Meditating on a Riff

[Hardbopjazz]

Has anyone read this? 

[JSngry]

Haven't heard of it until now. Amazon only has it on Kindle and not yet available.

Love the cover photo, though. Mohawk, meditation, and wristwatch.

[Gheorghe]

As much as I like to read books about musicians and the music, I think I wouldn´t purchase this one. Maybe my fault , but I think spirituality is not really my thing. Maybe it is linked to the music, maybe not....... at least I love Mr. Rollins music, all of  it , but as I said it´s strictly mucic bound....

[JSngry]

Sonny took it to a different level, though, going so far as to move to India to study. I think he later said that he doubted if he would continue as a player and the only other way he could think of to support him was to become a Yogi. So I think there's an interesting story there, because sure, a lot of people think about giving up playing, and a lot of people do, and some people go ff to retreats somewhere and come back an open book stores and stuff, and ok, Charles Lloyd went all in with the TM thing, but can you imagine, Sonny Rollins...not afraid of manual labor, already took one time off to hone his craft to a pretty amazingly detailed perfection, going through all that crazy 60s Sonny Rollins stuff, and then looking inside decide to give it all up? Sure, I can believe that, but to decide to go to India and study because, hey, I'm gonna need some kind of gig....wow. Not too many people are going to decide that.

I'd also like to hear his thoughts on his time with the  Rosicrucian thing. Still haven't gotten a true handle on what that's all about. Used to see back-paged magazine adds for them when I was a kid, then heard it linked to the Illuminati, then the Knights Templar, just ALL kinds of crazy shit, and I've been thinking, since I first heard that he was into it for a while (cf Joe Goldberg), wow, all this AND Sonny Rollins too?

[uli]

Sonny Rollins‏ @sonnyrollins Aug 10

 

 

Review of Hugh Wyatt's new book, "Sonny Rollins - Meditation on a Riff." http://artsfuse.org/172689/book-review-sonny-rollins-meditating-on-a-riff/ …

[AllenLowe]

I can't help thinking what Jamil Nasser told me years ago - he thought Sonny was really thrown for a loop when Coltrane became the dominant tenor, and hence his wandering in search of something to put him on a higher plane - the bridge, the mohawk, and then I guess meditation. I love Sonny, but for me his playing ended around 1969. Maybe he shoulda just given it all up and hired a decent rhythm section. 

[JSngry]

Or maybe he shoulda just done what he did.

[AllenLowe]

I vote for a good rhythm section.

[Chuck Nessa]

4 minutes ago, AllenLowe said:

I vote for a good rhythm section.

me 2

[JSngry]

wouldn't make any difference.

[paul secor]

2 hours ago, Chuck Nessa said:

me 2

Me 3

[JSngry]

Y'all are funny to think it would have made a difference. We got 40+ years now of proof that it was either gonna happen at any given moment or it wasn't, regardless of who the rhythm section was or wasn't. I got a bootleg of I'm old fashioned where the rhythm section wasn't all that good and it happened. The poor guys gave out and sonny kept right on letting it happen.

You can say that jazz should be more "interactive" than that, but all Sonny needed was a rhythm section to not get in his way, which was more or less going to be where, when, and how he found it. Like it or don't like it, but that's how it was.

[Steve Reynolds]

20 minutes ago, paul secor said:

Me 3

Me 4

[Chuck Nessa]

Sonny's "reaction" to rhythm is more than worthwhile. This happens early.

[JSngry]

And then it went inside, where the reaction wasn’t reliant on the actions of others. It takes a certain responsibility to accept ownership of you own groove and not become a codependent.

[paul secor]

That sounds like bs to me.

[JSngry]

And yet there it is, there it has remained, and it will be. Don’t see how it comes in any other fjavor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Gheorghe]

13 hours ago, AllenLowe said:

. I love Sonny, but for me his playing ended around 1969. Maybe he shoulda just given it all up and hired a decent rhythm section. 

Reminds me of an encounter that my wife and I had around 2000 in Miami Beach, standing in front of a jazz club (intermission between 2 sets of James Moody). A fan started to talk to us about the Miami Scene and I mentioned that just a few days before Sonny Rollins was in town. That guy gave me that kind of look, said something like "I don´t like what Sonny Rollins has done since 1975...." and walked away.

