Sonny Rollins Live in London V.3

[AllenLowe]

I know some people find these to be the holy grail of '60s Sonny, but to me it's really Sonny the indecisive in one of his supremely insecure periods - and Stan Tracey's playing drives me up the wall. I like the RCA studio sessions better, much better.

so, this can be yours - it's brand new, 2 CDs, mint. $14 plus shipping. My paypal is alowe5@maine.rr.com

[Ken Dryden]

I know some people find these to be the holy grail of '60s Sonny, but to me it's really Sonny the indecisive in one of his supremely insecure periods - and Stan Tracey's playing drives me up the wall. I like the RCA studio sessions better, much better.

so, this can be yours - it's brand new, 2 CDs, mint. $14 plus shipping. My paypal is alowe5@maine.rr.com

I'm interested.

Let me know.

Ken

[AllenLowe]

you got it

[JSngry]

The Holy Grail of 60s Sonny is the two Moon CDs recorded in Denmark in 1968.

[felser]

The Holy Grail of 60s Sonny is the two Moon CDs recorded in Denmark in 1968.

In terms of quality or just rarity? Didn't realize he was still playing in public in '68, thought his second absence was 66-72. Man, he sounds lost on the title track of 'East Broadway Rundown', though I like the other two cuts (especially "Blessing in Disguise") just fine.

[JSngry]

The Holy Grail of 60s Sonny is the two Moon CDs recorded in Denmark in 1968.

In terms of quality or just rarity? Didn't realize he was still playing in public in '68,

Both, and he wasn't playing regularly, not at all. But for some reason he took this gig. Just a quartet, him, NHOP, Kenny Drew, & Tootie Heath. Magnificent playing, long & loose.

[GA Russell]

Jim, do you remember the article from Downbeat which mentioned that he toured Japan with a full head of hair? The crowd booed because they thought he was an imposter. They expected a mohawk. I think that was in '68.

[JSngry]

I don't recall the DB article, but that's a funny story!

I'm trying to remember when he went to India...was that '69?

[GA Russell]

I don't recall the DB article, but that's a funny story!

I remember that you posted that article here a couple of years ago. I remembered reading it, I think when I was a senior in high school!

[Chuck Nessa]

Did you finish?

[Chuck Nessa]

I meant high school, not the post.

[AllenLowe]

well, these were Sonny's searching years - I saw him at Town Hall in '69 with something like 20 bass players - he played for about 10 minutes and then walked off the stage.

[Rooster_Ties]

well, these were Sonny's searching years - I saw him at Town Hall in '69 with something like 20 bass players - he played for about 10 minutes and then walked off the stage.

Relevant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN42uzNFVmQ

[John L]

For those who are interested, it is no longer necessary to track down the rare Moon CDs to get the concert that Jim S. cited. You can find it on this double CD (on one of the many Spanish labels)

[MartyJazz]

"Holy Grail" '60s Sonny always remains for me the ALFIE soundtrack (Impulse). Fabulous playing in super fidelity. Thereafter, his variation on "Three Little Words" from ON IMPULSE! Move on to the two wonderful late '60s videos on the Jazz Icons DVD, and top it off with the extended trio version of "52nd Street Theme" from a '64 Victor date. There are more gems from the '60s halcyon period ("John S, "The Bridge", etc.), but the above come readily to mind.

[jlhoots]

I love Alfie too.

Not quite the 60's - Rollins: Aix En Provence (March 11, 1959) with Henry Grimes & Kenny Clarke.

[felser]

For those who are interested, it is no longer necessary to track down the rare Moon CDs to get the concert that Jim S. cited. You can find it on this double CD (on one of the many Spanish labels)

Duly ordered from Amazon marketplace. It and a '65 concert doubled on a two CD set for $12 + $3 shipping. Based on the recommendation by Jim, gotta give it a listen.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0014I7JYM/sr=1-5/qid=1299357789/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1299357789&sr=1-5&seller=

[kh1958]

Ditto.

[Mark Stryker]

First, let me second the recommendation of those 1968 recordings in the strongest terms. Unbelievably great (thanks again, Jim).

RE: Jim's question about when Sonny went to India. I've always been struck by the fact that the details of the second sabbatical are much less familiar than the Bridge period. I asked Sonny about this the last time I got a chance to interview him about a year ago. Here's part of that conversation, which ran in the Detroit Free Press, starting with a synoposis of the chronology that I put together from checking various primary and secondary sources, including his own not always reliable memory. It seems those European 1968 recordings, which I believe were done in Sept., were taped after he returned from India but before the really long sabbatical started. (Footnote: An authoritative Rollins biography is a book that desperately needs to be written.)

