Sonny Rollins

[Chuck Nessa]

Off topic, but giving a bit of insight to Sonny's personality. In the early/mid '70s Roscoe Mitchell was operating something called CAC in the Detroit area. Part of this was a "youth program" teaching youngsters about jazz. Roscoe arranged to have Rollins speak to the kids. After the event the kids gathered around Sonny and asked for autographs. Thinking of Sonny as an idol and inspiration, after the kids were through Roscoe asked for an autograph too. Sonny looked at Roscoe and said "I'm not signing for you - you're 'one of the guys'".

RM relayed this to me in 1977, iirc.

[Guest Mnytime]

Off topic, but giving a bit of insight to Sonny's personality. In the early/mid '70s Roscoe Mitchell was operating something called CAC in the Detroit area. Part of this was a "youth program" teaching youngsters about jazz. Roscoe arranged to have Rollins speak to the kids. After the event the kids gathered around Sonny and asked for autographs. Thinking of Sonny as an idol and inspiration, after the kids were through Roscoe asked for an autograph too. Sonny looked at Roscoe and said "I'm not signing for you - you're 'one of the guys'".

RM relayed this to me in 1977, iirc.

Chuck

"One of the Guys" in what sense?

[Late]

Roundsound — Gerry Mulligan is one saxophonist of note that was working without a piano several years (around five, I think) before Sonny Rollins, albeit usually in a quartet format. I think Cranshaw actually plays the electric bass because of injuries sustained in a car accident some time ago that limited his left hand/arm movement — at least I recall reading this on a bulletin board (can't remember which one) about a year ago.

[danasgoodstuff]

Late,

I hadn't heard that about Cranshaw being injured. I stand corrected. Thanx muchly and that'll learn me to speculate!

[Jad]

Haven't listened to much Sonny (shame, shame)but now I know where to start (this board is KILLING my wallet!)

But I have been listening to "Dizzy Gillespie with Sonny Stitt and Sonny Rollins" and have to give my to that. Rollins only plays on two tracks, but he and Diz absolutely TEAR IT UP on the first track (my first Sonny Stitt too).

Edited June 15, 2003 by Jad

[EKE BBB]

Rollins time again!

Could anybody choose some CDs from 1966 on?

Looking at my collection, there are many pre-1966 recordings.... but just one after 1966 (from that year I have "Alfie" and "East Broadway went down"): it´s "Sonny Rollins +3" (Milestone, 1996).... and the guy could still blow!

[JSngry]

NEXT ALBUM

IN JAPAN

G MAN

FALLING IN LOVE WITH JAZZ

THIS IS WHAT I DO

None are perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but all have more than enough highlights to be satisfying purchases for a Rollins fan, I think.

Or, just get the SILVER CITY box.

[EKE BBB]

Thanks, Jim

I´ll add some of these to my "next-purchases" list.... too many discs there, I´m afraid!

[Guest youmustbe]

Sonny had dental work done sometime in the late 60's, and it ruined his sound. He just couldn't do what he did before with his new dentures, or false teeth or whatever it was.

Never liked him after that. He was so incredible before that, all kinds of shades and tones to his sound. Incredible!

Also, Sonny's inferiority complex re Trane got to him real bad. No need, but there it is. (Stan Getz also thought he was nothing compared to Trane. when he played opposite him at the Jazz Gallery he kept saying how he was nohing compared to Trane.)

Before my time, but I wish I could have been ther in 58 for those 2 weeks when Sonny replaced Trane with monk's Quartet at The Five Spot. Sonny and Monk are a match made in Heaven! (I would like to have heard John Gilmore with Monk, also.)

[couw]

I am unearthing this ancient thread because I recently got the Sonny Rollins Vol. 1 in its latest RVG incarnation. I have been spinning this one on auto-repeat this whole morning and must say I am awed. There isn't much I could say that hasn't been said already about Rollins's playing and probably also about this album. But damn I LOVE it! These guys really gel, there isn't much to criticise and a way too much to praise on this album. Highlights for me are the exchanges between Rollins and Roach and the ballad "Glocca Morra."

