A limited-supply CD import from Japan in a high-quality paper sleeve; the perfect collector’s item.

This is a potpourri of Monk, with Rollins in on two of the recording dates. The 1953 session with Julius Watkins on French horn gives us "Friday the 13th," an elongated outing on one of those Monkian harmonic sequences that is at once minimal and liberating. "Work" and "Nutty" were to become two of Monk's most intriguing pieces. These trio versions, with the steady Percy Heath as the pivot, reveal once again the rapport enjoyed by Monk and Art Blakey. "The Way You Look Tonight" and "I Want to Be Happy" are companion tracks to the ballad performance of "More Than You Know" [Sonny Rollins/Moving Out (OJCCD-058-2)]. These renditions have a relaxed, swinging informality that lets you think you are eavesdropping at a session in Monk's West 63rd Street living room in 1954 on a night Sonny dropped in to blow.

with Julius Watkins, Percy Heath, Tommy Potter, Willie Jones, Art Blakey, Arthur Taylor