Thelonious Monk's piano playing was full of angles and percussion. His compositions sprang from his piano style -- melody is rhythm; rhythm is melody. To improvise effectively on a Monk tune requires more formality than simply running through the chord changes. As a starting point, you must get inside the composer's musical logic. This doesn't necessarily mean imitating him, but it does mean, in most cases, carving and chiseling rather than molding your phrases.

Si Perkoff, the pianist in Monk's Music Trio, a group dedicated exclusively to Monk's compositions, understands and communicates this as convincingly as such celebrated Monk interpreters as trombonist Roswell Rudd and the late saxophonists Steve Lacy and Charlie Rouse. Monk's Music Trio, led by drummer Chuck Bernstein, has been in business since 1999. "Monk's Bones" (CMB Records), its third album, expands on the trio format of its previous releases by adding Rudd and fellow trombonist Max Perkoff, the pianist's son. Sam Bevan is the group's bassist.

The trombonists show contrasting creative approaches. Rudd, an old hand at Monk -- he and Lacy led a Monk-only quartet in the early '60s -- is full of craggy good humor. He'd rather slide down the jagged stairway of melody than leap or tread in regular intervals. Max Perkoff is more the bebopper with a lyrical bent.

The trio, which can give the impression of Monk's presence, relies not only on Si Perkoff's sound but also on Bernstein's interplay and tap dancelike solos and Bevan's solid walking and percussive solos. Veteran Bernstein often recalls Monk Quartet drummers Frankie Dunlop and Ben Riley.

The album includes the tunes "Monk's Dream," "Ugly Beauty," "Little Rootie Tootie," " 'Round Midnight" and "Blue Monk," among others.

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