If there ain't a Sonny Rollins thread yet, this could be one

in the overall rollins ranking system:

sonny rollins>>>>>tree rollins>>>howard rollins jr>>henry rollins

ILM needs you bro! Your move from lurking to posting has brightened my time here considerably. And I did some reading on Ornette after our last conversation, turns out your were right about Atlantic Records relative marketing strenght W/R/T Prestige & Blue Note. Not just jazz either, what you said the other day about the recent trend of overdetermined "popism" reviewing was music to my aging ears.

oh, Sonny Rollins. well I'm not an expert but I love SAXOPHONE COLLUSUS, DON'T STOP THE CARNIVAL, TENOR MADNESS, WAY OUT WEST, EAST BROADWAY RUNDOWN, ALFIE, THE BRIDGE, the live stuff on Blue Note.

don't know his later stuff, but I do like his 1975 fusion album Nucleus. Did anybody see him in New York City last week?

Very kind. And yes, post more, dammit. (He said, kindly. ;-) )

[xpost to all your kind(ly) words above]

like I keep telling my wife, you learn stuff on the internets.

Did anybody see him in New York City last week?

wasn't it raining hyenas and chimpanzees? he's around in April, I think.

I saw Rollins in Memphis years back. What I get most out of it is his incredible rhythmic canniness. I also like him with Monk. I don't have much of his '70s and '80s records which Christgau loved...what of them?

The latest I've got is "This is What I Do" (if not the title, close enough) from 2000 or so.

All-time fave cut: "Three Little Words," from "Sonny Rollins On Impulse!" -- one of the most perfectly titled albums ever, for so many reasons.

My only times seeing him live was in the 80's; I ended up disappointed because I was hoping for something more like the Village Vanguard trio recordings from '57. The 80's quintet I saw had electric piano and electric bass and was too laid back compared to the Vanguard stuff. One good thing about the Wyntonization of jazz was that it made it OK (nay, even mandatory) to ditch the electric instruments.

I've now seen about five or six of the videos so far. You get to see all the faces of Sonny; all that's missing is a video with his late-50's be-mohawked visage.

My least favorite video so far: "52nd Street Theme", with the Our Man in Jazz quartet, featuring two Ornette alumni plus Henry Grimes, a bassist at home in any context (to this day). I wonder if he regards that quartet as a failed experiment, because I don't think he's tried anything as conceptually adventurous since then. Which is fine, since he seems free-er when he's firmly planted in the sound-world of the 18-year-old bebopper that he was when he first recorded "52nd Street Theme" with Bud Powell; an example here is the cadenza in the "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" video, but his mastery is just one continuous example.

I'm going to try to catch him live one more time at least. And now I'm off to youtube...

I don't have any problem with electric instruments per se, it's how they're used. I like lots of jazz with electric bass and electric piano. Easy Living has electric instruments on some tracks and acoustic instruments on other, and it seems like the instruments chosen are well-suited to each track.

He's got a new (self-released I think) album out, and I read somewhere that he met up with a tape trader who has been collecting and trading (but not selling) live concerts of his for years, so he may decide to release some of those shows himself.

he actually told K. Leander Williams in Time Out New York that release of those tapes "isn't a possibility. It's a probability."

Recently got this thing on Bluebird called Sonny Rollins & Co. 1964, which seems to feature various combinations of herbie hanccock, ron carter, bob cranshaw, mickey roker, jim hall and roy mccurdy. I have a feeling it's material that was originally issued under other release names - anyone know?

bumping this for ilxor to read (he's at work)

grrrrr (bookmarked!)

The Cutting Edge from '75 with Rufus Harley and a savage swinging version of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot is not to be passed on.

I was in Paris a couple of weeks ago and there were up and coming concert posters everywhere with this awesome photo.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_qoqrkp25A60/TJq801jX_zI/AAAAAAAACZE/uuR7uAdbz9w/s1600/sonny_rollins.jpg

Just saw him at Kennedy Center in Washington DC last night. Now, 81-year old Rollins has a huge gray-white haired 'fro and beard. He walked out there all hunched over and moving slowly, but when he was playing he suddenly straightened up his back at times. Longtime bassist Cranshaw, plus guitar, drums and a percussionist(I left the playbill somewhere that had their names). The set was only an hour and 10 to 15 minutes long but plenty enjoyable.

i'd love to see him sometime! some of the more recent live recordings i've heard make it clear he's still got some things to say.

Just been listening to a '74 set from Dime that I grabbed after watching the stuff on BBC4 last night. This was a bio doc including footage from his 80th birthday concert where he was joined onstage by Jim Hall and later Ornette Coleman. Also included footage of him revisiting the bridge of the lp title, not sure when that was shot, much earlier since his hair was still black not the fluffy white blob it is in the more current footage.

