Eric Reed at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola Eric Reed performing at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola at Jazz at Lincoln Center on Tuesday night. Thelonious Monk's music stands for many things - intuitive rigor, rugged refinement, a system of intervallic order - but what often goes underused by his interpreters is its baseline condition of pleasure. That particular lapse is not a problem for the pianist Eric Reed. During his sold-out first set at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola on Tuesday night, he played six Monk compositions with thoughtful attunement to their essence. He also made them seem about as cheery and buoyant as a bunch of balloons held by the string. Half the tunes came from "The Baddest Monk," Mr. Reed's immensely satisfying new album on Savant; the other half were from "The Dancing Monk," released on the same label last year. So this was a business visit, as Mr. Reed kept reminding the audience, plugging the albums with a congenial grin. He was leading a quintet almost identical to the one he'd assembled for "The Baddest Monk," with the trumpeter Etienne Charles, the saxophonist Seamus Blake and the bassist Matt Clohesy. On drums was his regular sideman Kevin Kanner, filling in for Henry Cole. The international makeup of the band - its members hail from the United States, Trinidad, Australia and Canada - had led Mr. Reed to call it the Unmonk Quintet, its first two letters evoking the United Nations. This had no bearing whatsoever on the music, but it made more sense than the other connotation, which was some kind of unmaking of Monk, a willful reinvention. Mr. Reed made it clear that there was no anxiety of influence at work here, just influence, and a filial sort of license. Mr. Reed has a precise, percussive relationship with the piano, and roughly the same inclinations as both an improviser and a bandleader: he favors syncopation and poise, spontaneity and control. He opened this set as he opens "The Baddest Monk," with a version of "Rhythm-a-Ning" that fixates on one chordal fillip, over a beat reminiscent of new jack swing. Before the beat and the band kicked in, he set up the groove alone, sneaking in a nod to Stevie Wonder's "Too High." His band mates worked efficiently, departing from their polished roles only to deliver the occasional knockout solo. Mr. Charles managed one of those in "Rhythm-a-Ning," terse and soulful; Mr. Blake had one too, more sprawling and unpredictable, on "Green Chimneys." Mr. Clohesy stood out during a "Pannonica" at cruising tempo, its depth of feel evoking the Ahmad Jamal Trio. One of several commanding turns by Mr. Reed came on "Reflections," with an introductory flourish that briefly suggested Erroll Garner. What came next was the closing tune, "Blue Monk," delivered more as a boilerplate blues than as the Monkish contraption it could be. Which was a missed opportunity, but one of the few in a joyous steamroller of a set. Eric Reed performs through Sunday at Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, 60th Street and Broadway, (212) 258-9595, jalc.org.