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| The Impulse Story |
| Sonny Rollins |
első megjelenés éve: 1966
65 perc |
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| (2006)
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CD |
| 3.726 Ft
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| 1. | Three Little Words
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| 2. | On Green Dolphin Street
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| 3. | Hold 'Em Joe
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| 4. | Alfie's Theme
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| 5. | Street Runner with Child
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| 6. | On Impulse
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| 7. | East Broadway Run Down
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| 8. | We Kiss in a Shadow
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Jazz / Post-Bop; Hard Bop
Recorded: Jul 8, 1965-May 9, 1966
As the tenor saxophone grew to prominence in jazz through the 1930s, Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young were the first to stand out as the yin and yang of the instrument. By the mid-'60s, a new pair was in place, each exerting a stylistic pull on younger players and each with a strong avant-garde flavor.
John Coltrane was clearly one pole of influence. The other was a Harlem-born musician who, like Coltrane, had developed a penchant for extended improvisation through arduous practice. Like Coltrane, he boasted technique and power and was drawn to spiritual paths from the East. And like Coltrane, he had broken through as sideman with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk.
Sonny Rollins was three years younger than Coltrane but made his mark sooner, recording his first album as a leader in 1951. Through the ensuing decade he rose in prominence as one of the first tenor giants to be associated with the hard-bop movement. He played in important ensembles led by Monk, Miles, and Max Roach, and recorded influential titles like Saxophone Colossus (1956) and the social diatribe Freedom Suite (1958), before disappearing in 1959 to rethink his musical approach.
Rollins effectively disappeared from the scene. His return two years later was met with warm acclaim, a multiple-album deal with RCA Victor, and a quartet that became renowned for Rollins's intuitive dialogues with guitarist Jim Hall. RCA paired Coleman Hawkins with Rollins on Sonny Meets Hawk in 1963, to positive reviews and sales.
By 1964, Rollins was nearing the end of his six-album RCA contract. Though he had no complaints, he stated that he wanted "to go with a company which is a little more oriented to the jazz idiom, if you know what I mean." He explained that in the confines of the jazz circle, Impulse's stature and intentions were well known. "Everybody sort of knew each other in those days, so I knew they were interested in signing major jazz musicians."
Rollins's association with Impulse lasted only one year (1965–66), and produced three studio albums.
Sonny Rollins on Impulse! kicked off the association, with Rollins drawing ideas from recent recordings, as well as personnel - bassist Bob Cranshaw and drummer Mickey Roker had recorded with him on recent RCA sessions. He favored texture over clearly pronounced melodies on a West Indian dance tune, "Hold 'Em Joe," and standards like "On Green Dolphin Street" and "Three Little Words," which featured the album's standout saxophone solo.
Alfie featured music written for the 1966 film, with Rollins writing and playing in a hard-bop mold. While the film and soundtrack were still in the process of becoming, Down Beat reported that "the method is unusual. When the film is completed (it is in production now), Rollins will fly to London to see it and talk with the director. Then he will return to New York to write the score. Then back to London again, to record the music with himself and English musicians. . . . He has the script but will not admit having read it, prefacing every comment on it with ‘[my wife] Lucille tells me.'"
Rollins came up with five hip and breezy melodies, including the waltz-time "On Impulse," unrelated to his album of the same name, which matched the lifestyle and tempo of the film's modern-day Lothario. He recorded the music with a London-based group for the film, then flew back to New York to repeat the process for an Impulse release. Oliver Nelson stepped in to polish the arrangements for the re-recording, and added himself to a nine-piece A-list lineup that included trombonists J.J. Johnson and Jimmy Cleveland, guitarist Kenny Burrell, pianist Roger Kellaway, and saxophonists Phil Woods and, of course, Rollins.
Despite Alfie's popular and critical success, the film proved more a boon to its star - launching Michael Caine's career - than to Rollins, partially due to the fact that his music was eclipsed by the hit theme song, written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. Nonetheless, Rollins's solo on "Alfie's Theme" remains a classic of that period. Years later, Rollins admitted that the experience, and the years since, had schooled him to be more limiting in his choice of projects: "I enjoyed writing and playing the score for Alfie very much. However, if I were offered another opportunity such as this, I would only do it if the film highlighted the music rather than the story itself."
It's intriguing to note that though Rollins's mid-career path may have paralleled Coltrane's - Rollins turned thirty-five in 1965 - he was still covering a variety of styles at a time when Coltrane was focusing his own avant-garde approach. Rollins had courted the avant-garde, recording with alumni of Ornette Coleman's quartet, trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Billy Higgins, for RCA, and experimenting on Sonny Meets Hawk, removing the mouthpiece from his saxophone and blowing into it alone.
On East Broadway Run Down, Rollins repeated the unorthodox maneuver on the twenty-minute title track, accompanied by trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and two members of Coltrane's celebrated rhythm section: bassist Jimmy Garrison and drummer Elvin Jones. Only two other tunes graced the album, bringing Rollins closer than ever to Coltrane's orbit. It was Rollins's last Impulse title.
There was a fourth: Rollins had been recorded live at the Museum of Modern Art's sculpture garden in 1965, but the album had been scrapped because the energetic saxophonist was often out of range of the microphones. It was released in 1978 as There Will Never Be Another You but quickly removed from the market at Rollins's objection.
For a brief period, the two pillars of modern jazz tenor were labelmates, releasing forward-looking music on LPs with the familiar orange-and-black spine. Looking back many years later on how they came to wear the same colors, Rollins put it simply: "Coltrane never tried to convince me to sign with Impulse. I think I just realized that they were doing a good job with him, and so I thought that maybe it would be good for me too."
---Ashley Kahn, February 2006
Sonny Rollins - Tenor Saxophone
Ray Bryant - Piano
Walter Booker - Bass
Mickey Roker - Drums |
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