Sonny Rollins · I know the classics

Beyond the classics: Rollins

You know the big Rollins records. This path fills in around them, roughly in order: early sessions beside his elders, the bands of 1956, the busy years of 1957 and 1958 when he recorded for nearly every label in town, and one record from after his return.

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Two tenors and Bird
Collectors' Items Miles Davis · Prestige PRLP 7044 · 1956
On January 30, 1953, Miles Davis led a Prestige session with two tenor saxophonists: Rollins, then 22, and Charlie Parker, playing tenor instead of his usual alto and billed as "Charlie Chan" for contract reasons. Walter Bishop Jr., Percy Heath and Philly Joe Jones made up the rhythm section. In his autobiography Davis remembered the day as chaotic, with Parker drinking heavily. The tracks sat unissued for years, until Prestige paired them with a 1956 Davis quintet date with Rollins, Tommy Flanagan, Paul Chambers and Art Taylor. It starts this path because it puts Rollins in the studio with one of his first models.
Start with
- Compulsion
- The Serpent's Tooth I
- In Your Own Sweet Way
"Compulsion" and "The Serpent's Tooth" are Davis tunes, and Prestige kept two takes of the second. Listen for the two tenors on the same tracks, a rare chance to hear Parker on the bigger horn. From the 1956 date, "In Your Own Sweet Way" is Dave Brubeck's tune; compare how Rollins sounds three years on.
In the band
Charlie Parker · alto sax
Charlie Parker was 32 and the most influential saxophonist in jazz, the alto player who, with Dizzy Gillespie, had built bebop in the 1940s. Rollins grew up on his records. By 1953 heroin and drink were wearing Parker down. He died in New York in March 1955, aged 34. This is one of the few times he recorded on tenor.
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With Monk, from the start
Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins Thelonious Monk Quintet Featuring Sonny Rollins · Prestige PRLP 7075 · 1957
This 12-inch LP gathers three sessions from 1953 and 1954. On Friday, November 13, 1953, at WOR Studios, Rollins joined Thelonious Monk, Julius Watkins on French horn, Percy Heath on bass and Willie Jones on drums, and they wrote "Friday the 13th" in the studio. In October 1954, at Van Gelder's, Rollins and Monk made two standards as a quartet with Tommy Potter and Art Taylor. Two Monk trio tracks fill out the record. Rollins was 23 at the first of these dates, and Monk was still little known outside musicians' circles. It shows how early the two found each other.
Start with
- Friday The Thirteenth
- The Way You Look Tonight
- I Want To Be Happy
"Friday the 13th" was released as a long jam of about ten minutes, partly to fill out the record; listen for Watkins's French horn, rare in a jazz front line. "The Way You Look Tonight" and "I Want to Be Happy" are both show tunes, the kind of familiar material Rollins liked to turn around. He is billed as co-leader but plays on three of the five tracks.
In the band
Julius Watkins · French horn
Julius Watkins was 32, a French horn player from Detroit and one of the first to make that instrument work in modern jazz. From 1956 to 1959 he co-led the Jazz Modes with the saxophonist Charlie Rouse. He later played in bands led by Quincy Jones and on John Coltrane's Africa/Brass, and he spent years in Broadway pit orchestras. He died in 1977.
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Rollins leads, 1954
Moving Out Sonny Rollins · Prestige PRLP 7058 · 1956
On August 18, 1954, at Van Gelder's, Rollins led a quintet with Kenny Dorham on trumpet, Elmo Hope on piano, Percy Heath on bass and Art Blakey on drums, and recorded four of his own tunes. Prestige first issued them on a 10-inch LP, then joined them with "More Than You Know" from the October quartet date with Monk to make this record. AllMusic's Michael G. Nastos called the group "one of the more potent combos of 1954." This is Rollins writing and leading, not long before he left New York to deal with his addiction.
Start with
- Movin' Out
- Swingin' For Bumsy
- More Than You Know
The four quintet tunes are all Rollins's, and the writer Peter Niklas Wilson heard a blowing session where fast, virtuoso playing counts for more than new structures. Take that as a guide and enjoy the speed. "More Than You Know" is the change of pace, a ballad with Monk at the piano, Tommy Potter on bass and Art Taylor on drums.
In the band
Elmo Hope · piano
