Note: the CD I listened to was the mono 2003 Rudy Van Gelder Edition. The album was originally titled "Sonny Rollins" but the Volume 1 tag was added once Volume 2 was later released.
A straight-ahead hard bop album, combining blues-based themes and driving swing with the exploratory style of Rollins. At 26, Rollins had developed his own jazz vocabulary, Donald Byrd and Wynton Kelly were just starting out, and Max Roach was already an established figure in jazz circles. So you've got three different levels of experience forming a solid quintet. Byrd sounds fantastic and holds his own. It was the debut for Rollins on the Blue Note label, but he was releasing many seminal recordings on several labels at the time, including Saxophone Colossus (Prestige), Way Out West (Contemporary), and the Monk/Rollins recordings on the Prestige and Riverside labels.
Rollins - tenor saxophone
Donald Byrd - trumpet
Wynton Kelly - piano
Gene Ramey - bass
Max Roach - drums
Original liner notes by Leonard Feather. 2003 liner notes by Bob Blumenthal.
Reviews/ratings:
- Billboard: "some of the most vigorous and creative blowing of recent months by the tenorman all the young cats are digging."
- CashBox: "Smooth work.
- DownBeat (★★★★☆): "Recommended"
- Audio: "the most important new voice on the tenor saxophone"
- The Penguin Guide to Jazz (5th ed., 2000): ★★★☆
- The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Album Guide (1999): ★★★★☆
- The Virgin Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999): ★★★★☆
Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart
Tracks: Four originals by Rollins and a cover of How Are Things In Glocca Morra. Don't skip any.
Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None.
Previously revisited for the blog:
Newk's Time (1959)
No comments:
Post a Comment