Sonny Rollins 80th birthday concert in NYC

[CJ Shearn]

I was gonna say Mark, Roy is a freak of nature. Even stuff he made 10 years ago at the Blue Note with Chick is just amazing to me. It amazes me how guys like he and Jack DeJohnette can still play like they are 25 or 35. I hope Sonny releases this full concert as an album, reported warts and all, this is just too history.

[paul secor]

Prayers and hopes for Ornette.

[Hardbopjazz]

Ed Newman has posted some photos on Flicker. like this one:

This photo is great. The two were trading solos. Sonny leaned back to take in what Ornette was doing. Sonny was like someone at a museum looking at a painting. After a few seconds Sonny smiled and he knew how to respond to the key Ornette drifted "Sonnymoon for Two" into. I don’t think Sonny has had anyone to challenge him like that in a long time.

[Hardbopjazz]

I will personally thank Sonny for the best concert I've even been to on Tuesday at his book signing in Tribeca.

To: Listings/Critics/Features

From: Jazz Promo Services

http://www.jazzpromoservices.com/

SONNY ROLLINS BOOK EVENT: SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS

Saxophone Colossus: A Portrait of Sonny Rollins Photography by John Abbott Text by Bob Blumenthal

Published by Abrams

Book Signing/Author Event

John Abbott, Bob Blumenthal and Sonny Rollins HIMSELF will be at Barnes & Noble in Tribeca/NYC to sign books and give a talk and slide

show about the new book Saxophone Colossus: A Portrait of Sonny Rollins.

Tuesday September 14, 2010 7:00 PM

Barnes & Noble Bookstore in Tribeca

97 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007, 212-587-5389

Please call the store for event rules and restrictions.

http://www.abramsbooks.com/Books/Saxophone_Colossus-9780810996151.html

About the Book:

Jazz legend Sonny Rollins celebrates his 80th birthday this fall, and Saxophone Colossus has been published to mark this occasion and honor his incredibly prolific career. This intimate appreciation combines the images of John Abbott, who as Rollinss photographer of choice for the past 20 years has captured the saxophonist at home and at work, and the essays of Bob Blumenthal, a jazz critic who has chronicled Rollins and his art for nearly four decades.

Sonny Rollins has been at the center of jazz and its evolution virtually from his birth. Growing up in Harlem in the heyday of swing and coming of age as the first wave of modernists announced their discoveries, he quickly found himself sharing bandstands with his idols and making music of his own that continues to influence and inspire. Saxophone Colossus, named for the 1956 masterpiece of the same title, is Abbott and Blumenthals tribute to Rollinss music and spirit.

John Abbotts award-winning jazz photography has been featured on more than 250 album and magazine covers. He has been the primary cover photographer for JazzTimes magazine since 2003. Bob Blumenthal is the winner of two Grammy awards and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Jazz Journalists Association.

More About John Abbott: http://johnabbottphoto.com/

Edited September 12, 2010 by Hardbopjazz

[medjuck]

Prayers and hopes for Ornette.

!!??? I've got tickets to see him on November 5th. Maybe Sonny will be a surprise guest.

[Indestructible!]

I hope they make an album of this. Sonny and Ornette?!

Having just heard a recording of this, I'm doubtful that an album will be released. Not because it shouldn't, but I fear that Sonny will feel his playing isn't up to his (incredibly high) standards and he'll not want it released. I hope I'm wrong about this, but we all know how critical Sonny is of his work...

[Mark Stryker]

Nate Chinen's review in the Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/arts/music/13rollins.html

[Tom Storer]

Most of Sonnymoon for Two.

What that show must have been like for those who were there!

Edited September 14, 2010 by Tom Storer

[Larry Kart]

Fascinating how what Ornette plays leads Sonny to go to the place where he goes.

[Mark Stryker]

Fascinating how what Ornette plays leads Sonny to go to the place where he goes.

Fascinating indeed -- Sonny moves into Ornette's world, leaving behind the 12-bar form and I-IV-V-I harmony for extended blowing in the home key of what I assume is B-flat, with chromatic and stepwise forays elsewhere through sequences; and he incorporates Ornette's signature use of major and minor 3rds in building his melodic motifs.

Now, somebody needs to post the version of "If Ever I Would Leave You" with Jim Hall from the concert ...

Edited September 14, 2010 by Mark Stryker

[paul secor]

Most of Sonnymoon for Two.

What that show must have been like for those who were there!

