Sonny Rollins

[Gheorghe]

7 hours ago, MomsMobley said:

Tai-Chi & lyricon!

**

Nat Cole in "Indochina"

That track Tai-Chi & Lyricon, I somehow remember it but I think I didn´t pay much attention to it, it sounded a little like pentatonic Chinese music or how you call it, not my groove, honestly. 

Minus that track I remember I liked the album very much, I think there was also a beautiful version of "My Ideal" on it, a ballad I really love.....

[mjzee]

I recently found a used copy of "Sonny, Please," and am digging the hell out of it.  If this turns out to be his final studio date, it must be said that he really went out on a high note.

 

[GA Russell]

I am reading Saxophone Colossus by Aidan Levy.  Very thorough.  I read a chapter each evening.   After a month, I am only one-third of the way through.  I am now up to the Rollins in Holland performances.

[soulpope]

6 minutes ago, GA Russell said:

I am reading Saxophone Colossus by Aidan Levy.  Very thorough.  I read a chapter each evening.   After a month, I am only one-third of the way through.  I am now up to the Rollins in Holland performances.

For potential reader already having substantial knowledge of/about Sonny Rollins, would you recommend the book .... ?

[GA Russell]

28 minutes ago, soulpope said:

For potential reader already having substantial knowledge of/about Sonny Rollins, would you recommend the book .... ?

Well, one benefit for me is that it has clarified the timeline of his recordings.  It explains what was going on in his life at the time of each recording, and how the sidemen became involved.

[soulpope]

1 minute ago, GA Russell said:

Well, one benefit for me is that it has clarified the timeline of his recordings.  It explains what was going on in his life at the time of each recording, and how the sidemen became involved.

Thnx, that's helpful 👍 ....

[Kevin Bresnahan]

10 hours ago, mjzee said:

I recently found a used copy of "Sonny, Please," and am digging the hell out of it.  If this turns out to be his final studio date, it must be said that he really went out on a high note.

 

Sonny is very much retired. He no longer plays. He made it clear in one of his last interviews.

[JSngry]

But that is indeed a hood record

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

[AllenLowe]

I love Sonny, he is probably the reason I play the sax, but I have a lot of problems with the book. Years ago Jamil Nasser said to me (and I quote as closely as I can remember):

"Sonny was completely thrown by the fact that Coltrane became the dominant saxophone player in jazz. That's why he started all those gimmicks, the Mohawk haircut, the thing about playing on the bridge - it was all to try and get some attention back."

And I will add what Paul Bley said about the Our Man in Jazz Group:

"We don't need Sonny to play free; we need him to show us how to play standards."

(I know that group played standards but they went outside a lot)

I love Sonny, and I only read a part of the book (I could not get through the massive and irrelevant, unedited detail) so I don't know how he dealt with the above. But I think it's important to look dispassionately at genius artists like Rollins. Otherwise, if we treat everything as the same, as in "Sonny was great for his entire career," then we diminish the parts of him that actually were great.

I know this is not a popular opinion, but I am not the only one who feels this way (I cannot name names without permission).

 

[felser]

1 hour ago, AllenLowe said:

if we treat everything as the same, as in "Sonny was great for his entire career," then we diminish the parts of him that actually were great.

 

Amen.

[JSngry]

I don't know if he was great all of his career, he certainly made a lot of non-great records (in all years!). But he certainly had moments of greatness up until the end that were unlike anything that anybody else could have done.

Me, I'm a sound-first guy, and that guy's sound was a life unto itself, right up to the end.

Old, craggy, rambling at times, but good luck finding anybody else who plays the instrument like that. When it's gone, it's gone, period.

You don't need my permission to tell anybody that I feel that way.

[AllenLowe]

4 minutes ago, JSngry said:

I don't know if he was great all of his career, he certainly made a lot of non-great records (in all years!). But he certainly had moments of greatness up until the end that were unlike anything that anybody else could have done.

Me, I'm a sound-first guy, and that guy's sound was a life unto itself, right up to the end.

Old, craggy, rambling at times, but good luck finding anybody else who plays the instrument like that. When it's gone, it's gone, period.

You don't need my permission to tell anybody that I feel that way.

Ok I'll put out an APB. But to me that performance is part of the problem. And the rhythm section is like finger nails on a blackboard. Sonny, who spent the first half of his career jettisoning extraneous accompanists spent the last half flooding his music with obstructions.

[JSngry]

I see no problem. Or hear one.

Then again I'm not looking for one. I'm just watching an old guy play tenor and going wherever the momen takes him. Or doesn't.

It's what he wanted to do. More power to him for navigating the business to be able to do that and have a good life by so doing.

That's an art in and of itself.

[mjzee]

17 hours ago, soulpope said:

For potential reader already having substantial knowledge of/about Sonny Rollins, would you recommend the book .... ?

I would say yes.  This, to me, was the autobiography Sonny wanted to write, and it's apparent he extensively cooperated with Levy.  I found the details of his arrest as a teenager fascinating, how his father's experiences affected Sonny's politics, the details about Clifford Brown's death and funeral (with pictures), his many sojourns in Europe with pickup groups, his home life with Lucille...the list goes on.  The book is exhaustively documented - I don't think we need the details of every tour Sonny did in the '70's, '80's, and '90's, so you may want to dip into the book for specific periods you'd find interesting - but you do come away with a good sense of the man's personality.

[AllenLowe]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

I see no problem. Or hear one.

Then again I'm not looking for one. I'm just watching an old guy play tenor and going wherever the momen takes him. Or doesn't.