That was followed by a set from Ronnie Scott's that was filmed for the BBC in '74 with his electric band and Rufus Harley on horns and bagpipes. That'll presumably be doing the rounds before long. There's a version up on youtube already
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8SCquHKhzs
it's called rescued cos only part of the footage from the gig was used by the BBC at the time and one of the engineers reintegrated the edited bits to a reel which he kept in his attic since then.

I also found this from Copenhagen in '74
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMKuaYDOkdQ

and this from Holland in '73
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPRik08kQFI
think there's more from that gig up there too

wife/daughter got me the live in europe 1959 3-disc set for father's day. so great! not sure of its import-y/bootleg origins, but it deserves a little more attention! all trio stuff of rollins at one of his peaks as a player.

I got a couple Sonny Rollins CDs, but he is definitely one of the titans of post bop jazz I really need to take a year or two and just listen to pretty much it all like I have with other jazz artists of his ilk.

yeah his career is a little bit hard to follow (at least for me) because he doesn't have one era where he had, you know, the classic band, the classic label, etc. he was always kinda bouncing around.

I dunno, I think a case could be made for The Freelance Years box (if there's one single classic Rollins era).

http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/print-view/sony-rollins-the-colossus-20130819

Nice interview/feature. Despite some lung issues he's still working hard at 82.

Spoiler alert, this is a sad part from near the end of this fascinating to me article:

"I mostly stay in," Sonny said, sitting in his leather chair with his now familiar blood-orange skullcap on his head. He had a bunch of tests scheduled to check on his lungs, which he said had gotten "a little worse." He believed that the problem had been building for some time, perhaps back to 9/11. "I was living so close to the Towers, and when they fell down, we had to stay there," he said. "It was such an upsetting time, I really felt like playing. I took out my horn and took this deep breath, something I've done a million times. But I immediately felt sick, like I'd gulped down something bad. Some poison. It was just in the air."

Sonny looked wistfully at his sainted ax sitting on a brick shelf beside the fireplace. He hadn't played for months, the longest period since he returned from India in 1971.

But he wasn't feeling sorry for himself. Indeed, he appeared in good spirits, even jolly. It was difficult in the beginning, he said, not being able to practice. It was something he feared. "I really felt that would be the end of me, not being able to play. But I'm coming to terms with it. We're here for such a short time, you have to make the most of it. I've been lucky, getting to spend my life playing this horn. So how can I complain?"

Besides, Sonny said, it wasn't like the verdict was in for sure. There was every chance he'd play again. This was a good thing, Sonny said, because "I haven't really met my goals. I haven't made my full statement yet."

I hope he can play again. While he walked hunched over the last time I saw him, when he blew his horn he stood tall. Amazing

bump.

he's cancelled his show at the London jazz festival in November, which doesn't sound good.

Letter from Sonny Rollins to Coleman Hawkins.

ha that is great. was just listening to the sonny meets hawk album a little while ago -- lots of weird/wonderful stuff going on there. always find the end of "lover man" kind of terrifying, some kind of staring-into-the-abyss playing happening. obvious that rollins loved hawkins enough that he did not want to just let him coast through that session.

1962...Wow

I had never had a proper listen to The Bridge till recently, the middle 2 (John S + title track) are incredible. He sounds like a bit of a judgemental shit in that letter to Hawkins but he was deffo on a hell of a creative high when he wrote it.

http://wnpr.org/post/sonny-rollins-reflects-his-life-career-and-goals-both-musical-and-spiritual#stream/0

He got an honary degree from the University of hartford and in the interview says he's not done yet. Much of the post is an overview of his career highlights

I have been hammering The Bridge recently, about 60% of what I love about it is Jim Hall's guitar playing. Some of the standards on it are a bit workaday, but still lovely rainy Sunday music.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/artists/jazz-great-sonny-rollins-still-not-finished-at-85/

He's hoping new medication will help him with his (post-9/11)respiratory issues, and allow him to play and record again

I was afraid this thread had been bumped because he'd died.

Last month I set up a phone interview between Rollins and up-and-coming tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana; here's a link for anyone who wants to read it.

happy 88th birthday, big sax colossus!

