Sonny Rollins Recommendations?

[EKE BBB]

3 hours ago, king ubu said:

bump - no one?

Flurin, who’s smokin’ what? 🤣

Loren mentions that Dick Katz’s rhythm section in a “recent two-week run at Birdland with Rollins” was Bond and Dunlop. NOT in the Big Brass recording.

Analretentively yours 😜

Agustín 

 

[AllenLowe]

I don't have any info as to who is doing what, but I did have a conversation about this period with Dick Katz years ago; I loved Dick and he was a great guy, but it's always amusing and interesting to hear, when you get close to musicians who have been at the center of things, about the little irritants and resentments. Dick had just started to work with Rollins when Sonny abruptly changed to piano-less trios, and 20-30 years later he was still a little frustrated and pissed off, as I think it felt like a real opportunity for him to work with one of the central figures in all of jazz. But it was not to be (for very long); he said, as I recall, that he had been rehearsing with Rollins in anticipation of the famous Vanguard gig that was recorded, but that just before it happened Sonny decided to strip down the group to a trio.

[king ubu]

On 10.1.2021 at 6:49 PM, EKE BBB said:

Flurin, who’s smokin’ what? 🤣

Loren mentions that Dick Katz’s rhythm section in a “recent two-week run at Birdland with Rollins” was Bond and Dunlop. NOT in the Big Brass recording.

Analretentively yours 😜

Agustín 

 

Ooops, thanks! Weird liners they still are, I skipped through them and found no mention of Thomas or Haynes, just of the rhythm section on the trio half.
Will have to take the disc out again and re-read Schoenberg's notes thoroughly.

Btw, not smoking anything, liquids only 

[mjazzg]

Calling all Sonny afficionados...is the audio from the 1965 concert on Jazz Icons DVD available legitimately as audio only?  My Discogs and other searches haven't found anything 

[Mark Stryker]

53 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

Calling all Sonny afficionados...is the audio from the 1965 concert on Jazz Icons DVD available legitimately as audio only?  My Discogs and other searches haven't found anything 

The answer appears to be yes -- on a CD issued on the Magnetic (Lux) label --  but I've actually never seen this recording in person. Here's the Lord discography listing.

 

Live In Europe '65 : Sonny Rollins Trio : Sonny Rollins (ts) Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen (b) Alan Dawson (d)

TV-Cast, Tivoli Concert Hall, Copenhagen, Denmark, October 31, 1965

	There will never be another you	(unissued)
	St. Thomas	-
	(Medley	Magnetic (Lux)MRCD118 [CD]
	Oleo	-
	Sonnymoon for two	-
	Darn that dream	-
	Three little words	-

Note:

"Darn that dream" listed as "Good morning heartache" on Magnetic (Lux)MRCD118 [CD]. See November 9, 1965 for more titles from Magnetic (Lux)MRCD118 [CD]. All above titles (including the 2 unissued titles) also available on Naxos Jazz Icons 2.119011 [DVD].

 

 

[Dub Modal]

My first and foremost Rollins rec these days (edits and all):

[JSngry]

8 minutes ago, Mark Stryker said:

The answer appears to be yes -- on a CD issued on the Magnetic (Lux) label --  but I've actually never seen this recording in person. Here's the Lord discography listing.

 

Live In Europe '65 : Sonny Rollins Trio : Sonny Rollins (ts) Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen (b) Alan Dawson (d)

TV-Cast, Tivoli Concert Hall, Copenhagen, Denmark, October 31, 1965

	There will never be another you	(unissued)
	St. Thomas	-
	(Medley	Magnetic (Lux)MRCD118 [CD]
	Oleo	-
	Sonnymoon for two	-
	Darn that dream	-
	Three little words	-

Note:

"Darn that dream" listed as "Good morning heartache" on Magnetic (Lux)MRCD118 [CD]. See November 9, 1965 for more titles from Magnetic (Lux)MRCD118 [CD]. All above titles (including the 2 unissued titles) also available on Naxos Jazz Icons 2.119011 [DVD].

 

 

I have that CD, but have never seen the video...Jazz Icons, you say?

[mjazzg]

Thanks folks. Autoplay took me to this today, so as long as the title is correct...

 

Found it on Amazon, only $902.81, sadly not delivering to the UK 

[Mark Stryker]

5 hours ago, JSngry said:

I have that CD, but have never seen the video...Jazz Icons, you say?

These three-plus minutes of "Oleo" (starting at 28:43) contain some of the best, purest improvising I know over a standard form. I think I have it cued right to the spot. Everything I love about Sonny is in here. 

 

Edited March 19, 2021 by Mark Stryker

[Peter Friedman]

For my ears, the best decade of Sonny Rollins recordings is definitely the 50's.

Two I like a great deal were only mentioned once or twice or not at all.

