The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz (69 page)

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Authors: Tom Piazza

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BOOK: The Guide to Classic Recorded Jazz
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"Strode Rode" and his famous calypso "St. Thomas"), his endless melodic invention, which invariably made use not only of the harmonic structure of a piece but of its melody as well (especially evident on "You Don't Know What Love Is'' and the mysterioso blues "Blue Seven"), and his humor.
Rollins has returned to the calypso throughout his career (listen also to "The Everywhere Calypso" on
Next Album
[Milestone/OJC-312] and "Hold 'Em Joe" on
On Impulse!
[MCA/Impulse MCAD-5655 JVC-458]), but
Saxophone Colossus's
"St. Thomas" is probably his best-known composition and performance in this genre. The first section of the track is in calypso rhythm. Midway through the drum solo, Roach shifts into straight-ahead four-four; when Rollins comes back in, soloing over the swing rhythm, the effect is like a tidal wave sweeping everything before it. And listen to how naturally Rollins phrases the melody of "You Don't Know What Love Is," as if he were a singer, to the way he leaves space in his playing, and to the way he builds intensity through the track. The matter of leaving space is important; some players feel as if they have to be playing something all the time, but Rollins builds his solos with conversational logic, staggering short, choppy phrases with exquisite held notes and long, labyrinthine lines that rarely go where you would expect them to but which always make sense.
"Strode Rode," taken at a bracing tempo, shows how Rollins can take a motif and instantly extend it, alter it, add to it, invert it, in a thrilling extended improvisation. Rollins takes his first thirty-two bars accompanied only by bass; listen to the way he brings Roach into the performance afterward by playing a repeated figure that mimics Roach's ride cymbal pattern. "Moritat" is better known as the pop song "Mack the Knife"; the quartet takes it at a relaxed medium tempo. "Blue Seven," a blues at a walking tempo, has received much attention because of Rollins's "thematic improvisation." He takes the simple, harmonically ambiguous opening saxophone motif, built on the major third, flat seventh, and flat fifth of the B
; scale, and uses it as the organizing principle of his solos, in extremely ingenious fashion. This track, like all the others, will repay as much close listening as you want to give it.
Finally, what makes this album so good is the grandeur in Rollins's conception, a sort of nobility and exultation in the act of organizing melody spontaneously that is almost Armstrong-like. And, significantly, it finds Rollins addressing each of the fundamentals of jazz: swing at slow ("You Don't Know What Love Is"), medium ("Moritat"), and fast ("Strode Rode") tempos, the blues ("Blue Seven"), the ballad ("You Don't Know ..."), and Afro-Hispanic rhythms ("St. Thomas"). The album was made at a moment at which Rollins knew exactly what he was doing and why. Not to be overlooked are the
 
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contributions of the sidemen, especially pianist Tommy Flanagan, who provides such perfect accompaniment throughout, as well as some lovely solos.
Saxophone Colossus
is unquestionably one of the landmarks of the music.
Worktime
Recorded six and a half months before
Saxophone Colossus
, Rollins's
Worktime
(Prestige/OJC-007) is also a quartet outing, with Roach again on drums, pianist Ray Bryant, and bassist George Morrow. It hasn't quite the Olympian grandeur of the later set, but it comes very close; one difference is that it contains only one Rollins original (the Latin-tinged "Paradox") as opposed to
Saxophone Colossus
's three. But the choice of tunes is characteristically unusual: "There's No Business Like Show Business" (Rollins loves to pick out songs no other jazz performer would think of doing; he takes this one at a punishingly fast tempo), Billy Strayhorn's "Raincheck," the ballad "There Are Such Things," and a galloping version of Cole Porter's ''It's All Right with Me."
Rollins's coordination, presence of mind, and soul are stunning throughout. He does all kinds of things with time and rhythmic expectations; on the lightning "Show Business," he sometimes plays at half tempo while the rhythm section races away, then suddenly doubles up with a run of rapid-fire eighth notes. Sometimes he just floats way above the tempo in the manner of Lester Young or the Louis Armstrong of "I've Got a Right to Sing the Blues" (on
Laughin' Louie
[RCA/Bluebird 9759-2-RB]). Listen to the way Rollins uses certain motifs throughout "There Are Such Things" to give the performance unity. In his unaccompanied closing cadenza, after the initial ascending line, he plays a sliding descending rhythmic figure, answered immediately by its mirror image, ascending; at the end of the cadenza he plays truncated versions of both lines, only reversed (i.e., ascending, then descending), turning the cadenza into a unified summation, perfectly framed, of the entire track. Genius at work.
Between
Worktime
and Rollins's retreat from the scene in 1959, he recorded an enormous amount of good music. Some of the best was recorded with only bass and drum accompaniment. Before turning to these trio sets, here is a look at some of Rollins's other late-1950s dates.
Sonny Rollins Plus Four
(Prestige/OJC-243) is a March 1956 date under Rollins's leadership by the Clifford Brown/Max Roach quintet, of which Rollins was then a member. Clifford Brown was a genius of the trumpet; until his death in June 1956, he and Rollins were a fantastic team in this band. This set captures their brilliance, as well as that of Roach; it contains Rollins's jazz standard "Valse Hot," one of the first jazz tunes written in waltz time, as well as his "Pent-Up House." Rollins's and Brown's crackling exchanges at the end
 
