Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall

It was recorded on 29 November 1957 at "Thanksgiving Jazz", a benefit concert produced by Kenneth Lee Karpe for the Morningside Community Center in Harlem. Other acts performing included Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles, Sonny Rollins, and Chet Baker with Zoot Sims. The recording, by Voice of America, documents two sets by the Monk Quartet with Coltrane that night—an early set (tracks 1–5) and a late set (tracks 6–9), which the recording does not fully document.

The tape of the performance was stored for decades at the Library of Congress with the rest of the Voice of America network recordings. In 2005, as part of routine processing of backlog recordings from that collection, the recording was digitized by a team supervised by Larry Applebaum. The recording was then restored by producer Michael Cuscuna and T.S. Monk (Thelonious Monk's son).^{[citation needed]}

The recording has been highly praised. Newsweek called it the "musical equivalent of the discovery of a new Mount Everest," and Amazon.com editorial reviewer Lloyd Sachs called it "the ultimate definition of a classic". Soon after its release, it became the #1 best selling music recording on Amazon.com.^{[citation needed]}

The discovery substantially increased coverage of Monk and Coltrane's partnership. The only other recordings known to feature both performers are from four sessions that took place in April, June and July 1957 and were originally issued on Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane, Monk's Music and Thelonious Himself. The album Thelonious Monk: Live at the Five Spot: Discovery! presents another live performance by Monk's quartet and Coltrane; it was recorded in 1957 at the Five Spot Café in New York City.

• Thelonious Monk – piano
• John Coltrane – tenor saxophone
• Ahmed Abdul-Malik – bass
• Shadow Wilson – drums