Sonny Please

[danasgoodstuff]

I'm interested in everything he does but the price from his web site is kinda steep, how is it and is it available from anyone else?

[wigwise]

I'm interested in everything he does but the price from his web site is kinda steep, how is it and is it available from anyone else?

Come on, you get a free video download...

[JSngry]

Finally got around to ordering this from Amazon and....yeah.

This is the most consistently relaxed & loose I've heard Sonny in a studio session since...Falling In Love with Jazz? Next Album? Hell, I don't know.

This, however, a mixed blessing, because the hollowing of tone that began with Global Warming (and in my mind is entirely a function of advancing age) continues here. I hear the ideas here and wish he would have recorded stuff like this as recently as the 90s, when he still had that bigass Hoover-revving-up sound. But oh well about that. This is now. Same for how the momentum of his solos has evolved from a steadily ongoing surge of sometimes supernatural proportion to a series of declarations. His freedom with/of time is still amazing, and if he now applies it to spacing as much or more than notes, then life is still good.

People are probably gonna bitch about the band, and the drummer does me no favors, but Bobby Broom sounds damn good, and Clifton Anderson sounds...not bad (or not as bad as before, not that he was ever really horrible bad). The thing is, though, is that as non "impressive" as the individuals (save for Broom) are on their own, they really get a group feel here. And that's something else that most of Sonny's Milestones haven't had, not to this degree. There's an organic "comfort" factor here that is beneficial to Sonny in a way that previous "comfort" accomodations have not always been.

Let me put it this way - if you're looking for a Great Sonny Rollins Album, this probably isn't it, because not all the parts are at the same level, nor are they even remotely close to being so. But if you'd enjoy hearing An Album Where Sonny Rollins Plays Very, VERY Well, (and if you can handle the Fact that Sonny Rollins is now an "old man") then by all means, check this one out.

[mjzee]

Jim, that was a great description of Sonny's current playing style.

I saw him around 5 yrs ago, and it was amazing to see the effect his "series of declarations" had on the audience. It was mesmerizing - he was like a snake charmer, and had the entire middle-class and older audience on its feet, cheering and shouting, going crazy, to what he was playing. The closest I can compare it to is what a JATP concert must have been like.

[brownie]

One more great album by Rollins. Been enjoying that one for several months now!

Edited October 14, 2007 by brownie

[JSngry]

I feel guilty because I've always bought every Sonny album on release, and this one I kinda piddled around on. Probably the whole initial website-only ordering thing and such, as well as my currently having more "driving" interests. I figured I'd get to it soon enough, take your time, get to it when you get to it, blahblahblahblahblah.

But damn, this was not the one to do that with.

[felser]

Jim, that was a great description of Sonny's current playing style.

I saw him around 5 yrs ago, and it was amazing to see the effect his "series of declarations" had on the audience. It was mesmerizing - he was like a snake charmer, and had the entire middle-class and older audience on its feet, cheering and shouting, going crazy, to what he was playing. The closest I can compare it to is what a JATP concert must have been like.

Saw him last year at the Kimmel Center (only time I've ever been there - a birthday present from my wife), and while his playing was very strong, it wasn't magic the way it was in 1989 at Penn's Landing, the other time I saw him live. Some of it may have been the venues, the sterility of the Kimmel compared to the funky immediacy of Penn's Landing, but not all of it. And it was painful to see him hobbling around the stage, like the old man he is, after the magnificent figure he was in '89. Broom had a really (really really) off night, and Clifton Anderson has always been mainly nepotism to me, but Cranshaw and the drummer were tight. But overall, though it was a perfectly respectable night of jazz, I wasn't knocked out. And I don't think it's me being old and jaded, because I was knocked out by Eric Alexander at the Philly Museum of Art the previous year.

[T.D.]

I'm interested in everything he does but the price from his web site is kinda steep, how is it and is it available from anyone else?

I haven't heard it, but as far as lower-priced sources go, it's been at yourmusic.com for a while.

Come to think of it, I ought to put it on my queue there...

[Chuck Nessa]

Whatever the deal - this is SONNY ROLLINS - and we owe him more than I can imagine. Buy the disc, dis it, love it, send your money with thanks.

Thanks Sonny!

[Shawn]

Whatever the deal - this is SONNY ROLLINS - and we owe him more than I can imagine. Buy the disc, dis it, love it, send your money with thanks.

Thanks Sonny!

What Chuck said! There is a great vibe to this record, it feels organic, fluid, it has some breathing room in the arrangements...and man has Bobby Broom become a bad MF over the years.

[bluesbro]

My opinion probably dont worth a damn, since I love ANTYTHING with Sonny's name on it, but let me say I really liked this one and have played it a lot.

[Big Al]

I'm listening to it right now, and I just realized there's no piano player on here. Just a guitar. I love rhythm sections like this! Why didn't I pick this up sooner?