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January 'UNCUT' contains rare interview with Sonny Rollins
Posted At : January 12, 2021 12:00 AM
Michael Bonner writes.......This month's Uncut contains a rare interview with Sonny Rollins – the last of the true jazz titans, whose music Dylan once described as "big league sound, covering all bases". John Lewis's superb interview reads like history unfolding, as Rollins takes us through his memories of some of the 20th century's most profound musical and cultural revolutions, including jazz, the civil rights movement and more. I'm thrilled.
Theodore Walter Rollins was born on September 7, 1930 in New York City. He grew up in Harlem not far from the Savoy Ballroom, the Apollo Theatre, and the doorstep of his idol, Coleman Hawkins. After early discovery of Fats Waller and Louis Armstrong, he started out on alto saxophone, inspired by Louis Jordan. At the age of sixteen, he switched to tenor, trying to emulate Hawkins. He also fell under the spell of the musical revolution that surrounded him, Bebop.
He began to follow Charlie Parker, and soon came under the wing of Thelonious Monk, who became his musical mentor and guru. Living in Sugar Hill, his neighborhood musical peers included Jackie McLean, Kenny Drew and Art Taylor, but it was young Sonny who was first out of the pack, working and recording with Babs Gonzales, J.J. Johnson, Bud Powell and Miles Davis before he turned twenty.
In 1956, Sonny began recording the first of a series of landmark recordings issued under his own name: Valse Hot introduced the practice, now common, of playing bop in 3/4 meter; St. Thomasinitiated his explorations of calypso patterns; and Blue 7 was hailed by Gunther Schuller as demonstrating a new manner of "thematic improvisation," in which the soloist develops motifs extracted from his theme. Way Out West (1957), Rollins's first album using a trio of saxophone, double bass, and drums, offered a solution to his longstanding difficulties with incompatible pianists, and exemplified his witty ability to improvise on hackneyed material (Wagon Wheels, I'm an Old Cowhand). It Could Happen to You (also 1957) was the first in a long series of unaccompanied solo recordings, and The Freedom Suite (1958) foreshadowed the political stances taken in jazz in the 1960s. During the years 1956 to 1958 Rollins was widely regarded as the most talented and innovative tenor saxophonist in jazz.
Sonny remembers that he took his leave of absence from the scene because "I was getting very famous at the time and I felt I needed to brush up on various aspects of my craft. I felt I was getting too much, too soon, so I said, wait a minute, I'm going to do it my way. I wasn't going to let people push me out there, so I could fall down. I wanted to get myself together, on my own. I used to practice on the Bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge because I was living on the Lower East Side at the time."
When he returned to action in early `62, his first recording was appropriately titled The Bridge. By the mid 60′s, his live sets became grand, marathon stream-of-consciousness solos where he would call forth melodies from his encyclopedic knowledge of popular songs, including startling segues and sometimes barely visiting one theme before surging into dazzling variations upon the next. Rollins was brilliant, yet restless. The period between 1962 and `66 saw him returning to action and striking productive relationships with Jim Hall, Don Cherry, Paul Bley, and his idol Hawkins, yet he grew dissatisfied with the music business once again and started yet another sabbatical in `66. "I was getting into eastern religions," he remembers. "I've always been my own man. I've always done, tried to do, what I wanted to do for myself. So these are things I wanted to do. I wanted to go on the Bridge. I wanted to get into religion. But also, the Jazz music business is always bad. It's never good. So that led me to stop playing in public for a while, again. During the second sabbatical, I worked in Japan a little bit, and went to India after that and spent a lot of time in a monastery. I resurfaced in the early 70s, and made my first record in `72. I took some time off to get myself together and I think it's a good thing for anybody to do."
In 1972, with the encouragement and support of his wife Lucille, who had become his business manager, Rollins returned to performing and recording, signing with Milestone and releasing Next Album. (Working at first with Orrin Keepnews, Sonny was by the early '80s producing his own Milestone sessions with Lucille.) His lengthy association with the Berkeley-based label produced two dozen albums in various settings – from his working groups to all-star ensembles (Tommy Flanagan, Jack DeJohnette, Stanley Clarke, Tony Williams); from a solo recital to tour recordings with the Milestone Jazzstars (Ron Carter, McCoy Tyner); in the studio and on the concert stage (Montreux, San Francisco, New York, Boston). Sonny was also the subject of a mid-'80s documentary by Robert Mugge entitled Saxophone Colossus; part of its soundtrack is available as G-Man.
He won his first performance Grammy for This Is What I Do (2000), and his second for 2004's Without a Song (The 9/11 Concert), in the Best Jazz Instrumental Solo category (for "Why Was I Born"). In addition, Sonny received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 2004.
In June 2006 Rollins was inducted into the Academy of Achievement – and gave a solo performance – at the International Achievement Summit in Los Angeles. The event was hosted by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and attended by world leaders as well as distinguished figures in the arts and sciences.
Rollins was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art, First Class, in November 2009. The award is one of Austria's highest honors, given to leading international figures for distinguished achievements. The only other American artists who have received this recognition are Frank Sinatra and Jessye Norman.
In 2010 on the eve of his 80th birthday, Sonny Rollins is one of 229 leaders in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, arts, business, and public affairs who have been elected members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A center for independent policy research, the Academy is among the nation's oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and celebrates the 230th anniversary of its founding this year.
In August 2010, Rollins was named the Edward MacDowell Medalist, the first jazz composer to be so honored. The Medal has been awarded annually since 1960 to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to his or her field.
Yet another major award was bestowed on Rollins on March 2, 2011, when he received the Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in a White House ceremony. Rollins accepted the award, the nation's highest honor for artistic excellence, "on behalf of the gods of our music."
Since 2006, Rollins has been releasing his music on his own label, Doxy Records. The first Doxy album was Sonny, Please, Rollins's first studio recording since This Is What I Do. That was followed by the acclaimed Road Shows, vol. 1 (2008), the first in a planned series of recordings from Rollins's audio archives.
Mr. Rollins released Road Shows, vol. 2 in the fall of 2011. In addition to material recorded in Sapporo and Tokyo, Japan during an October 2010 tour, the recording contains several tracks from Sonny's September 2010 80th birthday concert in New York-including the historic and electrifying encounter with Ornette Coleman.
On December 3, 2011 Sonny Rollins was one of five 2011 Kennedy Center honorees, alongside actress Meryl Streep, singer Barbara Cook, singer/songwriter Neil Diamond and cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Rollins said of the honor, "I am deeply appreciative of this great honor. In honoring me, the Kennedy Center honors jazz, America's classical music. For that, I am very grateful."
SEE THE UNCUT PAGE
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Sonny Rollins - The man who became a saxophone / The Sydney Morning Herald
Posted At : November 23, 2020 12:00 AM
Overnight he plunged from being as bright a star as any in the 1959 jazz firmament to not playing in public. When health issues intertwined with a crippling dissatisfaction with his own art, Sonny Rollins, then the most lauded tenor saxophonist alive, stopped to take stock and absorb the revolution espoused by the free-jazz radicals.
To avoid disturbing his neighbours, he practised for endless hours on New York's Williamsburg Bridge. The occasional fan saw him and did a double take. Was that Sonny? His return two years later was like the jazz version of the Second Coming. It was the same Sonny who still changed band members like most leaders changed shirts, however, including annexing two of Ornette Coleman's free-jazz associates (trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Billy Higgins), as if to get inside the mindset. He gave these new ideas his best shot, and decided they weren't for him. He didn't want to jettison chord-based songs, and nor, as one of jazz's greatest improvisers, did he want a foreground cluttered with instruments other than his own.
