Road Shows, Vol. 2
Product ID: 5300432
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Product Description The saxophone colossus delivers a stellar new album of live performances from 2010. Joining songs recorded in Japan with Sonny's working band are four recorded at his 80th-birthday show at the Beacon in NY: I Can't Get Started and Rain Check with Roy Hargrove; In a Sentimental Mood with Jim Hall, and the 20-minute Sonnymoon for Two , his first-ever public performance with Ornette Coleman (it's amazing)! From the Artist "I believe that jazz is the music which best expresses the stirrings of the human soul," says Rollins. "I feel tremendously privileged to have succeeded to some extent in a music that includes the likes of Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller--all of these guys who I thought were such tremendous people putting out all of this positive music," Rollins says. "It was all that I could ever dream--to be involved in this." P.when('A').execute(function(A) { A.on('a:expander:toggle_description:toggle:collapse', function(data) { window.scroll(0, data.expander.$expander[0].offsetTop-100); }); }); About the Artist Sonny Rollins knows how to throw a party. His 80th-birthday celebration at New York's Beacon Theatre on September 10, 2010 was the jazz event of the year, and the release of Road Shows, vol. 2 allows everybody to share in the already-legendary proceedings. Sounding as robust and inventive as ever, the tenor saxophone titan joins forces with an unprecedented array of friends old and new, including Jim Hall, Roy Haynes, Christian McBride, Roy Hargrove, and, most unexpectedly, alto sax revolutionary Ornette Coleman. The festivities add another illustrious chapter to the career of jazz's most prodigious improviser. For Rollins, the palpable affection and respect of his peers was the evening's most profound gift. "I was extraordinarily happy that my colleagues agreed to come and join me for this birthday celebration," says Rollins, whose delight is evident as he energetically doubles as the concert's emcee. "It was really a great honor that all these guys came. I was quite touched that everybody seemed anxious to do it." On an evening marked by one musical high point after another, the encounter that set fans buzzing for months was the dramatic arrival of Ornette Coleman, who was also in the midst of celebrating his 80th year. While they had never before shared a stage together, Rollins notes that he and Coleman once practiced together on the beach in Malibu back in the mid-1950s when he came out to Los Angeles with the Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet. He didn't know whether or not Coleman was going to perform at the Beacon until the last minute, so there was no rehearsal before he introduced the harmolodic innovator in the middle of an already riveting performance of Rollins's blues "Sonnymoon for Two" with the ageless trap master Roy Haynes and bass virtuoso Christian McBride (reprising the pianoless trio format defined by Rollins more than five decades ago). At almost 22 minutes long, "Sonnymoon" is the album's centerpiece, less a cutting contest than an inspired parallel conversation between jazz's most surgically acute dissectors of time. It was a piece Rollins selected with Coleman in mind, "something that would be open enough to lead to free conversation, and could go any place, rather than something like `I'm in the Mood for Love,' with much more set harmonic patterns," Rollins says. "The blues would be wide enough for Ornette to do whatever he wanted. It was all spontaneous. It was exciting to play with him again so many years later, a nice circular situation." Coleman's indomitable presence on the stage was only one of the evening's completed circles. McBride and Haynes performed with Rollins at the 2007 Carnegie Hall concert marking his golden anniversary as a bandleader, an epochal event documented on the concluding track of Road Shows, vol. 1. Guitarist Jim Hall's participation at the Beacon concert harks back to his crucial role on The Bridge, the 1962 album that announced Rollins's thrilling return to the scene after his first famous hiatus. They've been close ever since, and Rollins was so intent on featuring him on Road Shows that he includes Hall's sublime rendition of "In a Sentimental Mood," a piece on which Rollins sits out. "I love playing with Jim and I really wanted to get him in there," says Rollins, who notes that a technical glitch on their version of "If Ever I Would Leave You" prevented him from including the performance on the album. "We go back a long way, and I have an affinity for his interpretations. It's always exhilarating playing with Jim." A more recent Rollins associate, trumpeter Roy Hargrove, joins the saxophonist for riveting performances of Billy Strayhorn's classic "Rain Check" and the beloved standard "I Can't Get Started." They're accompanied by Rollins's working band featuring guitar star Russell Malone, rising young drummer Kobie Watkins, versatile percussionist Sammy Figueroa, and Bob Cranshaw, the redoubtable bassist who's been a dependably swinging Rollins mainstay since the early 1960s. While Rollins first recorded "Rain Check" in 1957, he first heard the original Duke Ellington recording shortly after it was recorded in the early 1940s. "It's a very important song in jazz history, something that I thought Roy could display his wares on," Rollins says. "We didn't have a lot of time to rehearse, and I thought `Rain Check' was perfect for letting these guys show who they are." Rollins spotted Hargrove as an immensely gifted young player nearly two decades ago, and they bonded on a shared love of the American Songbook. It's an ongoing passion reflected by their mutual caress of Vernon Duke's soaring melodic line on "I Can't Get Started." "When I first heard Roy and recorded with him back in 1990s I was amazed at his knowledge of jazz repertoire," Rollins says. "I had some older fellows in the band that didn't know some