Thanks for much for posting that. Amazing and wonderful to see and hear three eighty year olds still doing it and making it new.

[JSngry]

Were those videos taken on a cell phone?

[JSngry]

Fascinating how what Ornette plays leads Sonny to go to the place where he goes.

Fascinating indeed -- Sonny moves into Ornette's world, leaving behind the 12-bar form and I-IV-V-I harmony for extended blowing in the home key of what I assume is B-flat, with chromatic and stepwise forays elsewhere through sequences; and he incorporates Ornette's signature use of major and minor 3rds in building his melodic motifs.

Then again, it's kinda like 1963, only slower...

What might be fascinating is how effortlessly Sonny goes where he goes, how there really doesn't seem to be any effort in it, as if, yeah, he's been there, done that, and still knows the town like the proverbial back of his hand, maybe even that he's never really left there, he just doesn't broadcast from there any more, all of which might raise a lot of questions, although really, I think it answers that many more, and then some.

The true depth of Sonny Rollins is still not widely appreciated. Perhaps that is best for all concerned.

[marcello]

Maybe I'm going to catch hell for this, but I was more than a little bored by that clip.

McBride was doing a lot of heavy lifting!

[mjzee]

Maybe I'm going to catch hell for this, but I was more than a little bored by that clip.

McBride was doing a lot of heavy lifting!

Thanks, I'm glad you said that. The charm of Ornette still eludes me.

[jeffcrom]

Melody.

[Larry Kart]

Maybe I'm going to catch hell for this, but I was more than a little bored by that clip.

McBride was doing a lot of heavy lifting!

This may be the opposite of what you meant, or just what you meant, but I thought McBride was a stiff, unswinging drag. His idea of where "one" was -- blech! And I've thought that about him many times before.

Based mostly on recordings, I'd say that there are a whole lot of bass players in the NYC area in that general style who are a whole lot better than McBride. Dwayne Burno and Peter Washington are two that come to mind.

[Mark Stryker]

Don't really want to get in a deep discussion about McBride vs. other bass players or a referendum on Ornette's contributions or whether he or Sonny still got it at 80 (your mileage may vary and all that); but I would note that the video (which has already been removed from youtube) was likely shot on a cell phone and the problematic sound quality of the recording, plus the on-stage amplification and the acoustics of the theater surely conspired to produce a jaundiced balance and lack of presence that might be influencing perception. The bass sounded way overbalanced in the mix, drums were distant (I know Roy plays louder than that) and so were the saxophones.

Just thinking out loud. Also, regarding Jim's post: I concur.

Edited September 15, 2010 by Mark Stryker

[JSngry]

Apart from of any of that, his sound was ill-served by the hall sound system, at least as represented on the video and the recordings that have been circulating so far. Same w/Roy, only different, he was all but inaudible on that video, and you can only blame the cell phone so much.

I gotta think that hall sound had to have been better than that...

[marcello]

Carnegie Hall is notorious for a bad amplified sound.

McBride was struggling to keep it together, I feel, thus the heavy lifting.

[Mark Stryker]

The concert was at the Beacon Theatre not Carnegie ...

I've only been to the Beacon once; I saw Steely Dan a few years ago from about the 10th row and the sound was ok but not great -- better perhaps than your typical rock show but not as good as you would want for an acoustic jazz show with amplification.

Edited September 15, 2010 by Mark Stryker

[Hardbopjazz]

Here is a better vsersion on Sonnymoon For Two. I don't see anything with McBride's playing that I don't like. You can hear Christian's playing very clear on this. That youtube clip didn't do justice to the performance.

sonnymoon For Two

[Larry Kart]

OK -- The amplification in the hall was crappy and this was picked up on a cell phone, but I've heard much the same plodding, thunky thing from McBride on a good many studio recordings (e.g. the Joe Henderson Big Band CD), to the point where his presence on a date is a warning sign for me.

[Hardbopjazz]

OK -- The amplification in the hall was crappy and this was picked up on a cell phone, but I've heard much the same plodding, thunky thing from McBride on a good many studio recordings (e.g. the Joe Henderson Big Band CD), to the point where his presence on a date is a warning sign for me.

I'll have put on the Joe Henderson CD and see if I hear what you are saying.

Who would have been an replacement for Sonny's concert? Maybe Henry Grimes since Sonnyhas played with him in the past?

[marcello]

I think McBride is a huge talent with a big beautiful sound, myself.