Born in New York in 1930 to parents from the Virgin Islands, Sonny had a life-long fascination with calypso. He fell in with the bebop pioneers, playing with Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Max Roach, before carving a path of his own. Unlike Miles, John Coltrane or Ornette, he was never closely associated with a particular band. His saxophone was calling-card enough, having a timbre deeper than most tenors, which he used to create long improvisations often based on motifs derived from a song's melody. With his tightly controlled vibrato he sounded unsentimental – impassive, even – and monumental, like some ancient Egyptian god. Yet a peerless instinct for drama and tension ensured that, rather than being emotionally barren, he was the most primal tenor player before the '60s made primal tenors the norm. So potent was his playing that he once believed it could change the world.
Among a slew of brilliant albums, Sonny released at least one-and-a-half genuine masterpieces. The half-masterpiece was the title track of The Freedom Suite, a three-movement visionary work for his tenor, Oscar Pettiford's bass and Max Roach's drums, which, in 1958, was also the first overt pro-civil rights musical statement from an African-American. "A lot of people thought it was unpatriotic," he said. A pause, a chuckle, and then: "Same stuff we have today in the world."
READ THE FULL Sydney Morning Herald ARTICLE
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Rifftides celebrates Sonny Rollins' 88th birthday with two of his masterpieces
Posted At : September 7, 2018 12:00 AM
Today is Sonny Rollins' 88th birthday. He looks back on a lifetime in music that began when he was a teenager in New York City and took him to the heights of his profession, and of creativity unmatched by few artists in any category. It is tempting to bring you a survey of the saxophonist's most notable works, but lists can't say what music can. Mr. Rollins's best playing-with its rhythmic power, lyricism and wit-helps a listener understand how jazz at its most expressive represents the spirit and character of a great nation. Let's listen.
Here are two of his masterpieces; first, "St. Thomas," a reflection of his Caribbean (Virgin Islands) heritage. This was filmed in Copenhagen at the Jazzhus Montmarte with Kenny Drew, piano; Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, bass; and Albert "Tootie" Heath, drums.
From 1955 and Sonny Rollins's indispensable Worktime album, here is his transformation of a classic Irving Berlin song. I have always hoped that Berlin had a chance to hear it. This is where two of those qualities mentioned above, Sonny's power and his wit, make a famous showstopper even more dramatic. He has inspirational backing from pianist Ray Bryant, bassist George Morrow, and drummer Max Roach, who has an inspired solo. Happy Birthday, Sonny Rollins. Congratulations on a magnificent career.
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About to turn 88, Sonny Rollins makes WBGO: Take Five, jazz legends born around labor day
Posted At : September 3, 2018 12:00 AM
Labor Day weekend is a time to honor our workers, and the spirit of industry they embody. Of course it also carries other connotations: backyard barbecues, furniture sales and family road trips, for starters. When thinking about a Labor Day edition of Take Five, I decided to bypass the standard fare - like Cannonball Adderley's "Work Song," which refers to a different set of circumstances than the one that this holiday commemorates. I looked instead to important jazz artists who were born this week in history, within several days of the holiday.
Sonny Rollins, the Saxophone Colossus, turns 88 this Friday. His life and career have been a model of discipline and hard work; consider the now-famous story of his self-improvement sabbatical on the Williamsburg Bridge, which has led to a campaign to rename it in his honor. About five years before he took to the bridge, Rollins made Work Time, an album for Prestige featuring Ray Bryant on piano, George Morrow on bass and Max Roach on drums.
The opening track is a breathless dash through Irving Berlin's "There's No Business Like Show Business." Along with highlighting the matchless hookup of Rollins and Roach, it serves as a reminder that show business is indeed a business, and on some level its practitioners are just doing their job.
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Sonny Rollins looks back on 'Way Out West' and the ensemble format he made famous / JazzTimes
Posted At : June 30, 2018 12:00 AM
When Sonny Rollins' Way Out West was released by Contemporary Records in 1957, it got plenty of attention, and not just for its sharply funny cover photo featuring the saxophonist as a mock-cowboy. The album was a departure for Rollins in two major ways: He was teaming with players (bassist Ray Brown and drummer Shelly Manne) he'd never worked with before, and, for the first time on record, he wasn't using a pianist. The more harmonically open sound of a "strolling" trio-in other words, a sax/piano/bass/drums quartet with the piano player taking a permanent stroll-would in subsequent years become a favorite option for Rollins and for many of his disciples as well. In a recent conversation sparked by Craft Recordings' special 60th-anniversary reissue of Way Out West, the Saxophone Colossus, 87, spoke with Lee Mergner about why he likes this bare-bones format and what's important to keep in mind when you play in it.
READ THE JazzTimes ARTICLE
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Sonny Rollins establishes ensemble at Oberlin
Posted At : February 20, 2018 12:00 AM
It was a letter that helped jazz legend Sonny Rollins make up his mind. The 87 year old jazz legend, whose life life-long mission has been to give back to others wanted to award a major gift to one of the schools that had honored him with a doctorate. The question became: "where?" Rollins who has received honorary degrees from a number of institution was considering Berklee College of Music, The New England Conservatory and Julliard School. When James McBride, the award-winning fiction author and musician heard about Rollins' plan, he sent the saxophonist a letter with a suggestion. "Why not Oberlin?"
{photo courtesy John Abbott]
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The Williamsburg Bridge could be getting a new name / Time Out - New York
Posted At : October 25, 2017 12:00 AM
The Williamsburg Bridge is one of New York City's many architectural gems. When it was completed in 1903, it was the largest suspension bridge span on the planet. Since then, it's been a vital connection between Lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn neighborhood after which it is named. But a new campaign could give the 114-year-old marvel a new moniker: the Sonny Rollins Bridge. Since last spring, Jeff Caltabiano has been campaigning to rename the bridge after Rollins, one of the most influential jazz saxophonists of the 20th century. In 1959, then at the height of his career, Rollins went on a sabbatical from recording and touring to take up residency on the Lower East Side. Struggling to find a space to practice where he wouldn't disturb his neighbors, he wandered out onto the pedestrian walkway of the Williamsburg Bridge. He practiced there regularly for two years in a stint that's since become essential New York lore and the inspiration for Caltabiano's campaign to rename the bridge.
READ THE FULL Time Out - New York ARTICLE
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Monterey Jazz features a tribute to Sonny Rollins / The Mercury News
Posted At : September 14, 2017 12:00 AM
The saxophone master is a longtime festival favorite, having appeared at Monterey Jazz many times over the years - including at the inaugural event in 1958. Rollins is now retired, but festival artistic director Tim Jackson - who describes the legendary musician as "one of the Mt. Rushmore artists in jazz" - has organized this amazing tribute with Jimmy Heath, Joe Lovano, Branford Marsalis, Joshua Redman, Gerald Clayton, Scott Colley and Lewis Nash. That's a true dream team, featuring no less than four of the top sax men (Heath, Lovano, Marsalis and Redman) in the business. It should be fascinating to hear them combine forces. Details: 10:10 p.m. Sept. 16, Jimmy Lyons Stage.
READ THE FULL Mercury News ARTICLE
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Sonny Rollins turns 87 and reflects on his jazz legacy / CBC Radio - q
Posted At : September 6, 2017 12:00 AM
It's not often that you can justify the use of the term living legend. But when it comes to jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins, the title fits. In a career of over seven decades, with more than 60 albums under his belt, Rollins has pushed the boundaries of the genre to a wealth of new directions. Newk, as Sonny is affectionately known, has become a giant of the scene. Due to health reasons, Rollins can no longer play his sax, but that hasn't stopped his enthusiasm and passion for music. Last year, he released his album of live performances Road Shows Volume 4, and this year, he has donated his seven-decade archive to the Schomburg Center in his birthplace, Harlem.