I've been listening to a lot of 70s Sonny and find it quite interesting. Horn Culture is good start to finish, but all of them have their merits. Not quite fusion, not quite crossover jazz-funk, but interesting on their own terms.

i like the way i feel which has lee ritenour, billy cobham, bill summers AND patrice rushen. doesn't quite live up to the lineup but fun anyway

I had been considering doing a string of blog posts about his 70s albums for a while. I was intrigued when he tossed a version of "Disco Monk" onto one of his Road Shows live compilations.

do it. the mccoy tyner series was awesome

Listening to the 2CD expanded version of 1973's In Japan now. The original album was 46 minutes long; the second disc (bonus material) is 58 minutes, including a 29-minute piece. The band is Rollins, Bob Cranshaw on bass, David Lee on drums, Mtume on congas, and Yoshiaki Masuo on guitar.

a string of blog posts about his 70s albums

would read

Masuo is great on Horn Culture- I didn't know him at all. I'll have to check out In Japan.

70s-wise, Nucleus (title thought to be a play on his nickname, which came from his looking like baseball's Don Newcombe, and he always has seemed like an athlete) was my gateway Rollins LP (dunno how the CD sound etc compares), and sounded like exemplary jazz with crossover and gateway appeal: accessibly melodic and robust and even-especially lyrical, but disciplined, and trusting the listener to have an open mind and a brain.
Wiki sez:
Track listing
All compositions by Sonny Rollins except as indicated.

"Lucille" - 6:08
"Gwaligo" - 5:58
"Are You Ready?" - 4:08
"Azalea" - 4:46
"Newkleus" (James Mtume) - 5:17
"Cosmet" - 7:20
"My Reverie" (Larry Clinton, based on Claude Debussy's "Reverie") - 7:39
Personnel
Sonny Rollins: tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone
George Duke: piano, electric piano & synthesizer (track 1,3,5-7)
Raul de Souza: trombone (tracks 1-4,6,7)
Bennie Maupin: tenor saxophone (all), tenor saxophone soloist on 4, bass clarinet (track 7), saxello (track 6), lyricon (track 5)
Black Bird McNight: guitar (tracks: 1-3,5,6); soloist on 2,3
David Amaro: guitar; soloist on 1
Chuck Rainey: electric bass (tracks 1-3,6)
Bob Cranshaw: electric bass (tracks 4,5,7)
Eddie Moore: drums (tracks 1-3,6)
Roy McCurdy: drums (tracks 4,5,7)
Mtume: congas & percussion (1-4,6), lead guitar (track 5)

Also enjoyed the live, Caribbean-tending Don't Stop The Carnival, with Tony Williams---and There Will Be Another You, an electrifying, immersive concert from the mid-60s, with Billy Higgins, unreleased 'til the late-ish 70s, and totally relevant to the latter era's still-ongoing evolution of progressive and free jazz---also relevant to, for instance, this year's belated releases of Coltrane's Blue World, Art Pepper's Promise Kept: The Complete Artist House Masters, and fuckin' finally Getz at the Gate. Rollins sued or pressured ABC about releasing this show, and the LP disappeared pretty quickly, though may have eventually come out on CD.

Impulse has it on a 2-for-1 CD, paired with On Impulse, a studio album from the same year. My favorite Rollins album on Impulse is East Broadway Run Down (it was David S. Ware's favorite, too).

Great to know, thanks! I meant something more like "the evolution of progressive jazz in response to the co-existence of free jazz," toward a new mainstream, or something personally expressive, yet/and inclusive, that didn't lose the freedom principle of jazz to trappings, tropes, milestones, incl. previous adaptations and resistance to same.

As threatened, here's the first in a three-part series about Rollins' 1970s albums, discussing Sonny Rollins' Next Album (mostly solid), Horn Culture (some peaks and one very deep valley), In Japan (incredible, especially the 2CD reissue which adds a full hour of bonus material) and The Cutting Edge (also quite good - the addition of bagpiper Rufus Harley was a fucking brilliant choice).

Bless you for this series, but I disagree with your take on Sais- indeed it was that very track that prompted me to revive this thread. I was utterly blown away by how weird and long that soprano solo is. When it first comes on it sounds like someone just moaning like they got kicked in the nuts & they're trying to sing it out... unreal!

Part 2 is up today. TL;DR: Nucleus is pretty great, The Way I Feel is mostly not-great, the live There Will Never Be Another You is surprisingly rough and hardcore, and the double live Don't Stop the Carnival has its moments. Tony Williams doesn't add as much to it as I'd hoped, but Donald Byrd does.

