The Bridge at 60.

[Hardbopjazz]

‘I was so close to the sky. It was spiritual’: Sonny Rollins

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/jan/21/i-was-so-close-to-the-sky-it-was-spiritual-sonny-rollins-on-jazz-landmark-the-bridge-at-60?fbclid=IwAR0F55atwo9kq7_84bJS_tg68ClCsfDRR5ws3awPjmEzGDvTu6j-mQTn2y4

 

[Dan Gould]

Thanks for posting, Tom.

[BillF]

Perhaps I shouldn't have posted it in Nonagenarian Jazz Musicians!

[JSngry]

Kinda of a drag how the author skipped straight from The Bridge to the impulse! records...the RCA albums in-between those two points are much more interesting than The Bridge. I'd like to see them get more attention, even today.

Still, grateful that Sonny is still alive and talking!

[Rabshakeh]

22 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Kinda of a drag how the author skipped straight from The Bridge to the impulse! records...the RCA albums in-between those two points are much more interesting than The Bridge. I'd like to see them get more attention, even today.

The Bridge has a nice backstory. I can see why it's so popular among some sorts of jazz fan. Something to talk to people about. It also has no calypso tunes on, which I think a lot of people don't like. 

I agree with your view that those intervening RCAs are probably the 'other' consistent high plateau of Rollins' always mountainous career, after the pre-Bridge run.

Edited January 21, 2022 by Rabshakeh

[JSngry]

The reviews of the time (that I've read), and some of the other literature, were all about Sonny took all that time off for THIS, and, wow, he's SO much better and fresher live (sound familiar?). It was not exactly "warmly received".

It took me a loooooong time to get to those other RCA albums in a coherent fashion, and I'm like, Our Man In Jazz? OUTSTANDING!!! Sonny Meets Hawk? MIND-BLOWING!!! Now's The Time? WHOA!!! and so forth. Never mind that one set of outtakes that French RCA got out before Sonny shut it down. Hell, I heard the mid-60s bootlegs before the "legit" albums.

All that stuff was OOP for the better part of the 70s, so for me it was (almost) all a mystery, a parallel Sonnyverse. And it's like, the narrative already started forming without the full history, and here we are.

Is that Complete RCA box still available for a good price? Because for me, that's the shit right there.

[medjuck]

I rushed out and bought The Bridge when it was new and liked it but now it actually seems a bit tame compared to earlier Sonny.  

[JSngry]

I got that mid-70s RCA reissue and kept waiting for some fire...it never quite came.

Good record enough, though. But whatever an "icon" it has become, it's about the backstory, not the music, and that can bug me a little if i think about it too long.

HA!

[Teasing the Korean]

I like the RCA album with Latin percussion.  I think there is a painting on the cover.

[JSngry]

What's New is the album, and oddly enough, it was one of the first jazz LPs I bought. Found in my hometown music/piano store (back when that was a viable venture in a small town) where it had sat, apparently, since release. Still pondering how it got there...

But that was a fluke. Other than that reissue of The Bridge, the only 70s American issue of RCA Sonny was a 1979(!) partial (!) reissue of Now's The Time on the Quintessence label.

There was a French(?) series of two-fers that I used to see in Peaches in the mid-70s that looked great and cost even more.. 

Inconsistent, but great, music on those records.

 

[danasgoodstuff]

2 hours ago, JSngry said:

Inconsistent, but great, music on those records.

Yes, whatever The Bridge is, it is consistently that.  The other RCA albums I find wildly inconsistent.

[Chuck Nessa]

19 minutes ago, danasgoodstuff said:

Yes, whatever The Bridge is, it is consistently that.  The other RCA albums I find wildly inconsistent.

I think they are a fascinating journey.

[danasgoodstuff]

7 minutes ago, Chuck Nessa said:

I think they are a fascinating journey.

That too.