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Tom Power recently spoke to Rollins from his home in Woodstock, N.Y., to find out about his life, his legacy and what it means to him now that he can no longer play. LISTEN TO CBC - Radio, q SEGMENT PHOTO: Susan Ragan/Associated Press
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NPR interviews Sonny Rollins about his collaborations and contents of his archives
Posted At : June 12, 2017 12:00 AM
Everyone knows the legendary names of 20th-century jazz, but there are only a handful of those greats still around to tell their stories. One of them is saxophonist Sonny Rollins. He recently donated his personal archives, which cover a seven-decade career, to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library.
NPR's Audie Cornish and Christian McBride, bassist and host of NPR's Jazz Night In America, spoke with Rollins about his collaborations with fellow jazz legends, the unseen work that goes into improvisation and the contents of his archives. Rollins began by talking about his childhood in Harlem, and how he took up music when he was just 7 years old.
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Sonny Rollins archive acquired by NYPL - Schomburg Center / NPR
Posted At : May 31, 2017 12:00 AM
Sonny Rollins wasn't really thinking about the formation of an archive as he went about his life and career over the last 60 years - as a tenor saxophonist of unsurpassed stature, an artist of active spiritual and social engagement, and an embodiment of jazz's improvisational ideal. But his accumulation of writings, recordings and other material does amount to a formidable collection, and it has now been acquired by The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library. The acquisition will bring Rollins' archive to the Schomburg's location: at Malcolm X Boulevard near 135th Street in Harlem, a couple of blocks from where he was born in 1930, and in the neighborhood where he spent his youth.
The collection, amounting to more than 150 linear feet of material, is comprised of all manner of written correspondence (notably to his late wife and manager, Lucille Pearson Rollins) as well as hand-lettered essays, notes and drawings; practice and rehearsal tapes, often with detailed annotations; and photographs of both the promotional and candid sort. Among the other historically significant objects is a tenor saxophone that Rollins used early in his career. PHOTO: Chuck Stewart
SEE Nat Chinen's FULL - NPR: Jazz Night In America ARTICLE
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NYPL - Schomburg Center acquires Sonny Rollins archive / New York Times
Posted At : May 29, 2017 12:00 AM
The saxophonist Sonny Rollins, perhaps jazz's most respected living improviser, is also one of its most relentless seekers. But that's well known; what's not as widely recognized is the diversity - and the depth - of his inquiry. Yes, there's his herculean practice regimen (upward of eight hours a day, even into middle age) and the yearslong sabbaticals he took from performing to hone his craft. But Mr. Rollins, 86, has also maintained a vigorous, syncretic spiritual practice, and he has written hundreds of pages of personal notes over the years - reflecting on music technique and the music business and expressing social laments. He even started writing an instructional saxophone book but dropped that project.
These are among the insights to be gleaned from Mr. Rollins's personal archive, which the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, part of the New York Public Library, has acquired. The center will process the archive and eventually make it accessible to the public. "I felt that if any young musicians or people were interested in my life and my career, this should be available," Mr. Rollins said in a recent telephone interview. "I'm an introspective person," he added. "I always liked to improve myself, and I always liked to learn."
READ THE FULL New York Times ARTICLE
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Jazz greats come together to celebrate Sonny Rollins / Jazz-Quad
Posted At : April 17, 2017 12:00 AM
Voted by Miles Davis as the greatest tenor ever, Sonny Rollins is known for being an inventive saxophonist and an astonishing soloist. Jazz greats come together to celebrate Sonny Rollins and his music on Saturday, April 29, 8p at The Performing Arts Center, Purchase, NY. While Mr. Rollins won't take the stage on this night, he is anticipated to attend, and his legacy will be on full display. Players include;
Baritone saxophonist & DownBeat Critics' & Readers' Choice winner James Carter
2017 Grammy-nominee saxophonist Ravi Coltrane
NEA Jazz Master (2003) and nonagenarian saxophonist Jimmy Heath
Visionary composer and tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis
Grammy-winning saxophonist Joe Lovano
Purchase College's own Grammy-nominated trumpeter and conductor Jon Faddis
Additional players include; David Hazeltine, piano, Todd Coolman, bass, Victor Lewis, drums, and additional special guests may be announced or simply show up. The evening will include an informal conversation with co-curators, Jon Faddis and Seth Soloway.
SEE JAZZ-QUAD PAGE
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Shouldn't we name the Williamsburg Bridge after Sonny Rollins? / the Paris Review
Posted At : April 9, 2017 12:00 AM
The Williamsburg Bridge is a fine name for a bridge, especially when one half of that bridge ends in Williamsburg. But not every Williamsburg Bridge has given a safe harbor to one of the greatest jazz musicians in history-and say one had? Shouldn't we name it after the saxophonist, and not the neighborhood? The neighborhood has had a good run; it's time for a change. Amanda Petrusich has the story of Sonny Rollins's secret tenure on the bridge, where the tenor player loved to practice, hiding in plain sight: "In 1961, a story by Ralph Berton appeared in Metronome, a trade rag … Berton had come across Rollins playing atop the Williamsburg Bridge, which crosses the East River and connects North Brooklyn to the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He filed a short dispatch about the encounter. In an effort to keep Rollins's practice space private, Berton changed the location to the Brooklyn Bridge, and gave Rollins the somewhat ridiculous sobriquet ‘Buster Jones' … Almost every day between the summer of 1959 and the end of 1961, Rollins-who was born in Harlem, and at the time lived in an apartment at 400 Grand Street, just a few blocks from the entrance to the bridge-walked out and stationed himself adjacent to the subway tracks, playing as cars full of commuters rattled past."
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A quest to rename the Williamsburg Bridge for Sonny Rollins / The New Yorker
Posted At : April 7, 2017 12:00 AM
Between 1953 and 1959, the jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins released twenty-one full-length albums. This kind of prolificacy seems absurd now, during an era in which new musical material is meted out on a preordained, market-friendly schedule-a few weeks of recording, a year or two of touring, a cashed paycheck, repeat. But music rushed out of Rollins, like an overfed river. Miles Davis described Rollins's output circa 1954 as "something else. Brilliant." In his book "Black Music," the critic and poet Amiri Baraka-then writing as LeRoi Jones-called it "staggering." Baraka suggested that Rollins, along with John Coltrane and the pianist Cecil Taylor, was doing the necessary work "to propose jazz again as the freest of Western music."
READ THE FULL New Yorker ARTICLE
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What's it all about Sonny? / The New Yorker
Posted At : April 2, 2017 12:00 AM
The attention paid to movie scores-particularly in concert halls, where they're often played live to accompany screenings-doesn't, for the most part, serve movies any better than music. It's painful to think of musicians, expert in works from Beethoven to Boulez, sawing away for two hours at a score by John Williams (as the New York Philharmonic will be doing for screenings of "E.T." three times in May) and, for that matter, doing so to exalt the art of Steven Spielberg. Nonetheless, there are scores that can stand on their own, and one of them (with an interesting asterisk) isn't even the most famous music from the film in question. I'm thinking of Sonny Rollins's score for the 1966 British comic drama "Alfie," the title song of which is so enduringly familiar that mere mention of the film's title often prompts the response "What's it all about?"
