Sonny Rollins - Sonny Please
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CD Details
Artist: Sonny RollinsEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 2007-01-23
Music Label: Emarcy / Umgd
Product features:
- ROLLINS SONNY SONNY, PLEASE
- Sonny, Please
- Someday I'll Find You
- Nishi
- Stairway to the Stars
- Remembering Tommy
- Serenade
- Park Palace Parade
Music reviews of Sonny Please
Music Review: THE "SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS" IN A MAGNIFICENT GRAMMY-NOMINATED PERFORMANCE
Rating: 5 Stars
Five Stars are not enough! This Grammy-nominated CD deserves SIX, showing Sonny Rolllins is STILL "the Saxophone Colossus". Completing the DownBeat Readers Poll 'tri-fecta' win in 2006, Sonny was voted "Jazz Artist of the Year", "#1 Tenor Sax", and the "9/11" concert CD was the 2006 Jazz CD of the Year, but this CD is even better. By winning the 2006 Grammy for "Jazz Instrumental Solo" for "Why Was I Born" on the "9/11" CD, Sonny has not sat on his laurels but is still turning out exceptional CDs and live performances like this one. And "Sonny, Please" ranks as one of Sonny's best, delivered at age 77, no less. Sonny has been a part of my personal musical landscape for most of my life and it's been a wonderful experience to behold, in person and on recordings.
Bassist Bob Cranshaw's association with Mr Rollins goes back to the era of "Our Man In Jazz" on RCA Victor. Bobby Broom's highly inventive guitar is added instead of the usual piano, allowing the group to levitate over floating vamps like on "Sonny, Please". Rollins longtime stablemate and producer of this CD, Clifton Anderson's trombone is spare and exciting in solo and support, blowing hot liquid notes. Rounding out the group are the tasteful drummer Steve Jordan and the colorful percussionist Kimati Dinizulu.
The Pieces De Resistance, the best of the best, begin with the title song, "Sonny, Please", based on a favorite phrase of Sonny's late wife, Lucille, and it is a burning experience. Riding on a three-note pedal point, Mr Rollins uncorks one of his best thematic solos on record. The jumping calpyso "Park Palace Parade" continues the Rollins tradition of including one song that harkens back to his 'Island roots', but it substitutes wonderful thematic 'sound scapes' instead of the usual hyper-active calypso energy of old. The elegant "Serenade" (from the "Les Millions d'arlequin" ballet by classical composer Riccardo Drigo) continues the Rollins fascination with both unusual song choices and with 3/4 time that began four decades ago with "Shadow Waltz" and "Valse Hot" in the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet years. The sonorities he creates on this waltz are mesmerizing. "Remembering Tommy (Flanagan)" is a top-notch blues tribute to one of the most respected jazz pianist/composers of all time who was the pianist on the original "Saxophone Colossus" recording. Somewhere in the middle of "Nishi", is that a hip-hop beat going on? Wow, Sonny stays current! "Someday I'll Find You" is a cleverly-disguised thematic waltz giving way to 4/4 solos: note Bob Cranshaw's beautiful tone and support! "Stairway to the Stars" is pure beauty with Rollin's thick granite-like tone. All in all, this award-nominated CD is a wonderful addition to the Sonny Rollins discography that ranks with his best efforts EVER. May Sonny Rollins continue to garner awards and play with the same heat and inventiveness for years to come. Bravo, Sonny!! My Highest Recommendation. Five HUGE Stars!!
(Notes:
*This review is based on an ITunes digital download.
*Can you find the multiple humorous quotes of "Oh Susanna", among others? These quotes are a Rollins trademark and an 'in-joke' with the fans. On the 2004 Grammy-winning "This Is What I Do" CD, there were quotes from "Shimmy Like My Sister Kate", and "I'm Just Wild About Harry" from the song "Did You See Harold Vick?" The trick is to make them fit the circumstances and they do, beautifully so.)
Description of Sonny Please
Tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins releases Sonny, Please -his first studio recording in five years - on Emarcy / Doxy Records, his own label. The album was released digitally on November 21, with the traditional CD release date set for January 23, 2007. The new CD captures his working band "at a good pitch," as he puts it. "Anytime you do a string of performances, it tightens up the ensemble, and the band was playing well-very high-powered." The album is a mix of Rollins originals and indelible standards, including the assertive title track which takes its name from "something my wife [Lucille] always used to say: `Sonny, Please!'" "Sonny is really playing on this record," concurs Clifton Anderson, Rollins's longtime trombonist who also served as the new CD's producer. "Each track has its own beautiful distinction, yet there's a clear continuity throughout the recording." In addition to Anderson, the group is comprised of bassist Bob Cranshaw, an esteemed Rollins collaborator since 1959; guitarist Bobby Broom and drummer Steve Jordan, both of whom had worked with Sonny on prior occasions in the 1980s; and the percussionist Kimati Dinizulu, who joined the band six years ago. Rollins won the Grammy in 2001 for This Is What I Do and again in 2005 for "Why Was I Born?" (from Without A Song -The 9/11 Concert), in the Best Jazz Instrumental Solo category. In addition, Sonny received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 2004 and was inducted into the Academy of Achievement in 2006.Now in his mid-70s, Sonny Rollins plays with undiminished passion on this, his first new studio recordings in five years. Sonny, Please also marks a turning point in Rollins's life: his wife died in 2004, and he soon thereafter departed Milestone Records to set up his own Doxy imprint, ending one of the longest artist-label relationships in jazz. Playing selections that date back to his youth (such as Noël Coward's "Someday I'll Find You," on which he rolls out melodic lines as if from a beautiful and endless spool) as well as his own originals, the set flows with the compelling vigor of a giant who carries himself with the utmost humility. A powerful soloist, Rollins has seen the years bring even more depth to his musical explorations. As part of a supple sextet, his lines dance around the trombone of Clifton Anderson (who also produced the set) with grace and invention. --David Greenberger
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