We're excited to continue making new songs available from our Herbie Nichols Centennial Project: 24 previously unrecorded Nichols compositions, in solo piano performances from 23 different pianists recorded at Van Gelder Studio (on the piano Herbie played) during his centennial year. Six more of these songs are now released for the first time. Nichols wrote the first major article about Thelonious Monk (his 1946 article for Rhythm magazine). As detailed in this article, the two pianists played some of their music for each other; Monk liked Sailing, Stratosphere, and Strivin' so Nichols agreed to write solo piano arrangements of these for Monk. Only the arrangement for Stratosphere survives; it is now available as well as the lead sheets for all three of these.