I just picked up 'Carnival' on the cheap and have to agree. The r&b material is much better represented on the studio LPs and Williams is pretty rote. Sides 1 & 4 offer the most excitement imo.

unperson, thanks so much for doing the blog posts ! highly stimulating so far -- i'm pacing myself so i can spend some time with the records before i move ahead. great excuse to discover (and sometimes re-visit) the '70s catalogue.

anyway, i have to agree with Sparkle Motion re: "sais", i think it's great

unreleased 'til the late-ish 70s, and totally relevant to the latter era's still-ongoing evolution of progressive and free jazz

dow, this is interesting, but i'm curious, apart from the art pepper archival release you mentioned, what late '70s recordings do you have in mind ?

p.s. i like sonny rollins just fine but absolutely worship don cherry and am wondering about this box:

https://www.jazzviews.net/uploads/1/5/1/1/15113040/661287698.jpg?259

SONNY ROLLINS QUARTET WITH DON CHERRY - Complete Live at the Village Gate 1962

(6 CD SET)

​SONNY ROLLINS, tenor sax; DON CHERRY, cornet; BOB CRANSHAW, bass; BILLY HIGGINS, drums
July 27th to July 30th 1962

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srweoZIlao0

xp to dow

sorry meant to phrase that more as, in addition to art pepper archival release, what mid / late '70s records do you see as being of a piece with this "progressive" tendency in some of these SR recordings ? just trying to figure out more clearly what you mean by opening up the sample size a bit

That 1962 box is amazing; I bought it a few years ago and wrote about it for BA:

The original Our Man in Jazz featured only three tracks—a side-long exploration of “Oleo,” and versions of “Dearly Beloved” and “Doxy”—and was not regarded as a landmark Rollins album, even though it was one of the first things he released after a hiatus that had begun in 1959. Now, though, a box has emerged, on the Solar label out of Spain, that adds 18 previously unreleased recordings, and the full-length “Dearly Beloved,” from the band’s four-night stand at the Village Gate, expanding the album to a six-CD set. Complete Live at the Village Gate 1962 is similar to Miles Davis’s 1995 box Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel 1965, in that it documents a band at work over multiple nights, allowing comparison between multiple performances of the same book of tunes. But the Davis quintet would stay together until 1968, its sound evolving from year to year, its studio albums building one on top of the other until they became one of the most beautiful and brilliant discographies in jazz. The Rollins/Cherry band, on the other hand, was a comet, rocketing across the scene and vanishing nearly as fast as it arrived.

The most immediately notable thing about these performances is their length. When these guys dug into a tune, they kept on digging. Two of the four versions of “Oleo” here are more than a half hour long, and even the released take is nearly a full minute longer on the box than it was on Our Man in Jazz. The “shortest” version of the tune runs more than 17 minutes. The album edit of “Dearly Beloved,” included here on Disc One, was eight minutes and change; the full version, found on Disc Three, runs 18:41. Other tracks, like versions of the Duke Ellington ballad “Solitude” and a series of untitled pieces apparently improvised in the moment, run between 15 and 30 minutes.

Of course, the quality of the music is also impressive as hell. The original album can seem overly loose at first listen; the opening version of “Oleo,” which is also the first thing recorded during the band’s three-night stand, drops you into a world that’s initially hard to navigate. The melody, one of Rollins’ most powerful (that’s why it’s become a standard), is rendered in an oblique and digressive manner, with the saxophonist and the trumpeter talking past each other as Cranshaw and Higgins push and shove. There’s a visceral, bluesy swing to the rhythm, with the drummer attacking in an almost martial manner at times, but it almost feels like there are two separate conversations going on, one up front and one in back.

But the deeper you get into this set, the more you absorb the band’s collective language, the clearer it becomes. A few critics have claimed that Rollins and Cherry were incompatible, that they weren’t capable of deep communication. But I think what was really going on was, people were used to hearing Cherry next to Coleman, whose style was built around extrapolations of a song’s melody. And Cherry could do that really, really well; there’s almost a giddiness to their interplay on albums like This Is Our Music and The Shape of Jazz to Come, like you’re listening to two little kids making up a song together. Rollins, though, was on the surface a more traditional jazz player, who improvised (and still does) by building on the chord structure of a tune, occasionally (okay, frequently) throwing in apposite quotes from other songs, sometimes as punctuation, other times seemingly as filler to allow him to gather his thoughts. The fuller, heavier sound of the tenor saxophone is the ideal tool for this job, just as the alto’s lighter, floatier tone is great for loose, wandering melodies.

Oh man I had no idea of this box set's existence! Our Man in Jazz is such an amazing record, I am going to have to seek this out.

It's incredibly cheap; if you see someone selling it for more than $25, keep looking.

yeah that rollins/cherry box is the deal of the century

xxxxpost hi budo, did you also see my attempted clarification of a 40-year-old impression?
I meant something more like "the evolution of progressive jazz in response to the co-existence of free jazz," toward a new mainstream, or something personally expressive, yet/and inclusive, that didn't lose the freedom principle of jazz to trappings, tropes, milestones, incl. previous adaptations and resistance to same.

