea to both musicians.
"[Wein said,] 'I told Monk that Pee Wee had the same feeling for intervals that he had. They both understood that intervals are what give you a style that other people don't have."

Critical reaction to the pairing of Pee Wee and Monk was excellent, although Pee Wee was not impressed.

"The combination of Pee Wee Russell and Monk on Thursday [wrote Ira Gitler in Down Beat], turned out very well. Russell, who had picked the tunes he wanted to play at Newport while listening to Monk at New York's Five Spot but had not been able to rehearse them with the group, found beautiful passages in "Nutty," but was over-shadowed by a great, intense Rouse solo. In "Blue Monk," however, the clarinetist communicated very well through his personal poetry, cast, this night, in Monkish mold."

New York Times critic John S. Wilson had some reservations:
"Mr. Monk did not play while Mr. Russell was playing and Mr. Russell did not play while Mr. Monk was playing so that the meeting amounted to little more than their presence on the same platform at the same time...this meeting failed because they never got close enough to make contact."

Not so, countered critic Dan Morgenstern in The International Musician.
"Contrary to published reports, Monk and Pee Wee did play together; in fact, Monk treated his guest just like a member of the tight family group. Pee Wee's most eloquent solo came on "Blue Monk," where he played his own special brand of blues, yet built his solo solidly on Monk's theme, like a real Monk player."

Both Wilson and Morgenstern were right. Monk did play behind Pee Wee's first solo chorus on each tune, then, as the pianist did with Charlie Rouse's subsequent choruses, he sat out leaving the reedman accompanied only by bass and drums. However Monk's accompaniment was limited almost entirely to comping behind Pee Wee: the pairing set off no sparks. When one of the tracks from the concert was played for Pee Wee during a blindfold test in 1964, his reaction showed that he had second thoughts about the whole modern experiment. Of his performance with Monk:
"No rehearsal, just pushed onto the stage, and I didn't fit into that group. - Anyway, I don't like that kind of music."

© by Robert Hilbert
Photo of Peewee Russell © J.Robert Mantler