Bright Mississippi is a jazz tune composed by Thelonious Monk, who is credited as its sole composer. It is based on the chords of "Sweet Georgia Brown", a 1925 song by Ben Bernie, Maceo Pinkard and Kenneth Casey, and is classed as a contrafact, a new melody written over existing changes. The original recording was made on 1 November 1962 at Columbia's 30th Street Studio in New York City by The Thelonious Monk Quartet. It appeared on the album Monk's Dream, released by Columbia in January 1963 and produced by Teo Macero. It was the only composition on that album that Monk had not previously recorded.
The tune is an instrumental with no lyrics and belongs to the hard bop tradition. Later recordings of the piece appear on Monk albums such as Live at the Jazz Workshop, Monk's Casino and Monk on Monk.
