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.

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