"Oleo" is an instrumental jazz standard written by Sonny Rollins in 1954. It is a hard bop piece, also described as bebop. It is built on the chord changes of George Gershwin's "I Got Rhythm", making it a contrafact on rhythm changes, and its refrain follows an AABA form. It belongs to a group of bebop-era refrain-based standards of the 1940s and 1950s, alongside Charlie Parker's "Anthropology" and Thelonious Monk's "Rhythm-a-ning".
The original recording was made on 29 June 1954 by Miles Davis with Sonny Rollins, Horace Silver, Percy Heath and Kenny Clarke, and was first released in 1955 on the Prestige 10-inch LP Miles Davis with Sonny Rollins. A 1956 recording with John Coltrane in place of Rollins was issued on Relaxin'. Later versions have been recorded by John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Eric Dolphy, Lee Konitz, Pat Martino and Michael Brecker.