"Alfie," directed by Lewis Gilbert, isn't a cinematic masterwork, but it's a notable emblem of its time. It's screening on Sunday at Film Forum, as an apt part of "The Brit New Wave" series, and it plays like a sign of a modernity that it only gently nudges forward thematically, formally, and tonally. Michael Caine stars as Alfie Elkins, a London driver who works occasionally but philanders constantly; he's a pickup artist with cheek and charm, who lives solely for his conquests and refuses to be tied down to one woman with anything so burdensome as an emotional attachment. His sex life-and, for that matter, his withholding coldness toward the women who yield to his allure-figure for Alfie as comedy. What figures as drama are the unwanted pregnancies that result. (I won't spoil the story; suffice it to say that there's a character listed as "The Abortionist," played with a memorably formal chill by Denholm Elliott.) PHOTOGRAPH BY DAVID REDFERN / REDFERNS / GETTY
READ THE FULL New Yorker ARTICLE
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Sonny Rollins - Holding the Stage: Road Shows, Vol. 4 makes NPR Music ' 2016 Jazz Critics Poll'
Posted At : December 22, 2016 12:00 AM
For his new album Holding the Stage: Road Shows, vol. 4, the great tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins once again taps into his vast archives of his own concert recordings to compile superior performances for release in the acclaimed Road Shows series. The album encompasses some 33 years (1979-2012) yet coheres with all of the compelling logic and narrative force of an extended Sonny solo. Released by Doxy Records with Sony Music Masterworks - OKeh, this recording is truly a treasure chest that includes tunes Rollins has never before recorded and musical relationships previously undocumented. "This album consists of various periods of my career, with something for everybody," says Rollins. "It's who I am, and the music represents just about every aspect of what I do."
SEE NPR PAGE
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Watch Sonny Rollins masterclass on 'mezzo'
Posted At : September 30, 2016 12:00 AM
Saxophonist Sonny Rollins, who had always refused to be filmed 'off stage', accepted the invitation of 'The Music Lesson'. Rollins follows the rules of the programme: at Salle Wagram, four young musicians, Charles Schneider (tenor saxophone), Marc Thomas (alto saxophone), Yves Torchinsky (bass) and Stéphane Gremaud (drums) dutifully follow his advice in front of two cameras. All along the film, the students remain particularly attentive and a surprisingly relaxed Sonny Rollins coaches them and explains continuous breathing. Rollins starts the lesson with his own theme 'Little Lu'. At different points in the programme, in a parallel interview, Rollins talks about his childhood in Harlem, his introduction to Jazz, the first time he met Charlie Parker and the freedom brought to him by Jazz.
Players - Sonny Rollins (saxophone), Charles Schneider (tenor saxophone), Marc Thomas (alto saxophone), Yves Torchinsky (bass), Stéphane Gremaud (drums)
Recorded at Salle Wagram - Broadcast on French television on 29/11/1981 - Directed by Claude Ventura
WATCH THE Sonny Rollins - mezzo Masterclass
Rollins new album - Holding the Stage: Road Shows, vol. 4, taps into his vast archives of his own concert recordings to compile superior performances for release in the acclaimed Road Shows series. The album encompasses some 33 years (1979-2012) yet coheres with all of the compelling logic and narrative force of an extended Sonny solo. Released by Doxy Records with Sony Music Masterworks - OKeh. "This album consists of various periods of my career, with something for everybody," says Rollins. "It's who I am, and the music represents just about every aspect of what I do."
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Richard Corsello, Sonny Rollins' Go-To Engineer / JazzTimes
Posted At : July 22, 2016 12:00 AM
Richard Corsello is Sonny Rollins' Go-To Engineer. How did he transform the subpar source recordings into Rollins' triumphant "Road Shows" series?
The four volumes of Sonny Rollins' Road Shows are the most important archival jazz releases of the new millennium. Until Vol. 1 appeared in 2008, our greatest living jazz musician had not issued a representative recording in 40 years. The Road Showsalbums finally documented what his devoted fans had been avowing for years: that on his greatest nights in concert, Rollins could reach transcendence, a realm beyond music. The tenor saxophone solo on the very first track of the series, "Best Wishes," is maniacal and sublime. Rollins powers through its 12-bar form 35 times in eight minutes, in waves, in towering arcs. And he's just warming up. There are 28 more tracks to come.
READ THE FULL JazzTimes ARTICLE
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Sonny Rollins is WEAA Radio's Jazz Master of the Month
Posted At : July 3, 2016 12:00 AM
On September 7, 1930, Sonny Rollins was born in New York City. Rollins' artistic neighborhood included such musical giants (to-be) as Jackie McLean, drummer Art Taylor and pianist Kenny Drew. He lived only blocks away from the famous jazz spot The Savoy Ballroom and the world famous Apollo Theater, and only a few doorsteps from a saxophonist soon to become one of his idols, Coleman Hawkins.
Starting on saxophone at the early age of eight after toying with the piano, Rollins released his first recording immediately after graduating from high school in 1947, recording with pianist Bud Powell and singer and bandleader Babs Gonzales. Sonny Rollins became immediately recognized as a tenor voice to be heard but his recording and performing career was briefly interrupted by a ten month stint in Rikers prison after being arrested for armed robbery. It was not long after his release that he recorded with Miles Davis, Horace Silver, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and The Modern Jazz Quartet. By 1954 Rollins had become known not only as a unique strong saxophone voice but a prolific composer having recorded such tunes as Oleo, Doxy and Airegin (Nigeria spelled backwards) all still widely recorded classic even today.
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The Zen of Sonny Rollins / JazzTimes
Posted At : June 24, 2016 12:00 AM
Sidelined by lung disease, our greatest living jazz musician longs for the stage and ponders the nature of existence. The most recently recorded track on Sonny Rollins' new album, Holding the Stage: Road Shows, Vol. 4 (Doxy/OKeh), is a ballad called "Mixed Emotions." On its face, it's the latest manifestation of the sublime way that Rollins-jazz's preeminent tenor saxophonist and most heralded improviser, as well as its most admired living master-can extract truth and beauty from a mawkish, minor piece of the American Songbook, as if spinning straw into gold.
READ THE FULL JazzTimes ARTICLE
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Sonny Rollins makes cover of JazzTimes' June saxophone issue
Posted At : June 10, 2016 12:00 AM
For his new album Holding the Stage: Road Shows, vol. 4, the great tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins once again taps into his vast archives of his own concert recordings to compile superior performances for release in the acclaimed Road Shows series. The album encompasses some 33 years (1979-2012) yet coheres with all of the compelling logic and narrative force of an extended Sonny solo. Released by Doxy Records / Sony - OKeh, Holding the Stage is truly a treasure chest that includes tunes Rollins has never before recorded and musical relationships previously undocumented. "This album consists of various periods of my career, with something for everybody," says Rollins. "It's who I am, and the music represents just about every aspect of what I do."
Rollins tells JazzTimes Nate Chinen "This world is not real," during a long and profoundly reflective conversation at the Saxophone Colossus' placid home in upstate New York. Sidelined by lung disease, Rollins wonders out loud if he'll ever perform again, and ponders the meaning of the human experience.
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Sonny Rollins interview with audioBoom
Posted At : June 7, 2016 12:00 AM
Today at 4 PM (edt) my special guest is jazz great Sonny Rollins, who recently released a new album Holding the Stage: Road Shows, vol. 4, on Sony. The great tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins once again taps into his vast archives of his own concert recordings to compile superior performances for release in the acclaimed Road Shows series. The album encompasses some 33 years (1979-2012) yet coheres with all of the compelling logic and narrative force of an extended Sonny solo.