Elmo Hope was 31, a New York pianist who had grown up with Bud Powell, playing and listening to jazz and classical music with him. His own tunes and voicings were personal and often knotty. Around 1956 he lost his New York cabaret card, which barred him from the city's clubs, and in 1957 he moved to Los Angeles. He died in 1967, aged 43.
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Brown's band, Rollins's name
Sonny Rollins Plus 4 Sonny Rollins Plus 4 · Prestige PRLP 7038 · 1956
Rollins had joined the Clifford Brown–Max Roach Quintet late in 1955. The band recorded for EmArcy, Rollins for Prestige, and the two labels agreed to an exchange. On March 22, 1956, the whole quintet recorded at Van Gelder's under Rollins's name: Brown on trumpet, Richie Powell on piano, George Morrow on bass and Roach on drums. Only two records came of the arrangement, because three months later Brown and Powell were killed in a car crash. That makes this one of the last studio records of a band whose time was very short.
Start with
- Valse Hot
- Pent-Up House
- I Feel A Song Coming On
"Valse Hot" is Rollins's jazz waltz in A-flat. "Pent-Up House" is another of his tunes. Brown plays on everything except "Count Your Blessings." Listen to how the two horns divide the front line on "I Feel a Song Coming On." AllMusic's Scott Yanow called this a particularly strong hard bop set.
In the band
Richie Powell · piano
Richie Powell was 24, the younger brother of Bud Powell, and the pianist and chief arranger of the Brown–Roach quintet. He wrote much of its book, including "Gertrude's Bounce" and "Powell's Prances." On June 26, 1956, he, his wife Nancy and Clifford Brown were killed when their car crashed on the Pennsylvania Turnpike at night. Almost all his recorded work is with this band.
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After the crash
Max Roach + 4 Max Roach Quintet · EmArcy MG-36098 · 1956
Clifford Brown and Richie Powell died in June 1956, and Max Roach kept the band going. On September 17 and 19, 1956, he recorded in New York for EmArcy with Kenny Dorham in Brown's place, Ray Bryant on piano, George Morrow still on bass, and Rollins. It was the first album Roach made after the deaths. Don Gold's Down Beat review praised it while measuring Dorham against Brown. For Rollins it meant staying on with Roach in a changed band, and the tunes range from Roach's own to George Russell and Dizzy Gillespie.
Start with
- Ezz-thetic
- Body And Soul
- Dr. Free-Zee
"Ezz-thetic" is George Russell's tune, named for the boxer Ezzard Charles. "Body and Soul" is the old ballad that Coleman Hawkins, one of Rollins's heroes, made famous in 1939; here it belongs to Rollins in a new band. "Dr. Free-Zee" is Roach's own. Listen to how the band sounds with a new trumpeter in the front line.
In the band
Kenny Dorham · trumpet
Kenny Dorham was 32, a trumpeter from Texas who had played with Charlie Parker and was a founding member of the Jazz Messengers. He had recorded beside Rollins as early as 1949. He made many records of his own and wrote "Blue Bossa," first heard on Joe Henderson's Page One in 1963. He died in 1972.
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A tribute to Bird
Rollins Plays For Bird Sonny Rollins Quintet With Kenny Dorham And Max Roach · Prestige PRLP 7095 · 1957
Charlie Parker had died in March 1955. On October 5, 1956, Rollins went into Van Gelder's with Kenny Dorham, Wade Legge on piano, George Morrow on bass and Max Roach on drums, and made a tribute. The first side is a medley of nearly 27 minutes, seven songs associated with Parker, from "I Remember You" to "Star Eyes." The other side has Rollins's "Kids Know" and a ballad without Dorham. AllMusic's Michael G. Nastos found the sharing out of the medley a disappointment but still heard plenty of high-level music. It shows a working band paying its respects.
Start with
- Medley: I Remember You
- Medley: Old Folks
- Kids Know
The medley passes from song to song, with the featured player changing along the way, much as a set might at a tribute night. "My Little Suede Shoes" is Parker's own tune. "Kids Know" is a long Rollins piece of almost 12 minutes. "I've Grown Accustomed to Your Face" is Rollins alone with the rhythm section.
In the band
Max Roach · drums
Max Roach had played drums in Charlie Parker's quintet in the late 1940s, on many of the records that defined bebop, so this tribute was personal for him too. He was 32 and holding his band together after losing Brown and Powell. Over the next years he wrote more of his own music and turned to civil rights themes, and his partnership with Rollins ran on into 1958.
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The first Blue Note
Sonny Rollins Volume 1 Sonny Rollins · Blue Note BLP 1542 · 1957