I actually thought they were playing "(I'm in love with a) Strong Man" until I read on the back it's Glocca Morra. What gives? Same song? Very similar? My bad memory?

One thing I noticed considering the packaging: it looks spiffy and cool and has a nice gloss, but .... isn't this supposed to be like this ?

Is this yet another fluke of the Krypton Prroof Readers and Korrektion department?

(come to speak of that: I also noted that a recording date is given for song #7 on indestrubtible )

[JSngry]

One thing I noticed considering the packaging: it looks spiffy and cool and has a nice gloss, but .... isn't this supposed to be like this ?

Not that I've ever seen.

[couw]

Not that I've ever seen.

Do you mean you have it with the text horizontal?

I have only ever seen it with the text vertical.

Not that it matters much, 'cause what's inside is what counts!

[Guest akanalog]

for post '66 rollins-

for some reason i like "don't ask" from '79 a lot.

it has larry coryell as a guest and i think i mentioned this in another thread. but the opening song "harlem boys" is really bumping in a cheesy way. there is some more cheese on this album, including a lyricon feature, but the album makes me feel nice.

"no problem" from '81 is also ok. it is another friendly harmless album and this time bobby hutcherson is the guest star. giid vibes both literally and musically though tony williams really bashed away at the drums with little subtelty.

i also like "horn culture" from '73 or so. this has sort of a darker abrasive vibe at points and moves into a sort of strata-east sort/impulse more spiritual thing at times to my ears. not a great album, but pretty cool.

"nucleus" from '75 has some ok points too though i have never felt a reason to upgrade my scratchy vinyl. i throw on the song "newkleus" when i get the chance to DJ at parties-has a nice funky guitar riff by mtume (yes, on guitar). some of the jazzier tunes are sort of smooth and cheesy, perhaps thanks to the presence of george duke.

i was disappointed by some other rollins albums from this time such as "next album "cutting edge" "easy living" "the way i feel" and "don't stop the carnival". not familiar with his output from mid-80's and beyond really. might explore it soon.

[JSngry]

Not that I've ever seen.

Do you mean you have it with the text horizontal?

I have only ever seen it with the text vertical.

Wow...

I bought this on LP back in '74 or so, and have seen it in older editions, including, I think, 5o-whatever Street (maybe even Lexington Avenue, I dunno, I'm not a stickler for that kind of stuff) versions. The text has always been horizontal. Never seen it any other way!

Maybe they did it differently outside the U.S.?

[Late]

John — for what it's worth, I have the JRVG of Volume One, and the text is vertical. I used to have a vinyl copy, and its text was horizontal, however. I actually prefer the veritcal text ... if given a choice.

At any rate, I think Moving Out may be one of Rollins' most under-recognized sessions from his so-called "golden period" of 1951-58. On the surface, it seems like any other blowing session (up-tempo meters, bop changes, some bop clichés in the solos), but Rollins is in such good form that his solos — paradoxically — seem to stand outside bop cliché right when he's got his foot in the middle of, say, "Sailor's Hornpipe." Hard to explain, but it's almost as if Rollins was born to play using this language, it comes so naturally out of his horn. Then, when we get to "Silk 'n Satin" — it must have made Coleman Hawkins smile to hear that. The speaking eighth notes that Hawkins plays ... all right here, and with Newk's personalized inflection. The notes can be transcribed, but that feeling is un-transcribable. Just beautiful.

If you have this disc, spin it tonight or tomorrow (or whenever), and let me know what you think. And I didn't even get to the fact that Blakey doesn't have his hi-hat (which I actually really like) for this recording, or that Elmo Hope may have been the perfect choice for this session. Or that Kenny Dorham is in a most lovely Diz-like frame of mind. Or ... I could go on!