The show goes LIVe at 4 Pm (edt) on www.dreamstreamradio.com and on Tune In Radio at http://tunein.com/radio/Its-Right-Here-In-Miramar-s262637/ WATCH THE TRAILER
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Sonny Rollins - Holding the Stage makes Rhapsody - 5 New Jazz Releases You Need To Hear
Posted At : May 18, 2016 12:00 AM
Warrning! Rhapsody's 5 New Jazz Releases You Need To Hear have little or nothing in common. No thread running through them, no concept linking them, just talent, feeling and a bit of complexity thrown in to keep you on your toes. So goes the world of the Jazzbeaux, whose aim is to eliminate the snob of jazz-snobbery. There's no previous experience or expertise required because this is a place where beginners and experts peacefully co-exist - just bring your ears and an open mind.Rhapsody - 5 New Jazz Releases You Need To Hear
Sixty-five years treading the boards, if you've seen Sonny Rollins recently, he's as much a hurricane as he's always been, a furious cotton-topped buzzsaw blowing havoc into his horn. Holding the Stage is more from Rollins' road archives dating from 1979 in Finland to 2012 in Prague. The meat of the material are the concluding tracks recorded just four days after 9/11 at a special tribute concert. The performances are quirky, mostly well-recorded and faithful to the moment. Sonny swings hardest on "Keep Hold of Yourself" and ends with a medley of "Sweet Leilani" that erupts into a frantic solo closing with one of Sonny's signature tunes, "Don't Stop the Carnival."
SEE THE Rhapsody PAGE
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Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / Jazztimes review
Posted At : July 21, 2014 12:00 AM
If you are able to own only one of the Road Shows albums (which would be a pity), make it the newly arrived Volume 3. It contains six performances that took place between 2001 and 2012 on three continents. There is some variation in personnel, but the core is Sonny Rollins' working band, with Bob Cranshaw on bass, Clifton Anderson on trombone and either Bobby Broom or Peter Bernstein on guitar. Rollins' long-term collaborator, co-producer/engineer Richard Corsello, meticulously blended the beginnings and endings of tunes using applause tracks. His sources were soundboard tapes and recordings he made using a portable 24-channel Pro Tools rig. Mastering engineer Allan Tucker was able to overcome the "enormous differences" in the board tapes. Volume 3 has the clearest, most balanced sonic quality of the Road Shows albums. It sounds like one concert-a concert for the ages. READ THE FULL Jazztimes REVIEW.
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Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / The Scotsman review
Posted At : July 20, 2014 12:00 AM
This recording Road Shows Vol. 3 provides proof that age is no barrier to exuberant performance. Its star, tenor saxophone titan Sonny Rollins, is to be heard in one powerhouse live performance after another during a period (2001-2012) when his age ranged from 71 to 81. Particularly riveting is Solo Sonny, an eight-minute stream of musical consciousness in which Rollins steams through a couple of chapters of the Great American Songbook that must have had his St Louis audience on the edge of their seats.-Alison Kerr
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Sonny Rollins on all that jazz / Stuff.co.nz
Posted At : June 29, 2014 12:00 AM
Now 83, jazz legend Sonny Rollins talks about times good and bad and why he never listens to his own music.
With a roar and a thump, the sky began to fall. It was September 11, 2001, and the first plane had just slammed into The World Trade Center in New York. Just a few blocks away, on the 40th floor of his apartment building, jazz pioneer Sonny Rollins, then 71, says it felt like the apocalypse had come early.
"We heard a huge ‘POW!', then we ran downstairs. We ran fast, too, because we thought that burning tower would fall right into our building. Then the second plane hit. I remember the air was swirling with ash and toxic gases, and terrified people were everywhere. At first, they ordered us back inside, then the National Guard evacuated us, and I got outta there."
And what did Rollins take with him when he was finally allowed to leave his home, unsure when or if he'd ever return? Important documents? Family photo albums? A fistful of his favourite LPs? No. Just the clothes on his back, and his beloved saxophone.
No surprises there. Now 83, Rollins' saxophone has been his constant companion through good times and bad since he was seven years old. Considered by many to be the world's greatest living jazz musician, he learned his chops alongside players who revolutionised the art form - Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Max Roach - struggling along the way with heroin addiction, and spells in rehab and prison.
A documentary on Rollins' remarkable life screens this week. Sonny Rollins: Beyond The Notes is a long-term labour of love for fellow musician Dick Fontaine, who first started following his musical hero around with a camera in the late sixties. READ THE FULL Stuff.co.nz ARTICLE.
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The Curious Case of Sonny Rollins / iRock Jazz interview
Posted At : June 26, 2014 12:00 AM
In a space defined by its progressive thought and forward-thinking, Sonny Rollins maintains his place as one of jazz's most eccentric personalities. And as such, it affects the way in which we examine his life. For most artists, we track their lives through the lens of artistic output, because what is the creator without his creation?
With Sonny Rollins, however, we must address the inner workings of the man and not simply the man's works. This, of course, being the man who elevated the status of the tenor saxophone in jazz, the man who redefined the compositional structure of a band with the piano-less trio, and, the man who at ripe age of 83, is altering our definition of "longevity" with his latest album, Road Show, Vol.3
But this is also the man who left music to study Eastern philosophies, the man who played alone on the Williamsburg Bridge, the man who, despite having been lauded with the utmost praise, still practices his instrument every single day. Sonny Rollins is more than work. He is a music-making enigma.
Recently, iRock Jazz sat down with Sonny Rollins to discuss his jazz, his place in it, and most importantly, what, after all of these years, keeps him going. READ THE FULL iRock Jazz INTERVIEW.
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Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / Rifftides review
Posted At : June 24, 2014 12:00 AM
Thriving on the energy he gets back from his listeners, Sonny Rollins can electrify them. In the third volume of his Road Show series the formidable tenor saxophonist sends currents through audiences in Japan, the United States and four places in France. The solitary listener to the recording may find himself joining in the ovations for Rollins's audacity, humor and explosions of creativity. From 2001 to 2012, his accompanists vary, although the stalwart bassist Bob Cranshaw is a constant and trombonist Clifton Anderson is on most tracks. Alone with his imagination on "Solo Sony," Rollins quotes dozens of tunes, stitching disparate snatches of melody together into a new creation. "Why Was I Born?" runs over 23 minutes and doesn't contain a boring second. It's been years since I've had this much fun listening to a record.
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Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / WRTI: 'June Jazz Pick'
Posted At : June 24, 2014 12:00 AM
Sonny Rollins: Road Shows, Volume 3 - They say Sonny Rollins still practices three hours a day, and I wouldn't doubt the stamina of this jazz nobleman who, at 83, continues to perform at sold-out concert halls all over the world. He still plays faster and with more finesse than players half his age. If you've been fortunate enough to see Rollins in concert, you've experienced that charismatic energy radiate from the stage. A live setting puts his legendary reputation in context. READ THE FULL WRTI: Philadelphia REVIEW.
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Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / Financial Times review
Posted At : June 20, 2014 12:00 AM
Sonny Rollins: Road Shows Vol.3: Though each track on a different source and personnel – the time-span begins in Japan in 2001 and ends in France in 2012 – the album feels like a typical late-life Rollins performance. The saxophonist first worries a simple theme into music of substance and then constructs an improvisation of architectural grandeur helped by a solid band.
There's a funky original, a brace of quirky songbook standards and an uplifting calypso. Rollins is the focus and on song, and his a cappella stream-of-consciousness on "Solo Sunny" is the standout.
