Sonny Rollins March 28, 2008
Posted by Tom Moore in : Uncategorized , trackback 
Saxophonist Sonny Rollins (b. 1930) is one of the greats of American music, with a long and active career dating back to the fifties, when he worked with such luminaries as Max Roach, Clifford Brown and Thelonious Monk. Rollins took two well-known sabbaticals and recording, the second of coincided with the early passing of John Coltrane in 1967 (Rollins had recorded with Elvin Jones in 1966). The end of this retreat was marked by the issue of the Next Album in 1972, a lovely and lyrical recording that stands up to the decades. It is notable just exactly how much the late music of Coltrane, with its extremities of religious expression, and the contemporary music of Mile Davis, with its emphasis on finding the beauty in the ugliness of pop, rock and fusion, are not present. Rollins and his sidemen are mellow, the mood is laid-back from the very start, with warm tones from the leader’s tenor on the funky Playin’ in the Yard, and soprano on Poinciana, both with George Cables on Fender Rhodes, the sound of the early seventies. Delicious is the three-minute solo sax cadenza which closes the ballad Skylark, and the album.
Horn Culture, which followed in 1973, is a little closer to the funky sound of the era, opening with the conga of percussionist Mtume, who was part of Miles’ bands of the mid-seventies, on a modal vamp which also includes electric guitar in the brew. Tempos are up, and the emotional temperature is as well. Both albums are mixed in a way which softens a bit of the aggressiveness from the percussion, with the sax well forward.
If you don’t yet know the music of Sonny Rollins, these two discs are a good place to start.
Next Album CD 15622 Horn Culture CD 15621
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