It's what he wanted to do. More power to him for navigating the business to be able to do that and have a good life by so doing.

That's an art in and of itself.

If you are implying that I am looking for a problem, that's not really fair. It implies that I come to Sonny's music looking to pick it apart. The truth is really the opposite; for years I cut him a lot of slack, saw him more than a few times through the '70s and '80s and always thought I should like what I didn't, so I kept going back. There were moments of illumination but they were like listening to someone whose feet were trapped in mud. There was no way out, and Sonny, I soon realized, wasn't looking for a way out so I gave up. I'm not questioning his right to do whatever he wants, but that doesn't make it interesting.

18 hours ago, mjzee said:

I recently found a used copy of "Sonny, Please," and am digging the hell out of it.  If this turns out to be his final studio date, it must be said that he really went out on a high note.

 

like with all of Sonny there are some amazing possibilities. He is one of a handful of saxophonists of that generation who made a smooth and real transition to harmonic adventures that shadowed the free jazz/post-Trane movement. That's an amazing thing. But the way they recorded this  isn't appealng to me, boomy bass and airless. And his performances don't really go anywhere. But it does make fascinating listening. Sonny's was a great musical mind and listening to him on something like this is like listening to a great scientist strugglling to invent something he knows is within his grasp. This is def. one of his best later things.

[JSngry]

It's interesting to me, sometimes the results, always the process. How he gets to his zone is nobody's business but his own, and if he's willing to own it, no matter if it soars or if it plops (and hasn't it always been so?) then I find that a lot more interesting than most players in general who create some security blanket baseline that allows them to "sound good" no matter what. In that way, he seems like, of all people, Lee Konitz!

Rhythm sections...they have one job - stay the fuck out of his way. If he gets there, stay the fuck out of the way. If he doesn't get there, stay the fuck out of the way until/if he does.

Highest highs, lowest lows, and no apologies. Far more interesting to me than many, many other people.

Of course, you have no obligation to share my interest. But work on your tone, as I do one mine. We can but dream!

[AllenLowe]

26 minutes ago, JSngry said:

It's interesting to me, sometimes the results, always the process. How he gets to his zone is nobody's business but his own, and if he's willing to own it, no matter if it soars or if it plops (and hasn't it always been so?) then I find that a lot more interesting than most players in general who create some security blanket baseline that allows them to "sound good" no matter what. In that way, he seems like, of all people, Lee Konitz!

Rhythm sections...they have one job - stay the fuck out of his way. If he gets there, stay the fuck out of the way. If he doesn't get there, stay the fuck out of the way until/if he does.

Highest highs, lowest lows, and no apologies. Far more interesting to me than many, many other people.

Of course, you have no obligation to share my interest. But work on your tone, as I do one mine. We can but dream!

no argument here; my tone is everything.

[BFrank]

Another from the recently unearthed photos I took at Montreux Jazz 1978

Edited December 9 by BFrank

[soulpope]

7 hours ago, mjzee said:

I would say yes.  This, to me, was the autobiography Sonny wanted to write, and it's apparent he extensively cooperated with Levy.  I found the details of his arrest as a teenager fascinating, how his father's experiences affected Sonny's politics, the details about Clifford Brown's death and funeral (with pictures), his many sojourns in Europe with pickup groups, his home life with Lucille...the list goes on.  The book is exhaustively documented - I don't think we need the details of every tour Sonny did in the '70's, '80's, and '90's, so you may want to dip into the book for specific periods you'd find interesting - but you do come away with a good sense of the man's personality.

Thnx .... I'm interested in his career until the late 60's .... thereafter not so much .... so also books about his life will have always have an ambivalent reader with me ....

[soulpope]

7 hours ago, AllenLowe said:

There were moments of illumination but they were like listening to someone whose feet were trapped in mud. There was no way out, and Sonny, I soon realized, wasn't looking for a way out so I gave up ....

That's a good description about my view on Sonny Rollins from the late 60's/70's onwards ....

[JSngry]

Have you ever been barefoot in the mud? It's glorious!

[Gheorghe]

Well I have doubts people from my generations would have other kind of Sonny than that from the late 70´s on. 
I don´t have any reason to dislike what I heard. The albums that were around were fine and exiting, for example the Milestone Albums like "Don´t stop the Carnaval" with Tony Williams, then the albums with Al Foster on drums
 

Sure I have heard some of those Prestige albums mostly "Tenor Madness" on record, but at the time I was listening most, I liked to stuff he did with Don Cherry, last not least for Billy Higgins.

But as I said. Sonny Rollins aged in his late 40´s was the Man we saw live and admired, damn good drummers with him, I remember Jerry Harris on electric bass and maybe Mark Soskin on piano.....

[mikeweil]

On 12/9/2024 at 3:11 PM, JSngry said:

Have you ever been barefoot in the mud? It's glorious!

As long as the mud is warm ... and thereafter your utterings may be less interesting to others.

[JSngry]

Some, not all.

[AllenLowe]

I haven't read everything here, but the RCA stuff, IMHO, is epochal - coinciding as it does with a lot of film of Sonny, in Denmark in particular (IIRC) that is astounding; maybe 1964-66. His harmonic approach is amazing (I can say this as I try to copy him all the time; unsuccessfully of course) - he is playing these stacked, chromatic lines that, coupled with his amazing time and technique, are among the most amazing accomplishments by anyone, ever, in jazz. This is the period of which Larry Kart told me he thought Sonny to be, and I am paraphrasing, "one of the greatest artists in anything, ever." I concur.