― dow, Thursday, October 31, 2019 9:21 PM (two weeks ago) Rollins was way ahead of the curve with this, of course, but the 70s albums I was thinking about in the 70s re expansion of the progressive mainstream prob came more from the "outside," since that's mostly what I was listening to then: Archie Shepp's Sea of Faces, the duo albums with Horace Parlan, Shepp's performance on Charlie Haden's The Golden Number, also the rest of that album, where Haden was taking Liberation Music Orchestra and Old and New Dreams in that era, the later/last Mingus albums---but There Will Be Another You was more challenging, although he always found his way back to the (improved!) melodies he'd started with, after taking them places I would not have known of: the hardest and knottiest of hard bop x fire music, spinning around and around, and it comes out here, in his version of the new normal, 'til the next show, or tune.

I didn't hear Art Pepper until the early 80s, so I wasn't thinking about him in those terms yet.

Oh and also in the 70s, Gato Barbieri's Chapter One: Latin America and Bolivia: romantic melodies and skronk on an extended honeymoon.

Which was not as far from the progressive mainstream or charts as you might think; he'd already gotten 70s-type interest via his soundtrack for Last Tango In Paris.

It's incredibly cheap; if you see someone selling it for more than $25, keep looking.

― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Sunday, November 17, 2019 1:13 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah that rollins/cherry box is the deal of the century

I haven't bought a CD in nigh on a decade but this might convince me.

Amazing live footage from 1971, of Rollins with Bobo Stenson, Arild Andersen and Jon Christensen backing him up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm_WKmQt2JI

fantastic stuff!

Great interview by David Marchese in the New York Times.

yeah amazing interview!

Wow

Wow is right. Some heavy stuff discussed. But also some lighter topics—His comments re The Rolling Stones are funny.

My breathing seems to be O.K. My main problem is that I can’t blow my horn anymore. I’m surviving, but my problem is I can’t blow my horn.

How does it feel not to be able to blow your horn?

[Laughs] Well, that’s where living in the spirit world comes in. It felt pretty bad. I had a rough time getting through it, because I like blowing my horn. When I had to stop, it was quite a traumatic deal for me. From New Yorker interview

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/sonny-rollins-on-the-pandemic-protests-and-music

90 today.

90 today.

hb big ledge!

a couple of years back i was buzzing when he followed me on twitter, until i started getting suspicious dm's, sort of in character from the living legend asking for financial help and it turned out to be a fake phishing account that was promptly closed down, lol.

https://jazztimes.com/features/interviews/sonny-rollins-bright-moments/

Another good interview with Sonny.

Whew---one of those threads where every revive becomes a bit more worrisome---but thanks for the link.
We should add one to unperson's coverage of this
Sonny Rollins - Rollins In Holland (Resonance)
in his Stereogum column:
https://www.stereogum.com/2107860/the-month-in-jazz-november-2020/columns/ugly-beauty/

He can't play his horn any more---doctor's orders, reportedly---but maybe keyboards? Enough to direct other horn players? Wonder if he can write charts.

Also, this kind of crossover is my fascination (as I meant re xpost "coexistence" of free and hard bop, a new progressive mainstream confluence)---play it again, unperson:
A few critics have claimed that Rollins and Cherry were incompatible, that they weren’t capable of deep communication. But I think what was really going on was, people were used to hearing Cherry next to Coleman, whose style was built around extrapolations of a song’s melody. And Cherry could do that really, really well; there’s almost a giddiness to their interplay on albums like This Is Our Music and The Shape of Jazz to Come, like you’re listening to two little kids making up a song together. Rollins, though, was on the surface a more traditional jazz player, who improvised (and still does) by building on the chord structure of a tune, occasionally (okay, frequently) throwing in apposite quotes from other songs, sometimes as punctuation, other times seemingly as filler to allow him to gather his thoughts. The fuller, heavier sound of the tenor saxophone is the ideal tool for this job, just as the alto’s lighter, floatier tone is great for loose, wandering melodies.
Yeah, the Rollins way is itself a confluence, which may incl. something he heard Marlene Dietrich sing in an old movie on The Late Show, or on the radio of a passing car, whatever comes back to him in the now (though he may have actually plotted at least some of this out, but seems spontaneous)---also, whenever I think of Hal Willner, I think of Rollins w Leonard Cohen, on Night Music, which Willner later said was the performance that seemed to establish the credibility of his approach on there---I don't trust ilx to let me post it, but no doubt somewhere on the 'Tube.