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Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / Chico News & Review
Posted At : June 19, 2014 12:00 AM
Tenor sax giant Theodore Walter ("Sonny") Rollins' third collection of his road-show gigs finds the octogenarian (he turns 84 in September) in performance at five global venues dating from 2001 to 2012. Rollins has long preferred clubs and concert halls as the sites for live recordings and the six tunes on this disc were recorded in concerts in France, Japan and the United States. Not only does recording "live" free him and his combo from, say, the time constraints of a studio setting, it also allows him a direct connection with the audience as the enthusiastic responses captured here reveal, especially at the end of his 20-minute solo and multichorus interaction with drummer Steve Jordan on "Why Was I Born?" Rollins loves the "old ones" and here revisits Noel Coward's "Someday I'll Find You," a lovely 15-minute waltz from a 2006 French concert that features magnificent contributions from guitarist Bobby Broom and Rollins, whose "emotional surges" (to use liner-note writer Bob Blumenthal's felicitous phrase) show the then-76-year-old saxophonist still in stunning form. Another stand-out track is the eight-minute "Solo Sunny," from 2009, which is exactly what the title says, and allows Rollins the freedom to quote from a number of sources (e.g., "Tennessee Waltz," "In the Mood"). Another very worthy addition to one's Rollins collection.
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Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / The Guardian review
Posted At : June 12, 2014 12:00 AM
The Road Shows series of live recordings of the famously studio-averse Sonny Rollins are all the more appealing now, since health issues are still keeping the 83-year-old sax star from playing live.
Road Shows Volume 3 draws on gigs in France, Japan and the US from 2001 to 2012, and catches him in such thunderous form as to almost make up for his absence. The fast-walking Biji sparks a tenor-sax solo of vehement exclamations and ferocious low notes, and Someday I'll Find You stirs that signature mix of tenderness, long notes and wayward wriggles through harmony-busting descents. Solo Sonny jams together Miles Davis, Ellington, Glenn Miller, Tennessee Waltz, Oh Susanna and a lot more, while Rollins spends 20 minutes springing animatedly off drummer Steve Jordan's groove on Why Was I Born? and winds things up with Don't Stop the Carnival. He became so brusquely inventive after the millennium that he has sometimes sounded like a free-improviser accidentally parachuted into a straightahead jazz band, but the contrast continues to exert a fascinating charm.
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Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / Winnipeg Free Press review
Posted At : June 5, 2014 12:00 AM
Saxophone colossus Sonny Rollins, approaching his 84th birthday, shines brightly live and this third volume of his Road Shows series proves it, again. The six tracks, four from Rollin's pen, are culled from concerts from 2001-2012.
The tenor saxophonist revisits Someday I'll Find You -- which he first recorded in 1958 as an up-tempo number -- in its original ballad form. He plays the Noel Coward tune with astonishing intensity.
Rollins has always excelled playing in the moment (despite a catalogue of great studio recordings) and the hand-picked performances range from the energetic starter Biji to Patanjali, a Rollins' groove number appearing on record for the first time, to Why Was I Born?, a 23:39 jewel with the saxophonist trading solos back and forth with drummer Steve Jordan.
Unlike Vol. 2, which featured Rollins' 80th birthday concert with special guests in New York, Vol. 3 features his working bands, with stalwarts Clifton Anderson on trombone and Bob Cranshaw on bass on all tracks and a shifting lineup on piano, guitar, drums and percussion. 5 stars. -Chris Smith
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Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / Jazzwise Magazine interview
Posted At : May 30, 2014 12:00 AM
Theodore Walter Rollins – better known as Sonny – is quite simply one of the most seismic saxophone forces in jazz; a walking history of the music's bebop and hard-bop golden era his tone and vast well of improvisational ideas an immeasurable influence for the last six decades. The newly released Road Shows Vol.3 features the saxophone collossuss blazing a trail between 2001 – 2012, although he's currently not playing live due to ongoing health issues. Yet, as Brian Priestley discovers, his fighting spirit remians undimmed, his mind and humour as sharp as ever, as he discusses this feast of fiery live performances and how real change comes from within. Pick up the latest issue of Jazzwise Magazine to read the full article.
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Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / Columbia Daily Tribune review
Posted At : May 25, 2014 12:00 AM
Sonny Rollins, Road Shows, Vol. 3 (Okeh/Sony/Doxy): Reportedly, The Saxophone Colossus, who turns 84 this September, is considering retiring from live performances. Should the rumor be true - no matter what, it will happen sooner rather than later - this would truly mark the end of one heck of a spirited ride. If the rock adage was, "There's nothing like seeing a Grateful Dead concert live," then the jazz equivalent is "Sonny Rollins' recordings are never as good as he is in concert."
I remember review after review stating just that - that studio recordings never quite captured Rollins at his extemporaneous best - where he could roll out chorus after chorus on any given composition, be it one of his own, an interpretation of a jazz standard, a pop tune or whatever. Rollins at his best would simply strut around the stage - not a Mick Jagger strut but rather a casual, walk-in-the-park kind of vibe - and not just play note after note but notes after notes after notes, each time repeating phrases but adding to them. Seeing Rollins at his best was like receiving a personal invitation to one of his living room practices. He has always been after perfection - and in concert, more often than not, we are privy to his journey and searches. READ THE FULL Columbia Daily Tribune REVIEW.
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Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / Stereophile review
Posted At : May 19, 2014 12:00 AM
Road Shows, Volume 3 (on Okeh Records) might be Sonny Rollins' greatest album ever. Certainly it's the album that most closely supplies the sensation of a live Sonny Rollins concert-or the best moments of several live Sonny Rollins concerts, which is what the whole Road Shows series is meant to be.
Rollins famously dreads the deadness of studios, so it's no surprise that some of his best albums, I think, have been live dates (Our Man in Jazz, A Night at the Vanguard, and a standout from the otherwise spotty 1980s, G-Man). A decade ago, he started listening to old concert tapes-some made by his own sound crew, some taken down by a bootleg collector named Carl Smith. When he started releasing selected tracks, the anticipation was enormous: it's well known that Rollins, a ferociously self-critical artist, can't stand listening to his performances; so if he found these tracks decent enough to share with others, they must be great. And, it turned out, they were. READ THE FULL Stereophile REVIEW.
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Sonny Rollins interview with Esquire Magazine
Posted At : May 16, 2014 12:00 AM
Sonny Rollins is one of the greatest musicians of his age. A protégé of Thelonious Monk. A close friend and rival of fellow tenor man John Coltrane. A junkie who did two bids at Rikers Island before kicking his habit in 1955 and cranking out an astounding twenty-four albums under his own name in the next four years, most notably the immortal Saxophone Colossus in 1956, and the groundbreaking civil rights album Freedom Suite in 1958. Then in 1959, at the peak of his fame, he dropped away for two years to practice, nights, on the Williamsburg Bridge in New York City. That wasn't the last prolonged sabbatical he took from music. A decade later, Rollins dropped off the scene to study Eastern philosophy and religion in India and Japan.
Rollins, eighty-three, has been combating a respiratory illness over the past year, and when I showed up at his house in Woodstock, New York, his sax was resting on an easy chair. He says he has been able to resume practicing for short stretches. He hopes to start performing again. In the meantime, his Road Shows, Vol. 3-culled from concert highlights between 2001 and 2012-recently dropped. READ THE FULL Esquire INTERVIEW.