of the standards that Roy and I chose. It's one thing that makes him so special. When he's playing `I Can't Get Started,' you're hearing him today and a history of the music." In keeping with the road rubric, the album opens and closes with tracks recorded in Japan about a month after the Beacon concert. A nearly 15-minute up-tempo romp through Irving Berlin's "They Say It's Wonderful" serves as a rousing overture for the birthday tracks, and offers yet another example of his capacious gift for turning familiar standards into vehicles for enthralling improvisation. "That's a great song to improvise on," Rollins says. "Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane played it as a ballad, but it's a great up-tempo song. The band really had a good groove on that one. That's a tight rhythm section! I think finding drummers is part of my legacy. It's very important for the drummer I play with to have a certain feel, and Kobie has a beat I feel I can improvise on. I accumulated some good karma by getting guys like Bob, Kobie, Sammy, and Russell Malone, who loves ballads and knows a lot of jazz standards." The album closes with a brief run through Rollins's famous calypso "St. Thomas," a piece he uses as a sign-off, perhaps following the old show business maxim to always leave the audience wanting more. With the 2005 creation of his own label, Doxy, Rollins seems prepared to provide his legions of fans with a steady stream of new music. Doxy's first CD release, the 2006 studio recording Sonny, Please, earned a Grammy nomination for Rollins. In 2008, Doxy issued In Vienne, a DVD of a 2006 European festival performance, and Road Shows, vol. 1, a treasure trove of live tracks culled from an international archive compiled by Carl Smith and Rollins's own personal soundboard tapes dating back to 1980. By that time he had long established himself as one of the music's most influential and charismatic performers, a giant who willingly wears the title of jazz's greatest living improviser. Walter Theodore Rollins was born in Harlem, New York on September 7, 1930, of parents native to the Virgin Islands. His older brother Valdemar and sister Gloria were also musically inclined but only Sonny veered away from classical music after his uncle, a professional saxophonist, introduced him to jazz and blues. He gravitated to the tenor saxophone in high school, inspired in particular by Coleman Hawkins. By the time he was out of school, Rollins was already working with cutting-edge modernists such as Bud Powell, Fats Navarro, and Roy Haynes. In 1951 he debuted as a leader on Prestige; his affiliation with that label also produced classics such as Saxophone Colossus, Worktime, and Tenor Madness (with John Coltrane). In early 1956, until he went out on his own permanently as a leader in the summer of 1957, Rollins played in the Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet, one of the most definitive (and tragically short-lived) hard-bop ensembles of its day. Often with his own pianoless trio, Rollins then entered a tremendously fertile period during which he recorded major works such as A Night at the Village Vanguard, Way Out West, and Freedom Suite. In 1959, Rollins took the first of his legendary sabbaticals. Living on Manhattan's Lower East Side, he was often spotted on the nearby Williamsburg Bridge, deep in a rigorous practice regimen. "I wanted to work on my horn, I wanted to study more harmony," he told Stanley Crouch in The New Yorker. When Rollins returned to performing in 1961, he recorded The Bridge with Jim Hall and Bob Cranshaw, led a quartet with trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Billy Higgins, and recorded with his idol Coleman Hawkins. He also received a Grammy nomination for his score for the popular film Alfie. At decade's end he undertook one final hiatus, studying Zen Buddhism in Japan and yoga in India. While living in an ashram, he considered leaving music permanently in order to pursue spiritual studies, but a teacher persuaded him that music was his spiritual path, and an uplifting force for good. In 1972, with the encouragement and support of his wife Lucille, who had become his business manager, Rollins returned to performing and recording, signing with Milestone and releasing Next Album. (Working at first with Orrin Keepnews, Sonny was by the early '80s producing his own Milestone sessions with Lucille.) His lengthy association with the Berkeley-based label produced two dozen albums in various settings--from his working groups to all-star ensembles (Tommy Flanagan, Jack DeJohnette, Stanley Clarke, Tony Williams, George Duke); from a solo recital to tour recordings with the Milestone Jazzstars (Ron Carter, McCoy Tyner); in the studio and on the concert stage (Montreux, San Francisco, New York, Boston). Sonny was also the subject of a mid-'80s documentary by Robert Mugge entitled Saxophone Colossus; part of its soundtrack is available as G-Man. He won his first performance Grammy for This Is What I Do (2000), and his second for 2004's Without a Song (The 9/11 Concert), in the Best Jazz Instrumental Solo category (for "Why Was I Born"). Sonny, Please was nominated for a best jazz album Grammy in 2006. In addition, Sonny received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 2004. In June 2006 Rollins was inducted into the Academy of Achievement at the International Achievement Summit in Los Angeles, and in May 2007 was a recipient of the Polar Music Prize, presented in Stockholm. In November 2009 he became the third American (after Frank Sinatra and Jessye Norman to be awarded the Austrian Cross for Science and Art, First Class; and in August 2010 he was named the Edward MacDowell Medalist, the first jazz composer to be so honored. More recently, Rollins was presented with the National Medal of Arts at a White House ceremony, and the Jazz Journalists Association named him 2011 Musician of the Year and Tenor Saxophonist of the Year. See more
S**E
Octagenarian's star still shining bright.