Edited February 2, 2005 by Late

[Larry Kart]

Late, thanks for the nudge. I listened to "Movin' Out" for the first time in a long while, and it was beautiful reminder of the early side of the time when Rollins seemed to be (and probably was, at least for some of us) the most important man on the planet. The "speaking eighth notes" thing you mentioned was at or close to the heart of it -- I think of it as a way he could build multiply shaded dramatic, sometimes ironic, points of view right into the texture of the music, as though the instrument and the thinking behind it had become spontaneously orchestral, a la Ellington or Mahler. And even though it's probably a thing that's impossible to talk about, the sense that the music gave you of Rollins's take on/grasp of the world we all lived in was that he knew EVERYTHING that mattered, or at least more than anyone else--accumulated novel wisdom plus the authority of an on-the-edge-of-the-horizon explorer. Can't think of any people in the history of any art who were more that way than Rollins was back then.

[couw]

If you have this disc, spin it tonight or tomorrow (or whenever), and let me know what you think.

Will do this weekend.

(that's weird about that cover...)

[Alexander Hawkins]

I love Vol. 1 as well - How are Things in Glocca Morra is beautiful, I agree.

[JSngry]

And even though it's probably a thing that's impossible to talk about, the sense that the music gave you of Rollins's take on/grasp of the world we all lived in was that he knew EVERYTHING that mattered, or at least more than anyone else--accumulated novel wisdom plus the authority of an on-the-edge-of-the-horizon explorer. Can't think of any people in the history of any art who were more that way than Rollins was back then.

Larry, although I came to know Rollins in the 70s, that's exactly how he struck me then, and stll strikes me now.

The key phrase for me is he knew EVERYTHING that mattered, or at least more than anyone else--accumulated novel wisdom plus the authority of an on-the-edge-of-the-horizon explorer. That's something that I've always gotten from him, even through the quite uneven last 30 years of recordings. On nearly every one of them, there's at least ONE cut where I hear what he's doing and reflexively think, "this cat KNOWS".

I can only imagein how bleak those albums must sound to somebody who came up with him in "real time". Hell, a lot of it sounds bleak to ME. But the one time I heard him live was a near mystical experience, as are some of the live shows I've been able to collect and the few TV appearances I've seen him do.

I often get the impression that he knows more than is useful for functioning in the jazz world of today, so he pulls back into a zone that is private to the point of impenetrabilty, and just drops little hints here and there of what's REALLY going on inside. This surely frustrates a lot of people, and understandably so. But I grant him that, because the hints that he drops are more than enough to keep me pondering. Others do not feel that way, obviously.

On the other hand, the cat is still alive, healthy, and fully functional musically, a little hollowing of the tone over the last few years notwithstanding. Considering the environment that he came up in, and how many of his peers he has outlived in both chronological time and musical fecundity, I gotta allow for the possibility that his "pulling back" is intentional, that after all the senseless death and premature burning out that he witnessed first hand (and probably came too close for comfort to being a part of), he made a conscious decision to stick around as long as possible by any means necessary.

To that end, I think that the reason we don't really hear anything "new" out of him anymore is that he's already found all the "new" that is his to find. Can anybody REALLY go past his boldest explorations of the 1960s and still stay within the conventional frameworks of "jazz", of playing "songs"? That's not to say that there's no new areas left toe xplore, just that Rollins must have come to the conclusion that wherever he went, he would already have been there. So now, I wonder if the adventure for him is not in the discovery of the new, but instead in the pursuit of that zone where it all happens naturally and without hindrance. In other words, where the joy comes not from climbing those mountains, but from just being there and humbly enjoying the view, a view that none but a handful have ever seen. That might explain a lot of things, especially the records. Doing it live is one thing, but once you put it on record, everything changes, as Sonny found out in the wake of the "thematic improvisation" frenzy of the 50s. There went his neighborhood...