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of both "Kiss and Run" and "I Feel a Song Comin' On" are startlingly sharp and empathetic, and "Count Your Blessings" is a fine, walking-tempo feature for Rollins.
Tenor Madness
(Prestige/OJC-124), recorded in May 1956, has a happy, relaxed Rollins playing with Miles Davis's rhythm section of the time (Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones) in a program of three standards ("When Your Lover Has Gone," "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World," and the beautiful and rarely done "My Reverie"), a Rollins original ("Paul's Pal"), and the title track, on which Rollins is joined by none other than John Coltrane for their only meeting on record. Both men take good, long solos on this medium-tempo blues (once known as ''Royal Roost"), then engage in some delicious exchanges. Nobody seems to be out for blood here; they set up each other's shots, echoing and amplifying what the other has said. This is a perfect place to study the differences and similarities in the styles of the two dominant tenor players of the time. On the other tracks, Rollins gives lots of solo space to the members of the rhythm section, and there isn't as much of him here as there is on some other records. What there is, though, is fine; listen to the way he floats above the tempo as he phrases the melody of "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World."
Rollins Plays for Bird
(Prestige/OJC-214) was recorded in October 1956 less than three months after Clifford Brown's death in an automobile accident along with the Brown/Roach band's pianist, Richie Powell (Bud Powell's brother). Its main feature is a twenty-seven-minute medley of tunes associated with Charlie Parker, who had died a year and a half earlier. Rollins begins the medley by quoting Bird's opening phrase from "Parker's Mood" (available on
Bird: The Savoy Original Master Takes
[Savoy ZDS 8801]) and goes immediately into a lovely reading of "I Remember You." Rollins's sections here are separated by statements by trumpeter Kenny Dorham (Brown's replacement in the quintet) and pianist Wade Legge, so you need patience if it's Sonny you want to hear, although everyone else plays very well. The album also includes a nice waltz by Rollins called "Kids Know" and his great performance of "I've Grown Accustomed to Your Face."
Sonny Boy
(Prestige/OJC-348), recorded only two months later, is in its way another kind of tribute to Bird. Two tracks here - "B.Quick" and "B.Swift," themeless workouts on the chords of "Cherokee" and "Lover," respectively - are staggering examples of Rollins's coordination and presence of mind at the fastest tempos, as fast as anything Parker ever played, somewhat reminiscent, in fact, of Parker's themeless "Bird Gets the Worm" and "Klaunstance" (also available on
Bird: The Savoy Original Master Takes
). Rollins seems to have been in an aggressive mood on this particular day; the opening blues, "Ee-ah,"
 