The first Road Shows disc confirmed to many, what some had known all along. That this tenor titan was still out there practicing his craft. I just assumed volume two would go backward in the timeline, as volume one was culled from relatively newer live recordings. Sonny himself eventually hinted volume two would involve material from his just performed 80th birthday celebration at the Beacon with Ornette, as he was so happy with the results. The proof is in the pudding and in this case, Sonny knows best. This recording is sterling and the playing is not great for an 80 year old, it's just plain great. I'm not going to suggest that it's some sort of new creative apex, let's just say, he's coming into his own, again.
F**R
Octogenarian's birthday bash
Walking into the Beacon Theater, its stately splendor, its classic feel... a big night shine to everything, a feeling that something important is about to happen...everyone buzzing in a mad hive of excitement...the classic statues and tiled ceilings and the gaudy chandeliers...it was like a night at the opera or the ballet...the anticipation was quite maddening actually...but there was nothing phony about it.The lights dimmed and Stanley Crouch came sauntering out in a merry way...the "black frog" himself in all his intellectual splendor...his caterpillar (sometimes quite ugly!) of real life wrapped in a sweet cocoon of SOUL, then of course, the butterfly analogy (Sonny=jazz?)...the legacy of Louis Armstrong carried on, not by Monk, Coltrane or Charley Parker, but most notably and nobly by Mr. Sonny Rollins...ladies and gentlemen, I give you...Sonny comes lurching, slouching ("towards Bethlehem to be born"?) Move over Rover `cause' Sonny's comin' over...out of the shadows of anticipation, already blowing like a madman...in fact, white shirt down to his knees, black handkerchief in pocket, white, wiry hair all fro-ed out like a mad scientist with a mischievous grin and an I-told-you-so attitude...Wow! The tone is set and so is the bar, way up high where you better get on and swing like a wild ape or you're gonna be left on the ground with the human beings, the squares.Sonny is getting into it like a primitive learning how to walk...insistent floods of mixed themes and styles, breaking it down and building it up...and always that island breeze blowing through the charging congas (Sammy Figueroa) and Crenshaw's bass, the sound is impeccably clean except for Sonny's dirty bird riffs that chortle, grumble, gruffly like a playful Griot from West Africa...the satire, the sardonic tone of a West Indies social critic like Lord Kitchner mixed with a North American harshness, almost scatological in its in-your-faceness.All this at 80! ...it's more than anyone expected...a feeling of shock moves through the audience...all we can do is sit there and stare as if it's some kind of freak of nature...like an 80 year old making full court moves on a basketball court and continuously dunking hard at both ends!...once again there is something primal in the air...this might be where youth and age meet and merge into one perpetual man-child of JAZZ.Next Roy Hargrove...introduced by Sonny as a man "chosen by the Creator" to lay down his sound on earth...he comes out, unearthly though, with a solo ( I Can't Get Started) so pure and cool, a heavenly dream of mellowness, a magical, seamless ride with a confidence that is almost other-worldly...(sweet cream on ice?)..it's really a dream within a dream that makes me think of sadness, loneliness and contentment all wrapped into one, the kind of love that makes you yearn and relish at the same time.Roy is dressed in a slick suit with a jaunty hat and diamond(?)belt, big old shades and even bigger black tennis shoes...if he's not gay, he should be...he is an exquisite, delicate, perfectly conceived little elf/sprite...looks like a 21st Century Little Willie John with his sweet way of tilting his head, so cock-sure of his approach, no questions asked...never even looking at the hulking Neanderthal Rollins on his left who is taunting him into his cave...nothing could get to this guy in his hermetically sealed solo...he's keeping himself pure and clean...the beauty and the beast?Next...Sonny says: "Here's the jazz guitarists' jazz guitarist Jim Hall..." Hall, with an acute spinal problem, literally crawls onto the stage and slinks into his chair nodding seriously to Sonny...he seems