The Complete Village Gate set from a few years back gives a MUCH better picture of the Rollins / Cherry collab than Our Man In Jazz imo — it's amazing.

https://www.discogs.com/Sonny-Rollins-Quartet-With-Don-Cherry-Complete-Live-At-The-Village-Gate-1962/release/7008770

Yeah, and I was quoting from unperson's take on it, upthread---still gotta get that box!

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/jan/21/i-was-so-close-to-the-sky-it-was-spiritual-sonny-rollins-on-jazz-landmark-the-bridge-at-60

Rollins disappeared from the radar and stayed off it for the next two years – instead playing the saxophone on the bridge day and night, rain or shine, in solitary sessions of sometimes 15 hours

I'd read about this before but didn't realise he'd gone to such extremes!

The Bridge is one of the best.

i've been listening to the bridge nonstop lately, great to have this piece about it

I appreciated yr Jim Hall revive other day as well, Brad

Held my breath as I opened this thread. Feel so privileged to have seen him live.

Me too. Jim Hall actually played with him at one of the shows I attended (the 80th birthday gig with Ornette). Hall looked about 150 years old that night.

There's an excerpt from Aidan Levy's massive Rollins biography on The Wire's website. (I reviewed the book itself in the current issue.) It's all about the formation of the band that recorded Our Man In Jazz:

https://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/book-extracts/read-an-extract-from-saxophone-colossus-the-life-music-of-sonny-rollins-by-aidan-levy

wow! thanks for this. can't wait to pick up a copy.

new bio is terrific — about halfway done with it.

Phew, feared the worst when I saw the Rolling Obituary thread near the top of the page.

thanks for the recommendation!

must be Aidan Levy ? is his Lou Reed bio also good?

I need to read this. to me he seems a bit harder to get a handle on (outside of his playing) than monk/coltrane/miles/mingus, maybe because he's relatively less mythologised as a character (and not dead) - I'd love get a better sense of who he is

seeing him not long before his retirement was probably my best ever concert experience (tied with ornette) and he still had more energy on stage than pretty much any young musician I've seen

xp i wasn't crazy about Levy's Lou bio — the DeCurtis one was better.

The book gives you a really good sense of who he is, and he's a fascinatingly weird dude — constantly taking up yoga, going on some spiritual pilgrimage, trying out a new diet, etc., etc. Also a shockingly deep thinker on a wide range of subjects. There's much more to it than just a recitation of recording sessions and live dates.

yeah you get the sense that he's a genuine oddball, but not in a cliche way — just this very unique individual. Total refusal to fit into any box. Just his experiences in the 1950s would make for an incredible book.

I've been listening to the 1965 album on impulse! a lot and I don't know why it isn't generally counted among his classics, it's pretty much perfect. I'm also fascinated by his his playing on the 63 coleman hawkins collab which is so freaky and singular for him - I can only guess his motivations but hawkins rises to the challenge impressively

I'm sold on the book

Green Dolphin Street is a right cut!

I've been listening to the 1965 album on impulse! a lot and I don't know why it isn't generally counted among his classics

I feel like part of Sonny's problem is that he's so critical of his own stuff — he was completely disparaging of those Impulse albums (even though yeah, they're great to my ears). Eventually that attitude rubs off on the audience/critics, I think.

I've always felt like On Impulse was the weakest of his three studio albums for that label — the Alfie soundtrack was really good, with a larger band than he usually used, and East Broadway Run Down was as close as he ever got to real "fire music"-style free jazz, but On Impulse was "just" a collection of five standards. But maybe I should revisit it.

He's supposedly not super into studio recording, so the uneasy feeling of a session seems to color his feelings about the end result, regardless of how great it is. But yeah, he's always been fairly self-critical. There's a story that someone taped a set of his in a club, transcribed a few solos, and showed the transcriptions to Sonny the next night. Sonny looked them over and said, "Oh no, man, I can't play that."

His discography is tricky since he changed bands so much back then — if he had one or two "classic" groups that stayed together for an extended period (like Miles or Coltrane), there would be an era to focus in on. But that was definitely not his MO.

I have the vague memory of some academic doing an effusive analysis of his solo on three little words from on impulse as like the best solo ever or something but I can't find it (schuller or someone like that? I know he did something similar for blue 7)

it's a shame he seems so self critical* (but maybe it's partly why he became so good) - does he consider his semi-engagement with the avant garde a failure? it clearly wasn't it from my pov, it gave a real frisson to his playing afterwards even on smoother work (tenor madness on road shows vol. 1 is just mindblowing, the rest of the band kind of stays on the ground as a launching/landing pad while he's off in space a lot of the time)

*in london I remember him telling himself out loud to get it together in the middle of a solo - I couldn't hear what it was about his playing on that number that wasn't good enough but clearly he did

I love the stuff he recorded after his self-exile period, like The Bridge and What's New, can never get bored of them

yeah, that's what I reach for the most — Jim Hall sounds so good on those records.

