Sonny Rollins - Volume 2 (1990 Japanese Blue Note LP Last Reissue Mono LP)

Vinyl: NM
Sleeve: EX
Obi: None

Our grading system explained here.
Photo is of the actual item.

Sonny Rollins - Volume 2 | Vinyl LP - 1990 Japanese Blue Note LP Last Reissue Mono Pressing

• The only session that put Thelonious Monk and Horace Silver in the same studio at the same time, both playing piano on "Misterioso" while Monk appears alone with Rollins on "Reflections"
• An all-star Blue Note hard bop session from April 14, 1957, with J.J. Johnson on trombone, Paul Chambers on bass and Art Blakey on drums, recorded by Rudy Van Gelder at his Hackensack studio
• Mono original, as recorded: BLP 1558 was never issued in genuine stereo and this pressing maintains the mono source
  

Recorded on April 14, 1957 at Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack, New Jersey, and released on Blue Note the same year as BLP 1558, this is one of the most cast-loaded sessions in the label's catalogue. Alongside Rollins on tenor saxophone are J.J. Johnson on trombone, Paul Chambers on bass, Art Blakey on drums, and two pianists: Horace Silver, who takes piano duties across four of the six tracks, and Thelonious Monk, who plays on his own compositions "Misterioso" and "Reflections". On "Misterioso" both pianists appear together, a convergence unique in the Blue Note discography, Monk's oblique, repeating blues figure anchoring an ensemble that includes Johnson's trombone pushing hard against Rollins' tenor. On "Reflections" Monk plays with only Rollins, Chambers and Blakey, Johnson absent, the quartet reduced to its most minimal and concentrated form for one of the most pensive ballad readings either man committed to tape. The remaining four tracks belong to Silver and the full sextet: the two Rollins originals "Why Don't I" and "Wail March", and the standards "You Stepped Out of a Dream" and "Poor Butterfly". Chambers plays a bowed solo on "You Stepped Out of a Dream" that several contemporary reviewers singled out, and Blakey's drumming throughout, particularly on "Wail March", gives the session a momentum closer to the Jazz Messengers than to the pianoless approach Rollins would take later the same year at the Village Vanguard. Produced by Alfred Lion and engineered by Rudy Van Gelder, originally released in September 1957.

This pressing was issued in Japan on 26 December 1990 as part of Toshiba EMI's Blue Note LP Last Reissue series, the 62nd title in that programme, which was designed to return the Blue Note back catalogue to correct mono configuration for Japanese collectors who had previously encountered many of these titles in rechannelled pseudo-stereo formats. BLP 1558 was recorded in mono and no genuine stereo version exists. The pressing is manufactured by Toshiba EMI Ltd. and includes Japanese liner notes.