Rare signed album page from the complete members of the important sax player's successful forward-looking sextet, including pianist Thelonious Monk, signed in 1944 at the group's appearance at the Top Hat Club in Toronto. On gray cardstock measuring 14 x 20 cm; 5.5 x 8 inches. Three horizontal folds, upper section mounted to an album sheet, else fine. 

In 1944, Coleman Hawkins put together a small combo of remarkable musicians including veteran trumpet player "Little Benny" Harris, tenor sax player Don Byas, percussionist Denzil Best, and composer and pianist Thelonious Monk. Their collaboration received rave reviews in the press and, in retrospect, can be identified as an important moment in the development of the bebop style. Unafraid to stray from the melody, to improvise freely, and to reharmonize the standards, they contributed to a new form of jazz that was faster, more complex, and more virtuosic than the prevailing swing style. According to a reviewer for Down Beat, "With three horns creating fast-moving riff figures remarkable for their fresh inventive quality, the listener is almost convinced that a new jazz form is being built. Here it's interesting to note that Hawk is not content with the direction jazz is taking." 

Choosing Don Byas, who could have been his rival as the top tenor sax player New York, was an inspired move on Hawkins' part, as the two made a remarkable sound together. Denzil Best, who had been a promising trumpeter until a lung disease forced him to switch to drums, was chosen to replace the original drummer, Stan Levey, for the group's tour to Canada, while bass player Selwyn Warner replaced Eddie Robinson. Walker remembered: "Everyone in the band got along with each other. Thelonious Monk was coming along in those days, getting his chips together. He was very bright, quiet and cool, but not eccentric... The group played all sorts of interesting new things, but I never heard anyone in the group use the words bop or bebop; they were just thought of as new arrangements." (Quoted in John Chilton, The Song of the Hawk: The Life and Recordings of Coleman Hawkins, p. 213.)

Of the present signatures, the rarest individual signature is the final one, from Thelonious Monk, the influential American jazz pianist, composer and arranger who had a highly unique improvisational style and who made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser" and "Well, You Needn't." Considered one of the most important, and eccentric, figures in modern jazz, he spent most of his life in New York City, playing in nightclubs; in the 1940s, he was one of the first players of bebop. His style is astringent, marked by discordant harmonies, alternating rhythms, and melodic interpretations. There is a subtle mixture of cynicism, humor, and warmth in his interpretations.