... but by 1968 he was burned out by the business -- unable to command the money he felt he was worth, unable to secure enough steady work to keep a band together and bamboozled by lawyers for Impulse Records into signing away rights to the score he had written for the film "Alfie." So he quit. In early 1968 he boarded a plane for India, staying four or five months, living on an ashram and studying Indian religion and yoga. When he returned he performed sporadically, and after a trip to California in September 1969, he disappeared for nearly two years, resurfacing at a jazz festival in Norway in June 1971. By October, Down Beat magazine trumpeted, "Exclusive! Sonny Rollins returns."

QUESTION: What was the motivation for the second sabbatical?

ANSWER: I was really dissatisfied with the music business. I had finished contracts with RCA and Impulse, there wasn't much happening and I was getting interested in self-development, which had started earlier when I went on the bridge. I guess I was trying to find myself.

Q: Why India?

A: I had been interested in metaphysical organizations and things like Buddhism, yoga and Sufism. I felt like I needed to get more into self-improvement and the greater purposes and meaning of life. I had been investigating yoga since the '50s, so I had been primed to make this voyage. It wasn't something I did as a whim. I had separated from my wife for a while, and the time was right to make that move.

Having read quite a bit about yoga and various yoga masters and teachers, I took my horn, a bag or two and booked a flight to Bombay. On the last leg of the flight, I was talking to some Indian people and one fella knew something about ashrams. He suggested this particular place to me just outside of Bombay and this swami, Chinmayamananda.

Q: What was a typical day like at the ashram?

A: There were yoga students there from Europe and elsewhere and we had our meals and everything. When the swami came there were lectures. We studied the literature texts from the Vedanta. We studied the Upanishads and Yoga Sutras and all of these writings from antiquity. We weren't doing hatha yoga so much -- hatha yoga is the positions. We were mainly studying the texts, and when we didn't have sessions, we'd endlessly discuss things among ourselves.

Q: Did you play the saxophone?

A: Not really. I did do one solo concert for the people there.

Q: When you finally dropped off the scene completely, were you practicing?

A: I was definitely practicing, but there was a period when I was living in Brooklyn when I became the ultimate recluse. I didn't go out at all; well, maybe just to buy groceries or something. I think I had something called agoraphobia -- a phobia about going out and being among people.

Q: What got you out of that period?

A: I don't know. That would be interesting to know -- what happened moment by moment and day by day and how I got out of that.

Q: It sounds like depression.

A: I'm not sure that's apt. I had visitors coming by my house. Unless maybe I was depressed over the condition of human existence. That sounds like something I'm still depressed about. I was still practicing yoga. I was able to get into these states where I could leave my body; they call it floating.

I used to do these practices to find out what was possible in life. Life is not what we see around us. It's something else. This is a screen. Behind the screen there is something else.

Q: Did you find what you were searching for?

A: I don't want to be so presumptuous as to say that I found it, but I found a great deal of it. It's like my music; I've found something, but there's always more. I'm closer to my self-realization, but with my music I still can't get there as often as I want to.

I did find peace. This is really a more recent thing. It isn't something I found in the '70s. This is something where you keep gaining knowledge of different things and they eventually coalesce. ... The swami taught me some things. I couldn't concentrate sometimes because my mind would be flitting from one thing to another. In those days, concentration meant sitting in a lotus position, getting quiet and closing your eyes and contemplating om. He told me, "When you play your music, you're in a deep concentration. That's deep mediation." I realized it's not about sitting down and meditating. It's about trying to reach a deeper place of understanding -- especially playing jazz, because this is a type of music that lends itself to true improvisation.

In true improvisation, you go to the subconscious. The process of improvisation is such that you can't think. The music is happening too fast. If you try to think and try to put in something that you practice, it doesn't work. It's a perfect kind of music for a mystical concept.

Edited March 5, 2011 by Mark Stryker

[Sundog]

Thanks for posting that excerpt. A nice little nugget from the man.

[jlhoots]

For those who are interested, it is no longer necessary to track down the rare Moon CDs to get the concert that Jim S. cited. You can find it on this double CD (on one of the many Spanish labels)

O.K. - I'm going to get it too.