Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins


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. The material on it was 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! and The Genius Of Thelonious Monk, with alternate covers.

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 the label 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. 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. Monk would return to "Nutty" again and again through his career, but this was his only recording of the composition "Work."
The recordings on this 12" LP originally appeared in 1954 on three 10" LPs: Thelonious Monk Quintet Blows for LP, Thelonious Monk Plays and Sonny Rollins and Thelonious Monk.
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 to 1956. Its release was immediately preceded in the Prestige 12-inch catalog of Monk's work by Thelonious Monk Trio, and Thelonious Monk, aka Monk.

Track listing

All compositions by Thelonious Monk except where noted.

Side one

  1. "The Way You Look Tonight" – 5:13
  2. "I Want to Be Happy" – 7:43
  3. "Work" – 5:18

    Side two

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

    Personnel