out of sync and a little worried about fitting into the celebratory mood...slowly and surely he picks it up and gets into his dreamy state...a sense of loss and regret comes across as Sonny adjusts to and eases up on him, giving him a break to gather himself and return to the style that he is accustomed to...there's a generosity of spirit here as Sonny defers to a fellow icon and allows him to get more comfortable with his age and place in the jazz continuum...Hall responds with delicacy and respect as he settles in to his sound...like underwater fantasy land...contemplative, deep water here...I see Hall with a snorkel, mask and guitar in a primordial ocean...the Great Barrier Reef ?Now Sonny is talking about jazz being the " music's music", the foundation for the building, the origin...I think of Cecil Taylor and hear an echo of my past and the ongoing parade of musicians who pay heed and respect to the timeless nature of the SOUNDS and RHYTHMS of life itself.Now two unannounced (unexpected?) guests flood onto the stage ...a large hulking man in a classy dark suit (the mountainous bass player, Christian McBride) and a fortyish looking Disco Danny who turns out to be 85 year old drummer, Roy Haynes ...McBride bows so massively that you could feel the wind of his serious respect for Rollins while Haynes, with his gold chains, gold jump suit and cool shades just glides past Sonny to his home-the drum set...McBride picks up the bass and instrument and man become Siamese Twins, with absolutely no hesitation he becomes one with his instrument, it's like breathing for him...at times the large bass becomes his toy...I almost forgot how good this guy is...as for Haynes, he simply drops a bomb of a solo on us...crisp, explosive and flawless...his look is Las Vegas (where he lives!) but his grenade kind of sound reminds us of a road side bomb in Iraq...This trio is another treat for us...another layer of icing on Sonny's cake.For the coup de grace, Sonny announces that someone with a horn is backstage and wants to join the party...who could it be? A buzzing around the audience ensues as Sonny beckons, welcomes, teases him out...no one appears and the crowd grows restless with suspense...finally, who comes out but Ornette Coleman with a jaunty hat and a shy smile on his face...he curtseys to Rollins and glides over to take his hand in his...and gives it a soft kiss...what a scene!...some of the crowd goes wild...but why do I get the distinct feeling that over half the crowd has no idea who this man is?...As for me, I was privileged to attend Ornette's Reunion Concert at Town Hall 3 years ago, but he's the last person I expected to join the party!So here they are, sort of a Day and Night of sound and structure trying to pay respect to each other without losing their identities...it's harder for Ornette; he simply lives on another planet with its own air, its distinct landscapes and water...he can't just come back to earth to meet Rollins...Sonny has to go to his world, and, after some awkward attempts at meeting half way, Sonny gives in, letting Coleman take him on a rocket ship ride to his bizarre world...Sonny is up to this task and plays freer than I've ever heard him, with no earthly shackles, Rollins relaxes and starts to breathe the new air...he's along for the joy ride and he loves it...the audience knows what's happening as it too concedes to Ornette's brave new "shape of things to come"...must admit that he will always be more than one step ahead of his time.As if this wasn't enough already! Sonny and crew get called back for an encore...it's Saint Thomas of course, and that Caribbean wind is blowing again with Figueroa going crazy on the congas...calypso sweetness and the soft side of life with its tropical feel of groove and nonchalance... so free and easy that a child could do it just by playing on the beach.Did I fail to mention Russell Malone's three sumptuous guitar solos? Sorry.What a night! I walked out in a trance...almost an unreal feeling...inspiration can come in many forms but when it comes from music it's sweeter, more sustainable...it's the air these guys breathe, and, yes, it is that ugly caterpillar's coming-out party...for me, it's the past, present and future wrapped in that cocoon but as Sonny so aptly put: it's all about "being in the moment"...I think about how lucky we all are to be able to help each other to do just that!
