This is not the first time the album Monk's Music has been repackaged as ‘featuring John Coltrane’ and yet the original front cover, reproduced in the present package, shows he was not even mentioned there. The reason may have been partly contractual (Trane had just signed with Prestige, and the bonus quartet tracks with him were recorded in the forlorn hope of resolving that conflict) but the selling-point back in 1957 was the participation of Monk's first major-league employer, Coleman Hawkins.

Thus, we hear Hawk as one of the soloists on loosely organised versions of four early Monk hits, shining notably on a quartet performance of ‘Ruby My Dear’. The two opening and closing items of the original album, ‘Crepescule With Nellie’ and the Victorian hymn ‘Abide With Me’(!) have no solo work.

The former caused so much trouble that its initial outing, on the first day of recording, saw Monk leaving the studio and the others doing an originally unissued, piano-less ‘Blues For Tomorrow’. Also unreleased at the time, the quartet tracks with Trane are more special, but… one of them isn't included. Why on earth add the alternate take of ‘Off Minor’ and not replace it with the Coltrane version of ‘Ruby My Dear’, which is only one minute longer?