On Sunday, December 16, 1956, Rollins made his first record for Blue Note at Van Gelder's, with Alfred Lion producing. Max Roach came on loan from EmArcy, Donald Byrd played trumpet, Wynton Kelly piano and Gene Ramey bass; Ramey went back to Jay McShann's band with Charlie Parker. Five tunes were taped and all five made the record, four of them Rollins originals. Leonard Feather's notes report that musicians in his new poll had named Rollins the best new tenor. It opens a year in which he recorded for almost every label in town.
Start with
- Decision
- How Are Things In Glocca Morra
- Sonnysphere
"Decision" is a minor blues of 13 bars instead of 12, and Roach takes his chorus on snare with brushes. "How Are Things in Glocca Morra," from Finian's Rainbow, is the ballad and Rollins's feature, with Byrd heard only at the start and end. "Sonnysphere" has almost no written theme: Rollins blows on the chords of "I Got Rhythm" with the bridge of "Honeysuckle Rose."
In the band
Donald Byrd · trumpet
Donald Byrd was 24, a trumpeter from Detroit who had come to New York in 1955 and was on a stream of record dates. He kept studying all his life, earning a doctorate, and taught at Howard University, where his students formed the Blackbyrds. His 1970s records mixing jazz and funk, such as Places and Spaces, reached far beyond the jazz audience. He died in 2013.
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Short tracks, and one alone
The Sound Of Sonny Sonny Rollins · Riverside RLP 12-241 · 1957
In June 1957 Rollins made his first record for Riverside, at Reeves Sound Studios in New York with the producer Orrin Keepnews. Sonny Clark played piano, Percy Heath or Paul Chambers bass, and Roy Haynes drums. Most of the nine tracks are standards between three and six minutes long, a change for a player who liked to stretch out. One of them he played entirely alone. AllMusic's Lindsay Planer saw a new phase in his career beginning that year. It comes after the Blue Note date to show him trying the opposite approach: saying a lot in a small space.
Start with
- It Could Happen To You
- The Last Time I Saw Paris
- Just In Time
"It Could Happen to You" is Rollins alone, with no piano, bass or drums: under four minutes of unaccompanied tenor, rare on a jazz record in 1957. "The Last Time I Saw Paris" leaves out the piano, just tenor, bass and drums. "Just in Time" comes from the 1956 Broadway show Bells Are Ringing. Listen to how much he fits into these short tracks.
In the band
Sonny Clark · piano
Sonny Clark was 25, a pianist from Herminie, Pennsylvania, who had worked on the West Coast with Buddy DeFranco before settling in New York in 1957. He became a Blue Note regular, leading records such as Cool Struttin' in 1958 and playing on many more. Heroin cut his career short: he died in January 1963, aged 31.
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Two Sonnys and Dizzy
Sonny Side Up Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, Sonny Rollins · Verve MGV-8262 · 1958
Norman Granz brought Rollins together with Dizzy Gillespie and Sonny Stitt at Nola Studios in New York on December 19, 1957, with Ray Bryant on piano, Tommy Bryant on bass and Charlie Persip on drums. Both tenors play at once. The critic Thomas Cunniffe heard Stitt carrying Parker's intensity onto the tenor, while Rollins was the more thoughtful player. Gillespie, who had helped build the music both men grew from, sits in the middle. AllMusic's Stephen Cook called it "one of the most exciting 'jam session' records in the jazz catalog." It shows Rollins in a friendly contest.
Start with
- The Eternal Triangle
- After Hours
- On The Sunny Side Of The Street
"The Eternal Triangle" is Stitt's tune, 14 minutes long, and the main event: two tenors taking long turns, with Gillespie between them. "After Hours" is Avery Parrish's slow blues. Gillespie sings "On the Sunny Side of the Street." Try telling the two tenors apart by tone and attack.
In the band
Sonny Stitt · tenor sax
Sonny Stitt was 33, a saxophonist raised in Saginaw, Michigan, who played alto so close to Charlie Parker that critics often called him a copy; on tenor he found more of a sound of his own. He made well over 100 albums, among them two-tenor contests with his friend Gene Ammons, and kept playing until his death in 1982.
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Big brass, small trio, one solo
Sonny Rollins/Brass Sonny Rollins/Trio Sonny Rollins Trio · Verve V-8430 · 1962