D**R
HE'S STILL THE BEST SOLOIST ALIVE
SR, intros and ten sx; Ornette Coleman, alto sx; Roy Hargrove, tpt; Russell Malone, Jim Hall, guit; Bob Cranshaw, Christian McBride, b; Kobie Watkins, Roy Haynes, dr; Sammy Figueroa, perc.Now 82, Sonny Rollins is both jazz's greatest living soloist, across the entire history of jazz matched only by Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker (and maybe Lee Konitz and Peter Brotzmann), and the greatest life force in jazz. After a series of amazing albums in the Fifties -notably Saxophone Colossus and Way Out West- and one in the mid-Sixties, The Bridge, his recorded production has gone up and down. He's never played badly, given what a brilliant soloist he is--but often his later albums have lacked the concision and focus that made the Fifties albums absolute killers.And so to this album, which celebrates Sonny at 80 in concerts in New York and Japan, with a stellar cast of supporting musicians, including even Ornette Coleman. The album is uneven in quality but the good parts, especially Sonny's extended solos, are knockouts. It's disappointing that more sparks weren't struck in the one piece ("Sonnymoon for Two") where Rollins and Coleman play: together. They are both giants and Rollins's playing was clearly influenced by Coleman in the sixties. "Sonnymoon" isn't a bad cut, but Coleman -perhaps because of mechanical problems with his instrument, which was borrowed--is uncharacteristically timid. Rollins isn't, though. His playing while he waits for Coleman, who took forever to come on stage after he was announced, is sensational -propulsive, melodically exciting, and filled with the joy of playing. His solos on that piece -there are more than one- possess all you love in a Rollins solo: melody lines stretching across chorus after chorus (how does he sustain a solo so long?); the tone, which once seemed so harsh but now merely seems assertive; the inventive way he weaves quotes from other songs into his solo; his control of tempo and dynamics. He hasn't lost a step with age. (And at 76 myself, I find that encouraging!) I could have done without the cut with Roy Hargrove (Ellington's ballad, "Rain Check").Hargrove is a fine trumpeter but his sensibilities don't align with Rollins's in my opinion. And as much as I love Jim Hall, I'd rather have had another cut with Rollins on it in an album dedicated to this Grand Old Master of jazz.This is not an essential album in the Rollins corpus but it's darned good, it's lots of fun, and it makes you feel good about the state of jazz.
S**R
A fine Sonny Rollins gem
An early hit LP recorded by the truly great tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins was entitled "Saxophone Colloses" which Sonny was and continues to be. It doesn't get much better than this!
R**E
What a sparkler!
I must say, I have been disappointed with many live recordings in the past, but this one is definitely a winner. It sounds like the players didn't know they were being recorded so, there is a very lively and spontaneous spirit that shines through this event. The playing is intense and the recording is clean and the sound has a presence that open your senses.Highly recommended!
H**L
Five Stars
GREAT!!
A**D
It's Sonny Rollins -- Smooth as Ever!
It's Sonny Rollins! What's there to expect but great live performances and it fit the billing! Great buy, I also have volumes 1 and 3.
J**Y
yes again
I am very surprised at the album.Probably one his best live recordings. The backup on these songs is solid,even tho they are taken from different concerts I can only commend Sonny Rollins for his greatness even at 80 years old.
S**E
WOW - Jazz Release of the Millenium
5 stars is a lie - this is at least a 10 star album. Something really special. A magnificent tour de force by the grand old man of jazz greatness. Road Shows Vol 1 was good, but nothing prepared me for the mind-blowing wonderfulness of this release. Sonny Rollins at his best is the greatest improviser in all jazz. And this is Sonny at his absolute best, therefore music at its absolute best. Also, for the first time in a long time, the supporting cast is as stratospheric as the man deserves, including the most understated of all the great greats "everybody's favourite guitarist", Mr. Jim Hall and, Mr. Snap Crackle himself, the very wonderful Roy Haynes (musicians' musicians all), as well fine younger guns Roy Hargroves and Christian McBride, and a man who needed and got no introduction, but did get a rapturous reception, Ornette Coleman. IMHO this is Rollins' best release since his Impulse albums some 45 years ago (wow). Hesitate not - patronise at once.
M**N
lovable
Volume 2 can be found on Youtube, in poor quality, but tickling enough to provoke the wish for more. the full set is a nice and lovable overview of life performances, under direct supervision of Mr Rollins himself. The quality of te CD's is outstanding, and brings the listeners clearly in the atmosphere of the live concerts.
K**N
Five Stars
like it very mutch!
S**A
Five Stars
Sonny Rollins....
A**E
Five Stars
Excellent!
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