Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins explained

Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins
Type:Album
Artist:Thelonious Monk
Cover:Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins.jpg
Released:1956
Recorded:November 13, 1953
September 22, 1954
October 25, 1954
WOR Studios, NYC and Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, NJ
Genre:Jazz
Length:34:02
Label:Prestige
Producer:Bob Weinstock
Ira Gitler
Prev Title:Monk
Prev Year:1956
Next Title:Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington
Next Year:1956

Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins is a compilation album by jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk and saxophonist Sonny Rollins released in 1956 by Prestige Records.[1] The tracks on it were recorded in three sessions between 1953 and 1954. While this is its original title, and its most consistent title in its digital re-releases, it was also released on Prestige as Work! (1959, PRLP 7169)[2] and The Genius Of Thelonious Monk (1967, PR 7656),[3] with alternative covers.[4]

Background

The album is culled from the results of three recording sessions over a span of close to twelve months featuring different personnel. Although Rollins is credited as a co-leader on the album cover, he appears on only three of the album's five tracks. It was the final Monk release on Prestige before he moved to a contract with Riverside Records.

The track "Friday the 13th" was recorded in November 1953 with a quintet of Monk, Rollins, Julius Watkins, Percy Heath, and Willie Jones; the September 1954 recordings are of a trio with Monk, Heath, and Art Blakey; and the October 1954 session Monk and Rollins again with bassist Tommy Potter and drummer Art Taylor.[5] Of the three Monk originals, "Friday the 13th" was written in the studio during the recording session, released as a ten-minute jam to fill out the album's running time.[6] Monk would return to "Nutty" again and again through his career, but this was his only recording of the composition "Work."[7]

The recordings on this 12" LP originally appeared in 1954 on three 10" LPs: Thelonious Monk Quintet Blows for LP (Prestige PRLP 166), Thelonious Monk Plays (Prestige PRLP 189)[8] and Sonny Rollins and Thelonious Monk (Prestige PRLP 190).[9] [10]

Chris Sheridan, in his book Brilliant Corners: A Bio-discography of Thelonious Monk, dates the first 12-inch vinyl release of Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins (Prestige PRLP 7075) to 1956. Its release was immediately preceded in the Prestige 12-inch catalog of Monk's work by Thelonious Monk Trio (Prestige PRLP 7027), and Thelonious Monk, aka Monk (PRLP 7053).[11]

Track listing

All compositions by Thelonious Monk, except where indicated.

Side one

  1. "The Way You Look Tonight" (Dorothy Fields, Jerome Kern) – 5:13
  2. "I Want to Be Happy" (Irving Caesar, Vincent Youmans) – 7:43
  3. "Work" – 5:18

Side two

  1. "Nutty" – 5:16
  2. "Friday the 13th" – 10:32

Notes

Personnel

Notes and References

  1. Sheridan, Chris, Brilliant Corners: A Bio-discography of Thelonious Monk, p 295, Westport and London: Greenwood Press, 2001
  2. Sheridan, Chris, Brilliant Corners: A Bio-discography of Thelonious Monk, p 296, Westport and London: Greenwood Press, 2001
  3. Sheridan, Chris, Brilliant Corners: A Bio-discography of Thelonious Monk, p 296, Westport and London: Greenwood Press, 2001
  4. Neely, Tim, Goldmine Standard Catalog of American Records, 1950-1975, 5th Edition p. 844, Iola, Wisconsin: Krause Publications, 2006
  5. http://www.jazzdisco.org/thelonious-monk/catalog/#prestige-prlp-7075 Thelonious Monk discography accessed 23 April 2012
  6. [Robin D.G. Kelley]
  7. Kelley, Life and Times, pp. 569-571.
  8. Kelley, Life and Times, p. 179-180
  9. Sheridan, Chris, Brilliant Corners: A Bio-discography of Thelonious Monk, p 295, Westport and London: Greenwood Press, 2001
  10. Web site: Five Thelonious Monk albums remastered and reissued in new 10" box set. October 31, 2017.
  11. Sheridan, Chris, Brilliant Corners: A Bio-discography of Thelonious Monk, p 295, Westport and London: Greenwood Press, 2001
  12. Sheridan, Chris, Brilliant Corners: A Bio-discography of Thelonious Monk, p 295, Westport and London: Greenwood Press, 2001
  13. Web site: Five Thelonious Monk albums remastered and reissued in new 10" box set. October 31, 2017.
  14. Kelley, Life and Times, p. 179-180