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Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 makes this week's Billboard Top Selling Jazz Albums
Posted At : May 16, 2014 12:00 AM
Since launching his Doxy label in 2006 with the Grammy-nominated studio album Sonny, Please, the great tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins has been turning to his vast archive of his own concert recordings to compile superior performances for release in Doxy's acclaimed Road Shows series. The selections in Volume 1 (2008) spanned nearly 30 years and included a trio track from the saxophonist's 50th-anniversary Carnegie Hall concert, while Volume 2 (2011) focused primarily on his epic 80th-birthday concert at New York's Beacon Theatre.
Road Shows, vol. 3, draws its six tracks from concerts recorded between 2001 and 2012 in Saitama, Japan; Toulouse, Marseille, and Marciac, France; and St. Louis, Missouri. "Patanjali," a recent-vintage Rollins composition, is given its debut recording on the new disc. The performances, says Rollins, "present parts of me I want to have presented." This album makes its Billboard debut on the Top Selling Jazz albums for this week.
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Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / Audiophile Audition review
Posted At : May 14, 2014 12:00 AM
Sonny Rollins has issued three volumes of Road Shows, and each has a different theme or focus. Vol. 1 spanned 27 years and included some tracks recorded by a fan. Vol. 2 covered shows in 2010, when Sonny celebrated his 80th birthday. His latest issue is an overview of concerts recorded in the new millennium.
There are only six tracks on Vol. 3, and with the exception of the closer encore tune, Don't Stop the Carnival, the shortest track exceeds eight minutes. We get a chance here to experience Sonny at his best, when he can really stretch out on his solos. READ THE FULL Audiophile Audition REVIEW.
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Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / All About Jazz review #2
Posted At : May 14, 2014 12:00 AM
Legendary tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins has proven himself to be one of the most durable, consistently strong musicians of any era and genre. He started playing tenor saxophone in the 1940s, came into his own as a recognized player in the 1950s, and, except for short interruptions has been working and recording ever since. The reason he has been so steadily successful and productive is that he has unswervingly pursued his own exciting and highly inventive style that incorporates the bebop and hard bop idioms in a timeless way. His live performances and recordings therefore have remained fresh and vital across six decades. He keeps it that way by maintaining his physical and spiritual well-being and preserving his embouchure and lungs so well that he still sounds youthful at the age of 83. His other "secret" is that he is able to select, nurture, and discipline his ensembles so that they perfectly complement his playing.
This album Road Shows Vol. 3, like the previous two Road Show volumes, consists of live concert recordings, in this case selected from performances given between 2001 and 2012 in Saitama, Japan; Toulouse, Marseille, and Marciac, France; and St. Louis, MO. It consists of two Rollins originals that have become standards: "Biji," and "Don't Stop the Carnival;" a new composition: the mantra-like "Patanjali" (Rollins has practiced yoga for many years; Patanjali was an ancient yoga master); an untitled solo quoting many familiar tunes; and two standards: "Someday I'll Find You" and "Why Was I Born." He is surrounded by outstanding musicians, of whom trombonist Clifton Anderson and bassist Bob Cranshaw are Rollins "regulars," and the others have joined him on multiple occasions. Especially for live performances in large venues, the recording quality is excellent: crisp, clear, and balanced. The result is a carefully selected collection of "one take" tracks that are as good as or better than a well-crafted studio session. Everything comes together beautifully to make for a tight, unwaveringly interesting listening experience. READ THE FULL All About Jazz REVIEW.
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Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / Downbeat Magazine Editor's Pick
Posted At : May 12, 2014 12:00 AM
Here's a recording that will simply make you smile. Road Shows, Vol. 3 is the latest installment of concert performances by the amazing tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins. This volume offers glimpses from his world tours between 2001 and 2012. It's an excellent collection of Rollins as a senior statesman of jazz-a confident, free and flowing improviser with an encyclopedic knowledge of music and his instrument. A great example is his solo on "Someday I'll Find You." The Saxophone Colossus carries chorus after chorus of fiery, thought-provoking solo work-eight minutes in total-as naturally as we mere mortals go for a stroll in the park. And then he tops himself with "Solo Sonny," an eight-minute musical history lesson. On "Solo Sonny," Rollins flows from thought to thought with incredible grace while dropping in references from all over the musical landscape, from "Tennessee Waltz" and "Someone To Watch Over Me" to "Blue Moon" and "The Song Is You." He even quotes from "She'll Be Coming 'Round The Mountain" and "Polly Wolly Doodle," and manages to make them sound hip! While there's no question that Rollins is the center of attention-make that adoration-during these shows, his collaborators are superb. Trombonist Clifton Anderson and bassist Bob Cranshaw play throughout, with appearances by pianist Stephen Scott; guitarists Bobby Broom and Peter Bernstein; drummers Kobie Watkins, Perry Wilson, Steve Jordan and Victor Lewis; and percussionists Kimati Dinizulu and Sammy Figueroa. For those who have seen Rollins in concert, this album will bring back terrific memories. When you listen to Road Shows, Vol. 3, it's stunning to realize that these are recordings by an artist in his 70s and even 80s. We should all want to be like Sonny when we grow up!
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Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / The Buffalo News review
Posted At : May 8, 2014 12:00 AM
Tenor saxophonists know. Certainly about other tenor players they do.
When Bill Clinton, the most famous of all presidential tenor players, toasted Sonny Rollins at a State Department dinner before the 2011 Kennedy Center Honors, he said about Road Shows Volume 2: "I was aghast at how good he still is. His music can still bend your mind, it can break your heart and it can make you laugh out loud."
All of which are distinctly possible in the newest installment of the live concert Road Show series that Rollins began on his own Doxy label in 2008.
Rollins is legendarily less than perfectly comfortable in a recording studio – and just as legendarily happier to be recorded live in concert. It's his contention that "you can't think and play at the same time." That doesn't necessarily mean, however, that every live performance by Rollins is superior to the recording studio gigs where he was, against his truest desires, required to play and think at the same time.
Our former president couldn't be more accurate about Rollins' powers as a performer in his 80s. These performances come from Rollins' world-touring band from 2001 to 2012. While his tenor playing is extraordinary, it's obvious that his enormous comfort with these bands – which all include his trombonist nephew Clifton Anderson and his bassist for 50 years Bob Cranshaw – doesn't result in anything nearly as challenging or as powerful as his pianoless trio with Roy Haynes and Christian McBride on the first "Road Shows" or the historic meeting with Ornette Coleman on Vol. 2 that took place during his 80th birthday concert.
The best of this, by far, is the eight-minute "Solo Sonny," an unaccompanied cadenza of the sort that Rollins has been blowing minds with for more than 50 years. There are those who would argue, no doubt, that the farrago of tunes quoted therein is one of the more dated devices of bebop except that when the player doing it is Rollins, the wit and brilliance of it is formidable. He almost is equally formidable on "Why Was I Born?"
What is unavoidable about this set, though, is that as comfortable as the band is for Rollins to play with, they aren't the musicians on equally Olympian levels who always have seemed to bring out his best.– Jeff Simon
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Sonny Rollins - Road Show Vol. 3 / Wall Street Journal review
Posted At : May 7, 2014 12:00 AM
There is little consensus in the often-contentious world of jazz, but most fans and critics agree that Sonny Rollins is the greatest tenor saxophonist alive. And, at age 83, Mr. Rollins is still in peak form. For decades, attendance at his concerts has taken on the solemnity of a pilgrimage. But for many of those years, none of his recordings were a match for the classics like "Saxophone Colossus" (Prestige, 1956), "Freedom Suite" (Riverside, 1958) and "East Broadway Rundown" (Impulse!, 1966) that established his reputation. The newer recordings lacked the intense probing on up-tempo numbers and the poignancy on ballads. Six years ago Mr. Rollins found the right approach to recordings-releasing compilations of his live work. Now his albums prompt a similar hushed level of anticipation as his performances.
