COMPOSERS: Sonny Rollins
LABELS: Harkit
PERFORMER: Sonny Rollins
CATALOGUE NO: HRKCD 8071
Jazz journalist Les Tomkins amassed a large cache of archival live recordings taped at Ronnie Scott’s landmark London club during the Sixties. One features legendary tenor saxophone icon Sonny Rollins captured on utterly inspired form during his first UK visit in January 1965.
Rollins’s solos are not rehearsed monologues but searching soliloquies, where blinding virtuosity is always a means to an end. Rollins bids you partake in his process and work with him, rather than listen casually. Once you agree, then you perceive the suspense he generates in those seemingly halting phrases, plus the way his rapid flights of fancy rarely (if ever) repeat themselves.