Even my wife (not a jazz fan really ) laughed and said "well that means he doesn´t like half of what Sonny Rollins did. I´d say from 1975 to 2012 (or when did he stop performing?) he still had a lot to say and had wonderful rhythm sections. I heard him in the late 70´s with Mark Soskin, Jerome Harris and Al Foster and if this is not a good rhythm section I don´t know what a good rhythm section is.....

Edited August 16, 2018 by Gheorghe

[mjzee]

Was just listening yesterday to "Harlem Boys" from "Don't Ask", and really enjoyed it (again).  It was "of it's time" too (1979).

[AllenLowe]

6 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

Reminds me of an encounter that my wife and I had around 2000 in Miami Beach, standing in front of a jazz club (intermission between 2 sets of James Moody). A fan started to talk to us about the Miami Scene and I mentioned that just a few days before Sonny Rollins was in town. That guy gave me that kind of look, said something like "I don´t like what Sonny Rollins has done since 1975...." and walked away.

Even my wife (not a jazz fan really ) laughed and said "well that means he doesn´t like half of what Sonny Rollins did. I´d say from 1975 to 2012 (or when did he stop performing?) he still had a lot to say and had wonderful rhythm sections. I heard him in the late 70´s with Mark Soskin, Jerome Harris and Al Foster and if this is not a good rhythm section I don´t know what a good rhythm section is.....

I heard Sonny MANY times after 1969 (I actually saw him at a very ill-fated Town Hall appearance in '69). Yes, that's right, I am discounting a lot of what he did over half a lifetime. But it happens. Think Lou Reed, who stopped doing much of interest for me after about 1970. I am sure there are others. Not saying that Sonny didn't have his moments, but he lost his true focus, to my way of hearing. It's not heresy to observe such a thing, and certainly Sonny has nothing to apologize for, but though some of those later groups were solid, nothing put him in the same artistic frame of mind as his work from, say, 1956-1969. There is just no comparison. Larry Kart, are you out there?

Edited August 16, 2018 by AllenLowe

[JSngry]

48 minutes ago, mjzee said:

Was just listening yesterday to "Harlem Boys" from "Don't Ask", and really enjoyed it (again).  It was "of it's time" too (1979).

As joyous an experience as Sonny's recorded.

[JSngry]

36 minutes ago, AllenLowe said:

... nothing put him in the same artistic frame of mind as his work from, say, 1956-1969.

Well, that's kind of the point, don't you think? I don't think that was where he wanted to be. Sure hasn't seemed to be.

[AllenLowe]

I agree; I actually think that he and Lucille made a very conscious decision, just after that, that he was gonna make some money, lighten up his repertoire and approach, thicken up his rhythm section. More power to Sonny, he deserves as much money as he can make, but the music suffered. 

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

As joyous an experience as Sonny's recorded.

yes, nothing wrong with joy; lotsa fun stuff in Sonny's oeuvre in these years. Still, it's like James Joyce doing a graphic comic. It's gonna capture my attention, but it ain't Ulysses.

[JSngry]

I'm good with the guy having 40+ years of uninterrupted performing, and managing to keep his private place that he could go to when the muse struck. The records got better, and a few were more than just a little good, but live...the more I hear, the more I'm convinced that he had his reasons, and more power to him for controlling his life the way he has.

[Larry Kart]

9 hours ago, AllenLowe said:

I heard Sonny MANY times after 1969 (I actually saw him at a very ill-fated Town Hall appearance in '69). Yes, that's right, I am discounting a lot of what he did over half a lifetime. But it happens. Think Lou Reed, who stopped doing much of interest for me after about 1970. I am sure there are others. Not saying that Sonny didn't have his moments, but he lost his true focus, to my way of hearing. It's not heresy to observe such a thing, and certainly Sonny has nothing to apologize for, but though some of those later groups were solid, nothing put him in the same artistic frame of mind as his work from, say, 1956-1969. There is just no comparison. Larry Kart, are you out there?

Yes I am here -- our out there if you prefer. Basically, I agree with you.  I didn't hear Sonny live that much in later years, nor did I buy that many Rollins albums after a certain point, but nothing that I did hear in person or on record was up to all that I'd heard from him earlier on. At one point, in fact, I felt that Sonny was the most important living artist, maybe the most important man on the planet. So much strength, wisdom, insight, and humor, and his wisdom was his alone. I know -- that's too much of a burden to place on anyone.  But I don't think I was the only one who felt that way. The painter Alex Katz, FWIW, once  said that  the turning point in his career -- what inspired him in the late 1950s to paint in the way that became his calling card -- was listening over and over to "Way Out West."