On Tuesday Mr. Rollins released Road Shows Vol. 3 (Doxy/Sony Music Masterworks), and it is the equal of its heralded predecessors Road Shows Vol. 1 (Doxy/EmArcy 2008) and Road Shows Vol. 2 (Doxy/EmArcy 2011). Each volume has a distinctive identity. Volume 1 spans 27 years of Mr. Rollins's career; it includes the tracks of his remarkable 2007 concert commemorating the 50th anniversary of his first Carnegie Hall appearance. Volume 2 comprises material from 2010, the year of Mr. Rollins's 80th birthday, including the superb Beacon Theater performance where he was joined by guitarist Jim Hall, drummer Roy Haynes, trumpeter Roy Hargrove, bassist Christian McBride and-in a complete surprise to the audience-saxophonist Ornette Coleman. The new recording features material since the turn of the century, and its best parts reveal the strengths of Mr. Rollins's working band rather than guest stars joining the performance. READ THE FULL Wall Street Journal REVIEW.
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Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / All About Jazz review
Posted At : May 5, 2014 12:00 AM
Look beyond harmony, go past technique, and pay no mind to personality. When you do all of that, Sonny Rollins still remains one of the greatest improvisers to ever wield an instrument. And why is that? The answer is simple: Rollins is forever in a state of becoming. He's the rare player who doesn't play towards a destination; he plays for the journey, and his journeys are epic and legendary.
While that's hardly news to any longtime jazz fans, those who need a reminder need look no further than Rollins' Road Shows-compilations of live performances cherry-picked by the man himself. These albums have helped to further his already-sterling reputation as a concert artist. In the studio, Rollins may always feel like he's forced to manufacture a moment, but on the stage, he exists in the moment, and that's the Sonny Rollins that shines through on these offerings. READ THE FULL All About Jazz REVIEW.
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Sonny Rollins interview with NPR: All Things Considered
Posted At : May 3, 2014 12:00 AM
When you consider that critics have been writing about him for over 60 years, it can seem as if there's nothing left to say about . But there is – because over the decades, the "Saxophone Colossus" has never stopped growing or adding to his sound.
More than once, Sonny Rollins has stepped away from his adoring audiences for extended sabbaticals: He'd decide he wasn't good enough, take a couple of years off to practice and study, and come back when he felt ready. He's taking some time off again now, but that may be due more to the fact that he's 83 than a desire to rethink his music. In the meantime, Rollins has been leaking some live recordings for a series he calls Road Shows.
The latest installment, Road Shows, Vol. 3, comes out Tuesday. He spoke with NPR's Arun Rath about the value of time away from the studio, and why, when you make your living improvising, a little spiritual practice can be a big help. Hear the radio version at the audio link, and read more of their conversation below. Read the full article and listen to Arun Rath's interview with Sonny Rollins on NPR: All Things Considered.
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The way Sonny Rollins is recorded
Posted At : April 28, 2014 12:00 AM
When Sonny Rollins plays, he likes to move around, which poses a problem for a recording engineer. Richard Corsello, who has been his recording enginner for over 30 years, explains how he solved the problem of recording a moving Rollins. Corsello also co-produced the upcoming Doxy Records release, Road Shows, Vol. 3. WATCH THE INTERVIEW with Sonny Rollins and Richard Corsello HERE.
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Sonny Rollins set to release 'Road Shows Vol. 3' this May on Sony Music Masterworks/Okeh
Posted At : April 10, 2014 12:00 AM
Since launching his Doxy label in 2006 with the Grammy-nominated studio album 'Sonny, Please,' the great tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins has been turning to his vast archive of his own concert recordings to compile superior performances for release in Doxy's acclaimed Road Shows series. The selections in Volume 1 (2008) spanned nearly 30 years and included a trio track from the saxophonist's 50th-anniversary Carnegie Hall concert, while Volume 2 (2011) focused primarily on his epic 80th-birthday concert at New York's Beacon Theatre.
Road Shows Vol. 3 to be released May 6 as part of a distribution agreement with Sony Music Masterworks and its jazz imprint OKeh, draws its six tracks from concerts recorded between 2001 and 2012 in Saitama, Japan; Toulouse, Marseille, and Marciac, France; and St. Louis, Missouri. "Patanjali," a recent-vintage Rollins composition, is given its debut recording on the new disc. The performances, says Rollins, "present parts of me I want to have presented."
On May 5 at 12:00 noon EDT, Rollins will expand his forays into social-media territory (and CD promotion) by participating in an unprecedented video conference, "Sonny Rollins Meets His Fans," broadcast live on YouTube and Google+. Ten members of Sonny's global community of listeners and fellow musicians, chosen from the winners of a video contest on his Facebook page, will interact with Sonny, one by one, in real-time video, utilizing Google's popular Hangout platform. Immediately after the live broadcast, the program will be available for viewing on demand on Sonny's web site and Facebook page. In addition to the ten guests (each of whom will receive a copy of Road Shows, vol. 3), moderator Bret Primack will be choosing questions from Google+ viewers.
"As one of the few jazz musicians able to fashion a career exclusively as a concert artist," writesBob Blumenthal in his CD notes, "[Rollins] has made his appearances events that blend the soul-baring seriousness of a ‘classical' recital with the participatory release of a music that has always drawn on various kinds of call and response. At his best, which Rollins presents to us here and in the previous Road Shows, he rides the spontaneity of the moment into unique collections of moods, grooves, and feelings."
Road Shows' material reflects an artist who has become as enthralled by narrative lines as melodic. Noel Coward's "Someday I'll Find You" - which he first recorded on 1958's Freedom Suite and then on Sonny, Please - takes him back to his boyhood days, when it was the theme for the long-running radio show, Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons.
The infectious "Biji," introduced on the 1995 album, Sonny +3, was written "back in the days when guys had nicknames like Rahsaan and Famoudou. I adopted Brung Biji as mine. It was sort of African style."
"Patanjali" is named after the sage whose Yoga Sutras, he says, "lay down everything you need to know" about a discipline and philosophy that "has helped me get through life and kept me trying to be a better human being."
The nearly 24-minute rendering of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's masterwork, "Why Was I Born," is as moving as it is breathtaking - a monument to Rollins's emotional powers. He won a 2006 Grammy for his version of it on Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert, performing it in Boston five days after the terrorist attack on New York, which forced him to evacuate his apartment.
"I've played it a lot," he says. "So I was wondering whether I should put it out again. I decided to because it captured me going in certain directions I felt needed to be put on record. I actually had two versions to choose from. On one of them, everything was quite clean. On this one, I played something I might be the only one who likes. But I liked the groove and a lot of other things. It represents Sonny Rollins at a certain point of creation."
Rounding out the program, there's an eight-minute, stand-alone cadenza taken from a 2009 St. Louis show and a brief, album-closing dose of his perennial crowd-pleaser, "Don't Stop the Carnival."
Road Shows, vol. 3 was produced by Rollins and his longtime engineer, Richard Corsello. Trombonist Clifton Anderson and bassist Bob Cranshaw are heard throughout, joined on selected tracks by pianist Stephen Scott; guitarists Bobby Broom and Peter Bernstein; drummers Kobie Watkins, Perry Wilson, Steve Jordan, and Victor Lewis; and percussionists Kimati Dinizulu and Sammy Figueroa. "All of these people in my bands are top of the line in their own right," says Rollins. "It's a privilege and pleasure to play with them."