His discography is tricky since he changed bands so much back then — if he had one or two "classic" groups that stayed together for an extended period (like Miles or Coltrane), there would be an era to focus in on. But that was definitely not his MO.

FWIW, the quintet with Clifford Brown was amazing - I loved that group, even before Rollins joined. Brown was one of the most immeasurable losses in jazz - as great as he was, given his age and abilities, he seemed like someone who could develop even further as a player.

yeah that Brown / Roach band is fantastic. What's crazy is that Rollins was in that band for less than a year (though he continued playing with Roach after Brown and Powell died).

The Brown & Roach band were amazing, but (and I know this is sort of sacrilegious to say) I'm not actually sure how much farther Brown would have developed as a player. Like, he was virtuosic in a bebop/hard bop context, but I can't think of a single moment on any of those albums that shows that he had the capacity to break out of that. I don't know if he could have had a career like Freddie Hubbard, who did the virtuosic-hard-bopper thing but was also the only musician to appear on both John Coltrane's Ascension and Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz, and then made his slick fusion move with CTI in the early 70s...I feel like Brown would have stayed traditional, to his detriment.

I think I agree — though if Miles Davis had died in 1956, I don't know if we'd be able to really predict, say, Agharta.

but I can't think of a single moment on any of those albums that shows that he had the capacity to break out of that.

I can think of many, including (but not limited to) his phrasing in general, but especially his repeated stabs at a phrase in his solo on "What Is This Thing Called Love" (at 2:00 in the song) -- in its way, it's a foreshadowing of Coltrane's use of repeated figures some years later, really digging in and working certain phrases into the ground. And anyway, people said the same about Coltrane up to, and including, Giant Steps -- where could he even go after all that? That's just it -- we don't know what Brown would have done, and what he was doing wasn't seen or thought of as "traditional" when he was doing it.

Freddie Hubbard, who did the virtuosic-hard-bopper thing but was also the only musician to appear on both John Coltrane's Ascension and Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz, and then made his slick fusion move with CTI in the early 70s...

Except Freddie sounded hapless and out-of-his-depth on Free Jazz, and exponentially moreso on Ascension -- he adds nothing to those records (though he works well enough on Ole). If Freddie hadn't appeared on either of those records his career (and the overall curve of the music) would be unaltered.

seems as though Brown and Max Roach were pretty well-aligned and Roach ended up having a fairly adventurous career over the years ... but again, who knows? He was just 25 when he died!

Yeah, Roach never stopped taking risks. Can you imagine? -- Brown and Braxton! Brown with Cecil Taylor! (As it happened, Brown and Eric Dolphy played together informally in the mid-'50s.)

But also, while we don't know what he might have done, we similarly don't know the effect he would have continued to have on the music. Would Miles have risen to prominence the way he did if Brown had lived? Would Brown being straight-edge (though it obviously wasn't called that at the time) have inspired more musicians to get clean?

is the story about roach punching / otherwise assaulting ornette coleman true? if so did he have a change of heart about the avant garde later on or was it something specific about ornette's approach or personality that pissed him off?

I think Roach had an anger/ violence problem in his younger years. I remember reading he abused Abbey Lincoln when they were together.

I never heard that story, and I knew a couple of musicians who were personally acquainted with both Roach and Ornette -- if it was true, I feel like I would have heard it many times by now. That said, Miles's autobiography has a story or two about how Max struggled with alcoholism after Brown's (and later, Booker Little's) death, and would act unpredictably and, in at least one instance, scary and threatening (when he tried to physically break down the door of Miles's house -- Miles was out, but Frances was home and extremely frightened). So it's not impossible, but if it did happen, I doubt it was because of Max's feelings about the new music (and Max played with Eric Dolphy -- I can't imagine he would have dislike Ornette's work much, certainly not enough to assault him).

xp

There was a story in Spin in the 80s about Roach throwing a writer — who had shown up accompanied by Fab Five Freddy — out of his house for being insufficiently accepting of the musical relationship between jazz and hip-hop. I don't think he ever lost his temper. But he was definitely open to new sounds; he played duos with Braxton, with Shepp, with Cecil; he made albums with string quartets joining his band; he founded M'Boom; he did a whole lot of really adventurous shit that I haven't dug into nearly as deeply as I should.

