On October 15, 1955, Thelonious Monk walked into Rudy Van Gelder’s Hackensack studio and recorded three brand-new originals — “Shuffle Boil,” “Brake’s Sake” and “Gallop’s Gallop” — without a single note of it appearing under his own name. Riverside had bought out his Prestige contract the year before and expected to be the home of his music. But the date was a Signal Records session led by alto saxophonist Gigi Gryce, and Monk was nominally just the pianist. The rhythm section was the same Percy Heath and Art Blakey who had backed him on a Prestige trio record in 1954, and by Robin D. G. Kelley’s account Monk taught and directed the whole thing. Riverside’s Bill Grauer and Orrin Keepnews were unhappy, but a sideman date broke nothing in his contract. The tracks filled side two of Gryce’s Nica’s Tempo, and Riverside waited another year, until Brilliant Corners, to record Monk originals of its own.
Thelonious Monk at Minton’s Playhouse, New York, ca. September 1947, eight years before the Gryce session; photo by William P. Gottlieb. (Public Domain, Library of Congress Gottlieb Collection, via Wikimedia Commons)
Sources: Wikipedia — Nica's Tempo: Monk's three unrecorded compositions, Gryce billing, Kelley on Grauer/Keepnews reaction, Oct 15 & 22 1955 sessions , Wikipedia — Thelonious Monk Plays Duke Ellington: Monk's only 1955 session of originals, Oct 15, released as Gigi Gryce Quartet , Wikipedia — List of compositions by Thelonious Monk: first recordings of Brake's Sake, Gallop's Gallop and Shuffle Boil, Oct 15 1955 , JazzLeadSheets — In a Meditating Mood: Don Sickler notes, 'October 15 was a quartet session, with Thelonious Monk on piano'
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