Some people say that Rollins has lost it these days. Some say that he coasts. I say that there's GOT to be more to it than that. What that "more" is, I'll probaly never have as much as a clue, but I refuse to be convinced that it's possible to lose all the "know" that Sonny Rollins once displayed frequently and freely. A sleeping giant is still a giant, and lest we mock him for sleeping so much, we should ask ourselves what kind of dreams he might be having that entice him into such slumber. And DEFINTELY listen to him when he talks in his sleep.

Besides, I think he sleeps a LOT less than some people think he does.

Edited November 7, 2003 by JSngry

[Late]

Jim, do you have Moving Out?

[Larry Kart]

Another thing about the "maybe he knew EVERYTHING" Rollins of the mid' to late-'50s. It wasn't though he or his music came across as some inherently distant and/or bewilderingly ecstatic genius-type thing a la Bird or Coltrane. Instead, it was utterly down-to-earth and street-cornerlike, made out of stuff that everyone knew (or anyone could know) and then just built from the inside out and way upwards in a way that seemed to say, "You could do this too in your way, You could see what I see and know what I know--Maybe you already do."

Jim, I think the key to what's happened to Rollins over time -- in addition to the dental problems of the late '60s that You Must Be mentioned -- is that the athletic, in-the-moment relationship that a soloist must have to his horn and his ongoing thoughts rests on certain assumptions ("assumptions" isn't the right word, but as a player yourself you probably know what I mean: a kind of basic faith that the whole process is worth it/makes sense, for yourself and others), and that for a long time in various ways Rollins found that this "faith" for him was wavering or ebbing. For a time, of course, he built that sense of doubt right into his music (Wayne Shorter did too, in his way), as both men had to do because that doubt was a big part of who they were. But eventually...

[JSngry]

Jim, I think the key to what's happened to Rollins over time -- in addition to the dental problems of the late '60s that You Must Be mentioned -- is that the athletic, in-the-moment relationship that a soloist must have to his horn and his ongoing thoughts rests on certain assumptions ("assumptions" isn't the right word, but as a player yourself you probably know what I mean: a kind of basic faith that the whole process is worth it/makes sense, for yourself and others), and that for a long time in various ways Rollins found that this "faith" for him was wavering or ebbing. For a time, of course, he built that sense of doubt right into his music (Wayne Shorter did too, in his way), as both men had to do because that doubt was a big part of who they were. But eventually...

I know what you mean about that doubt (btw - was it you who wrote the Down Beat review of EAST BROADWAY RUNDOWN, the one that described it as brilliant but ultimately unsettling? Very perceptive, I thought, whover it was), and I hear a LOT of it throughout the 70s and 80s, which makes the triumphs all the more thrilling - it's like "YES! The battle's being won!". But I listen to a live set like the grey-market "Just Once", or a studio album like +3, or something like "Did You See Harold Vick" on THIS IS WHAT I DO, or the thing he did with Leonard Cohen on the old Night Music Show, or his performance on the Dizzy Gillespie tribute that aired on PBS, and I'm left with no choice but to believe that in spite of all the doubt, that cat still knows. Maybe more than ever, because you don't really appreciate what you can and do have until you find out want you want but can't have.

It's the tension between the knowing and the doubt that keeps him relevant to me, becsue how many great jazz players have been that open about it for so long? Most, even the greatest ones, find a comfort zone of sorts, a place where they can "do their thing" in a relatively worry-free zone (see Miles in the 80s), or else they die. People wonder what would have happened if Trane of Bird had lived. Well, I think it's probably best that they died (from a purely musical standpoint). "Bird wanted to study with Varese! Imagine what he would have come up with had he lived!" some people say. Well, I've tried imagining it, and frankly, I just can't hear it. Bird was a genius all right, and most certainly superhuman in his ability to take in everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, and play it back in real time, but he was still a human, and humans have their limits. Even superhumans. Same thing with Trane. What else could he have done? Not what else was there for somebody ELSE do do, what else could HE have done? In all honesty, I think the answer is nothing.

