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January 2005:
One of the best jazz records of all time is Sonny
Rollins’ Saxophone Colossus (Prestige, 1956). All five tracks on
this album are classics. Newk opens the session up with St. Thomas,
which features the wonderful drumming of Max Roach. If you want to hear
a great contemporary version of this track, try the second disc of
Joshua Redman’s Live at the Village Vanguard album (which has an
exceptional series of drum solos by Brian Blade). Next, Rollins covers
the beautiful jazz standard You Don’t Know What Love Is, which is
equally as impressive as Coltrane’s version on his Ballads album
for Impulse! Records. My ‘Theory and Performance’ teacher at the New
School- Dave Schnitter (the longest member of Art Blakey’s Jazz
Mesengers)- has a thought provoking version of this song on his 2004
album Sketch (Sunnyside Records). The middle track of
Saxophone Colossus is the upbeat Strode Rode, which features
Sonny steaming on tenor sax. Strode Rode is followed by
Moritat, a renamed old-time composition covered by a wide variety of
jazz men. Rollins saves the best for last though: he closes the sessions
with a phenomenal version of a standard blues form titled Blue 7.
Sonny and Tommy Flanagan give close to perfect solos on this piece. I
used to try to imitate Rollins solo on this track as a youngster jamming
out with Jammey Abersole’s “music minus 1” tapes.
I
recommend buying The Complete Sonny Rollins Blue Note Recordings-
all five of his albums for the label are classics. I especially dig the
2nd Volume of Live at The Village Vanguard. These tracks were
recorded when the Vanguard was just some “hole in the wall”
establishment, a “dive” that featured poetry and some music. Rollins
brought his trio into this hang out and jammed all night long. The
trio features a young Elvin Jones and Peter LaRocca swapping the drum
chair over a few nights. Wilbur Ware holds things down on bass each
evening. It was daring for a horn player to walk into a club in the
1950’s without someone playing chords (on either piano or guitar) in a
small jazz combo. Only Sonny Rollins could make a corny composition
like Old Devil Moon groove so hard. He introduced his own
Sonnymoon for Two on these nights and Wynton Marsalis honored him in
2000 by playing the composition with his big band for President
Clinton’s White House Jazz Concert. Striver’s Row is
another original that made me want to go to Harlem and hang out on the gorgeous
section of Upper Manhattan’s neighborhood (the townhouses on those two
streets are completely stunning). One of the reasons that Charles Gayle
covered I’ll Remember April on his 2001 Jazz Solo Piano
album is most likely because Newk chose the classic for his
Vanguard sessions. What is This Thing Called Love is
performed as fast as I have ever heard it before, and like always Sonny
makes the changes well. The swing on Get Happy is exceptional
and the tenor player’s performance on the ballad I Can’t Get Started
is a perfect example of strong melody and improvisation (for the jazz
novice to start imitating and practicing with.) Yet the highlights
of the evenings are the two takes of Softly as a Morning
Sunrise and A Night In Tunisia. Ware and Rollins make
elegant statements on both versions of Softly. Elvin and Pete
offer two very different interpretations of A Night in Tunisia-
If you want something cool go for La Rocca’s version…if you want
something hot try Elvin’s take. It should be noted that Elvin Jones
sounds much differently with Rollins than he does with Coltrane (there
is a 5 or 6 year time gap between his work with each of them).
The
highlight of the album Newk’s Time is Rollins version of Kenny
Dorham’s Asiatic Raes (played in the odd 6/8 time meter). Miles
Davis’ Tune-Up is another dazzling element of the album. Rollins
had worked with both K.D. and Miles in the earlier stage of his
development as a jazz legend. Sonny Rollins Volume 1 features
the cool opener titled Decision while Volume 2 has two
different pianists trading off on Monk’s Misterioso- Horace
Silver and Thelonious! (All of Sonny’s work with Monk is magnificent.
The same is true for Bud Powell too; check out his solo at age 19 in
1949 on The Amazing Bud Powell Volume 1’s Bouncing with Bud.
While you’re at it, also check out Powell’s hornless trio versions of
Un Poco Loco.) The cover art on Volume 2 is especially
striking- its hip photo can be purchased as a poster by Mosaic.
1957’s
Tenor Madness (Prestige) features Newk playing the title track
(which Kenny Dorham recorded the year earlier under the title Royal
Roost- a famous 52nd Street night club) with stablemate
John Coltrane. Rollins had some personal problems soon after
this, yet he was found making music on the road in Chicago and then
practicing daily under Delancey Street’s Williamsburg Bridge (hence the
name of the Impulse! album East Broadway Rundown). Newk hired
Ornette Coleman’s bandmates (Don Cherry and Billy Higgins) and started
touring abroad. I have a nice bootleg tape of a concert of his band
during this period titled Without a Song, which could probably be
purchased on Ebay. His band was adventurously reinterpreting bebop
charts like 52nd Street Theme. The Rollins band
was also giving the European audiences a little durable piece of
Americana by playing The Star Spangled Banner on their overseas
tours. They would end their concerts by either playing St. Thomas
or playing rhythm changes under the name Cleo or Oleo.
During this phase, Rollins sported a Mohawk haircut that was a symbol of his
new, reborn radical approach to modern jazz. He was given the
opportunity to write the score to the Michel Caine movie Alfie,
which was arranged for a big-band. Alfie’s Theme has a catchy
melody played by Rollins and then leads to a groovy solo by Kenny
Burrell (this was the track chosen for use in the trailer to the movie,
and was used again in the 2004 remake of the film staring Jude Law).
Next Rollins found himself paired with his idol Coleman Hawkins on the
Sonny Meets Hawk album for RCA records. This session features
Henry Grimes in wonderful shape, and I find the two tenors (back to
back) sound the best on Summertime and Loverman.
Although you can make the argument that Rollins’ sound comes directly
out of the Coleman Hawkins tradition, I believe his music is the next
logical statement of the fringe ‘Rhythm and Blues’ sound of Louis
Jordan.
The Standard Sonny Rollins album, also on RCA, has
Newk playing classics such as Night and Day and My One and
Only Love (the latter was also chosen for the Johnny Hartman/ John
Coltrane pairing on Impulse!... Joshua Redman chose to include it on his
Vanguard date because both Sonny and Trane approved of it). Some of
Rollins work from the 1970’s and 1980’s is captured on the Silver
City release from Milestone (I really like the track Darn that
Dream because it provides the listener with a fresh alternative to
the classic Dexter Gordon version; his improvisational opener to
Autumn Nocturne is the top element to the double disc release).
Today he is also an activist promoting eco-awareness and named one of
his albums Global Warming (which was recorded 50 years
after he first started playing music professionally).
Rollins is our
greatest living legend. I have followed in his path throughout my
entire adolescent life: I caught him in concert at the University of
Florida at age 16 (John Scofield opened up for him), I tracked his
student David S. Ware down in New Jersey at age 18 and asked for
lessons, then I caught Newk live again at the Montreal Jazz Festival at
age 19 (in 2000), then one more time in New York City at Lincoln
Center’s Damrosch Park at age 20 (in 2001). My New York apartment was
just a few blocks away from the Harlem Hospital he was born at; one
summer I lived on the Lower East Side right near where he used to
practice. We all should be obsessed with Sonny Rollins; I really hope
he lives forever! |