In July 1958, for the small MetroJazz label, the critic Leonard Feather produced a record in two halves. On one side Rollins plays four tunes with a big band arranged and conducted by Ernie Wilkins, heavy on brass, with Clark Terry, Nat Adderley, Ernie Royal, a tuba, the Belgian guitarist René Thomas and Roy Haynes. On the other he plays three tunes in a trio with Henry Grimes on bass and Specs Wright on drums, and one completely alone. Verve later reissued it under this title. It is the clearest view of how wide his range had grown by 1958.
Start with
- Body And Soul
- Grand Street
- Manhattan
"Body and Soul" is Rollins alone, the ballad Coleman Hawkins made a landmark in 1939. "Grand Street" is Rollins's own tune with the big band, and "Manhattan" the Rodgers and Hart song with the trio. Compare how he plays against a wall of written brass and in the open space of bass and drums. Ken Dryden of AllMusic praised the trio tracks and the solo.
In the band
Henry Grimes · bass
Henry Grimes was 22, a Philadelphia bassist who had studied at Juilliard. He went to Europe with Rollins in 1959, then moved into the avant-garde with Cecil Taylor and Albert Ayler. By 1970 he had left music and was widely thought dead, until a social worker found him in Los Angeles in 2002. Musicians gave him a bass, he returned to playing in 2003, and he died in 2020.
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West again, then silence
Sonny Rollins And The Contemporary Leaders Sonny Rollins And The Contemporary Leaders · Contemporary C3564 · 1959
In October 1958 Rollins was back in Los Angeles and back with Lester Koenig at Contemporary. Over three days, October 20 to 22, he recorded with the label's house stars: Hampton Hawes on piano, Barney Kessel on guitar, Leroy Vinnegar on bass and Shelly Manne on drums, with Victor Feldman's vibraphone on one track. The songs are mostly old, one of them an Al Jolson hit. It was his last studio album of the 1950s. He toured Europe in the spring of 1959, and then he stopped playing in public for more than two years.
Start with
- Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With A Dixie Melody
- I've Told Ev'ry Little Star
- In The Chapel In The Moonlight
"Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody" was an Al Jolson hit from 1918, and "In the Chapel in the Moonlight" a 1930s pop song: more of the unlikely material Rollins liked to find. "I've Told Ev'ry Little Star" is by Jerome Kern. Listen for Kessel's guitar beside the piano, a fuller backing than he usually chose. Scott Yanow of AllMusic praised his explorative and often witty improvising here.
In the band
Hampton Hawes · piano
Hampton Hawes was 29, a Los Angeles pianist and one of the strongest players on the West Coast, who had made trio records for Contemporary since 1955. Weeks after this session, on his 30th birthday, he was arrested on heroin charges, and he was sentenced to 10 years. President Kennedy granted him clemency in 1963. He told his story in the book Raise Up Off Me and died in 1977.
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The return, on Impulse!
On Impulse! Sonny Rollins · Impulse! A-91 · 1965
Rollins came back to performing late in 1961 and spent the next years recording for RCA, trying new bands and new sounds. In 1965 he moved to Impulse!, John Coltrane's label, and on July 8 he recorded this quartet date at Van Gelder's studio in Englewood Cliffs with the producer Bob Thiele. Ray Bryant played piano, Walter Booker bass and Mickey Roker drums. The tunes are four standards and a calypso. After the long break, it puts the mature Rollins back in a setting much like the 1950s quartets, so you can hear what had changed.
Start with
- On Green Dolphin Street
- Everything Happens To Me
- Hold 'Em Joe
"Everything Happens to Me" is the longest track, a ballad stretched past 11 minutes. "Hold 'Em Joe" is a calypso, a reminder of the Caribbean roots in Rollins's family and his music. "On Green Dolphin Street" is the film theme that had become a jazz standard. Thom Jurek of AllMusic called the record a winner through and through.
In the band
Ray Bryant · piano
Ray Bryant was 33, a pianist from Philadelphia with deep roots in blues and gospel. He had played on several Rollins records in the 1950s and accompanied the singer Carmen McRae. His own tune "Cubano Chant" became a jazz staple. He kept playing solo and trio concerts around the world until shortly before his death in 2011.
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Sources

Two tenors and Bird

With Monk, from the start

Rollins leads, 1954

Brown's band, Rollins's name

After the crash

A tribute to Bird

The first Blue Note

Short tracks, and one alone

Two Sonnys and Dizzy

Big brass, small trio, one solo

West again, then silence

The return, on Impulse!

That's all 12.