Sonny Rollins
I have been on a serious jazz binge recently, and three artists have really stood out amongst the new listening I’ve been doing.
First, Sonny Rollins. Just browsing the discography on his wikipedia page suggests how prolific a career he has had. There are 39 recordings listed, which were recorded before 1960! And there are as many from 1960 onward. He has of course worked with the greats - Miles Davis, Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane (though only on one track ever), Max Roach, Elvin Jones, Art Blakey and Clifford Brown, to name a few.
His music has a unique character, which is very punctuated and rhythmic. This fact is articulated well in a segment on Rollins in Ken Burns’ Jazz (the PBS documentary). I forget who, but during the segment, someone discusses the way that Rollins solos. It is interesting because in some cases, his solos rarely consist of more than three or five different pitches. The allure of solos like this is that they become allusions to the percussion work on the tunes. St. Thomas, which is probably Rollins’ most famous piece is a good example of this. On an album recorded Live in Japan (I think it could be a bootleg that I’ve got — it is undated, and from the internet) his solos on St. Thomas rehash the main theme, but in a way that is almost a pun of the wide-spectrum calypso melody. For measure after measure, the solo hops between two or three notes only, and there are several points where Rollins’ playing puts complete focus on rhythmic structure, as opposed to melody. This is interesting because for this duration, it puts the sax in a group with the drummer and the keys player, instead of a logically segregated top-layer to the piece, residing above the rhythm section.
As a drummer, I love the way that this puts pressure on the idea that lead parts need be melody and then rhythm — rhythmic form is intricate and interesting, and conveys a song’s theme to a listener differently. In addition to this, simplifying the melodic structure lets players incorporate more technically extreme rhythmic elements which may, in a more melodically intricate solo, result in technical overcrowding (or just be impossible to play!)
A final note on Rollins’ work, and for this, I really wish I knew when the recording that I have was recorded. In Rollins’ playing on this recording, I can hear what seem like stylistic suggestions of the themes in Coltrane’s A Love Supreme during some of the more melodic stretches. [An aside: I plan to post on A Love Supreme, as I consider it amongst the best jazz that exists, and it is my personal favorite record]. Anyway, this potential stylistic similarity is interesting, and leads me to wonder in which direction the influence went in this case — was A Love Supreme so ground-breakingly awesome because of Sonny Rollins’ influence on Coltrane? Or was it that Coltrane’s composition and playing had an effect on Rollins’ style later in his career (when, perhaps this recording that I have was recorded)? Since Rollins was so active before 1960, and A Love Supreme was made in 1965, I have to imagine that Coltrane’s work was inspired by Rollins’ work. The fact that these two are both so great individually kind of makes it disappointing that they only recorded one track on one album together (Tenor Madness in 1959). I haven’t heard this, but this review has some discussion on how they ended up getting together on this one.
I think that there is definitely room for more Sonny Rollins in my collection, and I hope to do some more listening to broaden my experience with his work.
