If you go to a dictionary and look up the definition of ‘hard bop’, you’ll most certainly see a picture of either Miles Davis or Thelonious Monk, two of the members of it’s Mt Rushmore. Three absolutely classic sessions have recently been released on vinyl, and for the uninitiated, it is like voices from on high.
Miles Davis’ 1955 release was the start of what became his first “Classic” quintet. With Philly Joe Jones/dr, Red Garland/p, Paul Chambers/b and a young John Coltrane/ts, Davis displays his sensitive side with “I See Your Face 
Before Me” while hitting the bop chops with Jones and Trane on “A Night In Tunisia”. When Miles became Miles.
Two years later, Davis started a whole new genre in jazz, with a funky “soulful” feel to two tunes that became staples. “Walkin” had an irresistible backbeat with a clarion call intro (as well as Lucky Thompson’s smoking tenor) and “Blue’ N Boogie” sizzled with white heat. Meanwhile, the muted “Solar” oozed with understated class. Still fresh after all these years.
To this very day, someone out there is playing a song by Thelonious Monk, and probably one of them from this album. Most appealing of this session is that Monk is all by himself, except for the haunting trio with tenor saxist John Coltrane and bassist Wilbur Ware on “Monk’s Mood”. Monk shows here that although he was considered idiosyncratic, he was a stride man at heart, with “April In Paris” and “Ghost Of A Chance” resplendent, and his own “’Round Midnight” as haunting as a full moon.