But Sonny, Sonny has refused to die. That has been both his blessing (from a non-musical standpoint) and his curse in a most profound way, I think. His choice to live (and he talked about that, albeit rather circuiously with Terri Gross on a fscinating Fresh Air interview a few years ago) meant that he was going to have to confront reality in a way that those who play straight through to the exit sign never do. I think his lenghty obsession with funk rhythms throughout the 70s on into the early 80s was the equivalent of Bird studying going into Vareseland - he desperately WANTED it to work (your "street corner" reference is dead-on imo), saw no reason why it SHOULDN'T work (and there are tantalizing moments on THE CUTTING EDGE where it comes so close to working that you can't blame the guy for continuing to try), but he finally had to face the fact that, no, it WASN'T going to work. Goliath had met his David. A grey-market item called FIRST MOVES reveals the ultimate fruitlessness of this stubborn attempt, and the horrifically titled THE WAY I FEEL was so desultory that it me thinking that maybe Sonny was regretting still being alive (or at least alive and playing).

I think it was then that Sonny began to realize that you can't have it both ways, that you can't be both infinitely broad AND infinitely deep, and that if you want to hold onto your know for the duration, you're going to have to develop your knowhow. And I think that that entailed a certain ammount of surrender on his part as far as the marketplace went. This whole "World's Greatest Living Improvisor" thing, a tag that is hyperbolic and condescending all at once, must be a cruel joke to him, because I'm pretty sure that he knows his failings and ultimate limitations better than anybody. That's part of the know, and that's something that we ALL have to come to grips with if we live long enough and honestly enough. If Sonny ran faster and jumped higher than most for longer than most, the fact remains - he eventually hit the wall.

But I think, no, I believe, that Rollins survives to this day with his know intact, and that if he is perhaps neurotic about shielding it, that it is still what keeps him going, and a source of joy, strength, and power to him, if for no other reason than he now knows what ir REALLY is.

I've been "accused" before of somehow "projecting" all this into Rollins' carrer, that it's really as simple as that he lost his way and never got back. I refuse to accept this, because even if the triumphs have come (or at least been documented) with drastically less frequency than they did in the Glory Days, they still exist. But, for the sake of argument, if that scenario is true, that Sonny Rollins is a study in tragedy, of fallen and destroyed greatness of epic proportion, we still have to consider the fact that it's still an ongoing saga, and that in order to get the full meaning of the full story, we're going to have to give equally serious consideration to every chapter of that story, to view it as a whole, and go from there. The old man still has stories to tell, and even if we don't necessarily like them (or if they're not even particulary GOOD stories), they're still stories that nobody else could tell, so I'm going to listen now and sort it all out later. There's still some lessons to be had there, and for me, those lessons are worth taking.

I mean, would be be having this discussion about Benny Golson?

[JSngry]

Jim, do you have Moving Out?

Yeah, I have it as SONNY ROLLINS PLAYS JAZZ CLASSICS, the last pre-OJC Prestige packing of the album, as well as in the Prestige box. Agreed, it's a superb date, and far too often overlooked. Your observations agree with mine in every regard.

[JSngry]

Also, a question for horn players – is Newk on a King here? The mouthpiece looks to be a Link, but I can't place the horn.

I'm thinking that's a Conn, dude. And NOT as in Connesieur!

[Larry Kart]

Jim, no I didn't write that DB review of "East Broadway Rundown." I did write the liner notes for an early '70s LP reissue of "Worktime," though, which was a lot of fun because that probably was THE album that proclaimed that Rollins was who he had become, the first one he made (or at least the first he made under his own name) after his period of woodshedding in Chicago. I may have mentioned this before, but a drummer I knew secondhand who was then at the U. of Illinois worked up some sort of Rube Goldberg device so that when his alarm clock went off, instead of ringing, it triggered his record player to drop the needle on side one, track one of "Worktime" -- "There's No Business Like Show Business."