Sonny Rollins Vol.2 - Blue Note

Worktime - Prestige

Though my list of outstanding recordings by Sonny Rollins in the 50's would be very very lengthy.

[Larry Kart]

I got to write the liner notes for the reissue of "Worktime." You can bet I was on my toes there!

[JSngry]

The rest of Worktime, I leave for you to discover.

[Larry Kart]

3 minutes ago, JSngry said:

The rest of Worktime, I leave for you to discover.

You've got a good memory.

P.S. I knew a guy, a very good drummer, who when he was a student at the U. of Illinois in the '50s rigged his alarm clock in some Rube Goldberg fashion so that the needle of his record player dropped on "There's No Business Like Show Business."

A particular Rollins sweet spot -- "Sonny Rollins Trio in Stockholm"(Dragon), rec. 3/1959 with Henry Grimes and Pete La Roca. If you can find a copy, count yourself lucky.

[jlhoots]

Sonny Rollins: Aix-En-Provence 1959 (Henry Grimes, Kenny Clarke) - Royal Jazz 502

[Peter Friedman]

21 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

I got to write the liner notes for the reissue of "Worktime." You can bet I was on my toes there!

My copy of Worktime is the 20bit K2 Prestige CD. The liner notes on this have both the original by Ira Gitler, and the notes for the reissue by Joe Goldberg.

Larry, yours are not here?

[Larry Kart]

45 minutes ago, Peter Friedman said:

My copy of Worktime is the 20bit K2 Prestige CD. The liner notes on this have both the original by Ira Gitler, and the notes for the reissue by Joe Goldberg.

Larry, yours are not here?

My notes were written for the 1970 LP reissue (Prestige 7750). Goldberg's, which I don't know, were written later on I assume.

[JSngry]

Earlier.

[Larry Kart]

I used to have the entire text of my jazz book, which includes the "Worktime" liner notes,  stored on my computer, but it seems to have vanished from there, damn it. Otherwise I would post a copy of the notes. 

[JSngry]

Discogs should do you better than this.

[Peter Friedman]

Larry, I have your book. So  I will read your liner notes there. What Jim just posted is unreadable for my old eyes.

[Larry Kart]

Actually, IIRC, I modified the very end of those notes for the book, adding something about Ethel Merman (?!?!) and losing the casual final line that Jim quoted. Now I much prefer the original version. Also, the part of the notes that quotes from Terry Martin's essay on Coleman Hawkins is fairly profound IMO (that's Terry's profundity BTW, not mine).

[JSngry]

I prefer the line that nobody wrote but I remembered (for several decades!) you writing - Ladies and Gentlemen, this then is Worktime.

[Larry Kart]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

I prefer the line that nobody wrote but I remembered (for several decades!) you writing - Ladies and Gentlemen, this then is Worktime.

That does sound vaguely familiar.

BTW, "There's No Business Like How Business" on "Worktime" reminds me some of one of my favorite but fairly obscure Rollins performances, "What's My Name" from the quartet side of the "Big Brass." The use of the verse on the former, the way Sonny leans into the refrain on the latter and then builds to a sonata-like climax.

 

[Mark Stryker]

On 3/20/2021 at 6:50 PM, Larry Kart said:

You've got a good memory.

P.S. I knew a guy, a very good drummer, who when he was a student at the U. of Illinois in the '50s rigged his alarm clock in some Rube Goldberg fashion so that the needle of his record player dropped on "There's No Business Like Show Business."

A particular Rollins sweet spot -- "Sonny Rollins Trio in Stockholm"(Dragon), rec. 3/1959 with Henry Grimes and Pete La Roca. If you can find a copy, count yourself lucky.

 

All of the 1959 trio performances from Europe that I know have been collected on this set. Like Jim says, Carpe Diem. https://www.amazon.com/Live-Europe-1959-Complete-Recordings/dp/B01BMPJ656/ref=sr_1_4?dchild=1&keywords=sonny+rollins+trio+1959&qid=1616379534&sr=8-4

Here's the best track from the Stockholm recording. The rest is from a studio performance -- excellent but doesn't have the high-wire electricity of this "St. Thomas."  

 

[Gheorghe]

of course the first Rollins albums I had were the 50´s Prestiges and BN, and then I liked very much the 1963 stuff with Don Cherry, Henry Grimes and Billy Higgins.

But I was a teenager in the 70´s and got in touch with the stuff Rollins recorded and did live during that time, too. 

So maybe many listeners say the best period was the 50´s and 60´s and I even heard people say "I don´t like what Rollins did from 1975 on".... but look, that it was what was happening, Rollins was in his 40´s and very very popular and I´m glad I saw him perform at that time and that we were always waiting for the next album he recorded.

Now everything is jazz history, then it was still happening in the present....