I remember that piece. The writer mentioned Zeppelin samples in hip-hop. Max said, "Hip-hop swings. I never heard Led Zeppelin swing."

some may disagree but he's right

Found it -- not sure if the link will work, but it's on page 60 of the October, 1988 issue of Spin:

https://books.google.com/books?id=ozV_Wa_c470C&lpg=PA60&dq=%22Max%20Roach%22&pg=PA60#v=onepage&q=%22Max%20Roach%22&f=false

xps I really appreciate rollins' respect for the avant garde without diving in with both feet - I'm sure a lot of people in the jazz world wanted to use him as a weapon like they did with others of his generation who were much less open minded

re: Hubbard I agree he sounds a bit lost on those records (it was nice of him to show up) but he's a great ingredient in the "inside out" semi-free post-bop recordings with Dolphy, Hill, Hutcherson, etc I can imagine Brown filling a similar niche

I didn't realize this was the only footage of Brown known to survive - it's from Soupy Sales's variety show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iuP3CfFZDQ

And check out the comments - five years ago, one of Brown's nephews wrote that this YouTube upload was the first time he ever heard his uncle speak (when he talks with Sales at the very end). It's even more sad given that Brown talks about the birth of his son.

Damn, I didn't know that, crazy. Maybe because he didn't get a chance to tour Europe? It seems like that's where most of the well-recorded video footage of earlier jazz comes from, Euro tv shows and filmed concerts.

Quick plug in for The Sounds of Sonny, 1957 on Riverside: it's not as essential as Way Out West, but has a similar funky sound, a pianoless track, and a solo track.

When my dad interviewed James Brown. (Downbeat 1968) pic.twitter.com/cHQet19P4e

— Fitz Gitler (@techdef) January 16, 2023

an amusing little snippet of The Godfather having very wrong opinions on Rollins

Maybe James changed his tune a few years later, because on “Super Bad, part 2” JB exhorted saxophonist Robert McCollough to “Blow me some Trane!” which McCollough duly did, not exactly adhering to the chords.

At 4:00 here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV9a3tUPqTo

i'm not reading that extract as being particularly anti-rollins -- JB says he doesn't play melodies, which, well, definitions, and he says others can't follow him all the way bcz he's weird, and he says he JB dug that other stuff but beethoven couldn't have figured out the changes (which tbf is probably true!)

if it was middle-aged beethoven you'd have to notate it for him and he probably would be confused!

And Sonny Rollins could never have the harmonic & rhythmic focus and minimalism necessary to sustain the funk. Good thing we can enjoy them both!

whoa whoa, I'm not so sure about that. Sonny was capable of anything!

I thought things could get pretty funky (in a *Rolling* way),along with R&B & Caribbean, on some of his 70s-80s albums, esp. Nucleus (incl. Darryl Blackbird McKnight and Chuck Rainey), also Sunny Days, Starry Nights.

*Rollins*, I meant, but Rolling too, always.

He had the calypso thing, but they had very different visions of infinity. Or perhaps...not so different after all?

THE NOTEBOOKS OF SONNY ROLLINS came out today from NY Review Books

at a glance, there's nothing to dispel the idea that he is a mad genius

Phew, thought we'd lost him there.

every time this thread is revived

#musingsofmiles #bouncingofbach

Just finished Saxophone Colossus and listening to his entire discography.

It’s now a challops but the Milestone run is better than its reputation and I quite enjoyed The Solo Album even if that one has not been rehabilitated.

Saxophone Colossus the book, that is

had to look up which albums are milestone

I think nucleus and global warming are pretty great but I haven't heard most of the others. I heard bad things from jazz nerds which I took too seriously when I was young and insecure about being into jazz so I'm sure there's lots to uncover

I heard the solo album maybe once as a teen and found it boring because it wasn't accessible hard bop or extreme free jazz so I didn't understand the point of it

I'll link to the three long things I wrote about Sonny in the '70s, which I'm sure are upthread somewhere:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

More on the Notebooks of Sonny Rollins

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/18/books/review/notebooks-of-sonny-rollins.html

I'm not a huge fan tbh, but I'm listening to the 40 minute version of 'Four' and it certainly is something (mostly a monument to the rhythm section, sustaining that level of swing and energy and attention at the same tempo for that long).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KCDJtiY8sg

Also kind of amazing that it just keeps speeding up, lol

I'm not a huge fan tbh

95 today. Listening to Our Man In Jazz because the complete Rollins/Cherry Village Gate recordings aren't on streaming services.

MAMDANI RENAME THE WILLIAMSBURG BRIDGE