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is based almost entirely on a short, jagged, one-note rhythmic motif, and Rollins sounds agitated, tearing off intricate runs in quadruple time, hoarse shouts, and squeals. An interesting set.
The Sound of Sonny
(Riverside/OJC-029), from June of the next year, has Rollins with a very good rhythm section of Sonny Clark, Percy Heath, and Roy Haynes, in a program consisting mostly of relatively short versions of standards like "The Last Time I Saw Paris," "Every Time We Say Goodbye," and ''Toot, Toot, Tootsie." He plays very well throughout, but he doesn't get as much room to stretch out as he does in many other sets. This one includes an unaccompanied version of "It Could Happen to You." Nice, but not quite as satisfying as some others.
Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders
(Contemporary/OJC-340), from October 1958, has Rollins in a swinging mood accompanied by the cream of Los Angeles's rhythm section men (Hampton Hawes, Leroy Vinnegar, and Shelley Marine, with Barney Kessel on guitar). This session has a buoyant, happy feel about it; Rollins picked unusual standards again, like "I've Told Every Little Star," "You," and "Rock-A-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody" (a companion piece to
The Sound of Sonny's
"Toot, Toot, Tootsie"). This isn't one of Rollins's most challenging albums, but it swings hard and is fun to listen to.
Rollins made a series of sessions for Blue Note during this period.
Volume 1
(Blue Note 81542), recorded a week after
Sonny Boy
in December 1956, is a quintet date with Donald Byrd on trumpet and a rhythm section of Wynton Kelly, Gene Ramey, and Max Roach. The repertoire, except for a beautiful "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?," consists of Rollins originals. The pick of the litter is the tenorist's extended improvisation on his up-tempo "Sonnysphere," based on "I Got Rhythm" with a "Honeysuckle Rose" bridge; he is all over the place here, reeling off extended bebop lines, short, percussive yelps, and swaggering rhythm-and-blues phrases. At the end, he and Roach trade four-and two-bar exchanges for some real excitement. A good, well-recorded set.
Volume 2
(Blue Note 81558), recorded the next spring, is an unusual date on which Rollins is paired in the front line with trombonist J. J. Johnson. The rhythm section has Paul Chambers on bass, an explosive Art Blakey on drums, and either Horace Silver or Thelonious Monk on piano; on Monk's blues "Misterioso,"
both
pianists play. There isn't as much Rollins here as there is on many other records, since he is dividing the solo duties with Johnson, but what there is is excellent, if somewhat tense-sounding. His solo on the up-tempo "You Stepped Out of a Dream" is top-notch, but the real prizes are the
 
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two tracks with Monk - the previously mentioned blues and Monk's ballad "Reflections," on which the two men have a classic musical conversation.
Newk's Time
(Blue Note 84001) is a 1958 quartet date with Wynton Kelly, Doug Watkins, and Philly Joe Jones. This is especially worthwhile for the interaction between Rollins and Jones, although Rollins doesn't sound as inspired here, overall, as he can be. An unusual track is "Surrey with the Fringe on Top," which Rollins and Jones play as a duet for tenor and drums. "Namely You" and "Wonderful! Wonderful!" are both good and seldom-done standards. Not essential, but nice.
Trios
Three of Rollins's records during this period were made with only bass and drum accompaniment:
Way Out West
(Contemporary/OJC-337),
Freedom Suite
(Riverside/OJC-067), and
A Night at the Village Vanguard, Volume 1
(Blue Note 46517) and
Volume 2
(Blue Note 46518). Rollins wanted the harmonic (and rhythmic) freedom that a pianoless group could afford, and he made the most of it, probably more than anyone ever has. The moods, approaches, repertoires, and meanings of the three albums are as different as can be; each is a masterpiece of a different sort.
Way Out West
, recorded in Los Angeles in March 1957, features bassist Ray Brown and drummer Shelley Manne and is a happy-feeling blowing session with such unusual tunes as "Wagon Wheels" and "I'm an Old Cowhand." The date began at three in the morning; something - perhaps the late hour - encouraged an extremely uninhibited and imaginative side of all three men, a kind of relaxed, late-night jam session feel, an anything-goes vibe. Rollins takes "Cowhand" at a loping medium tempo and ''Wagon Wheels" at a walking pace. The set also includes a gorgeous reading of Duke Ellington's "Solitude," the standard "There Is No Greater Love," and Rollins's originals "Come, Gone" (a fast cooker) and the medium-tempo "Way Out West." His inspiration runs high; this is a very undiluted presentation of his inventiveness, humor, and meditative fire.
Freedom Suite
, a New York City studio date from February 1958 with the virtuosos Oscar Pettiford on bass and Max Roach on drums, is most notable for the nineteen-and-a-half-minute title piece, a shifting masterpiece of structured improvisation. The first section consists of a repeated eight-bar "chorus," in which a four-bar melodic fragment, consisting of two phrases in a call-and-response relationship, alternates with four bars of improvisation; during the solos, a four-bar pedal-tone section alternates with a simple four-bar chord progression. The second section is a passage in six-eight meter,

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