Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders
| Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders | ||||
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| Studio album by Sonny Rollins | ||||
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| Label (s) | Contemporary Records | |||
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LP, CD |
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Title (number) |
8/10 |
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running time |
59:33 (CD) |
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Studio (s) |
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Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders is a jazz album by Sonny Rollins that was recorded in Los Angeles between October 20 and 22, 1958 and was released by Contemporary Records in 1958 . It was the last record Rollins released before retiring for several years until his comeback with The Bridge (1962).
background
In the fall of 1958, Sonny Rollins was on the west coast of the USA; u. a. he was a guest at the first Monterey Jazz Festival and played in clubs in Los Angeles and San Francisco. There he met bassist Leroy Vinnegar , who was leading his own formation at the time. The two musicians agreed to record together and Sonny Rollins contacted Lester Koenig of Contemporary Records. Koenig agreed and put the rest of the rhythm section together with the saxophonist . These were then the pianist Hampton Hawes and the drummer Shelly Manne . Finally, Koenig was able to convince him to bring in a guitarist for the first time with Barney Kessel . Rollins had recently allowed René Thomas to work on his album Sonny Rollins and the Big Brass (1958), but he had not yet had any experience with guitarists in smaller ensembles. Victor Feldman on the vibraphone was added to the title “You” . For the album, Rollins chose only pre-war Tin Pan Alley and Broadway- era standards ; these were "I've Told Ev'ry Little Star" (1932), " Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody " (1918), " How High the Moon " (1940), "You" (1936) , " I've Found a New Baby " (1926), " Alone Together " (1932), "In the Chapel in the Moonlight" (1936) and " The Song Is You " (1932).
Track list
- Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders (Contemporary Records - M3564 (Mono), S 7564 (Stereo))
- I've Told Every Little Star ( Jerome Kern , Oscar Hammerstein II ) - 5:24
- Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody ( Jean Schwartz , Joseph Young , Sam M. Lewis ) - 4:50
- How High the Moon (Nancy Hamilton, William M. Lewis) - 7:45
- You ( Harold Adamson , Walter Donaldson ) - 4:14
- I've Found a New Baby (Jack Palmer, Spencer Williams ) - 3:35
- Alone Together ( Arthur Schwartz , Howard Dietz ) - 5:50
- In the Chapel in the Moonlight ( Billy Hill ) - 6:40
- The Song Is You (Jerome Kern, Oscar Hammerstein II) - 6:10
- Later CD releases included alternate takes of I've Found a New Baby (4:25) and The Song Is You (6:11).
reception
In his review (2018), Marc Myers commented on the fact that Rollins' album was mistakenly labeled as West Coast Jazz or as a recording that was not up to the level of his sessions from the East Coast at the time. On the other hand, it is a "significant milestone in Sonny's career and game;" Contemporary Leaders "gives us an insight into where Sonny was moving in his creative development."
Scott Yanow only gave the album three (out of five) stars in Allmusic and commented on the recordings that they were an unusual, but nevertheless inspired list of standards. Sonny Rollins creates exploratory and often original improvisations. Even Richard Cook and Brian Morton are among the album to Rollins' one of the few major releases its classical phase and awarded in The Penguin Guide to Jazz three (of four) stars; Despite the bundling of stars in the Leaders session, Rollins is also following his predetermined path through this rather "bizarre" program.
For Stuart Nicholson ( The Essential Jazz Records: Modernism to Postmodernism , 2000), the recordings of this time (in addition to the Contemporary Leaders, the live recordings made a month earlier that appeared on Sonny Rollins in Denmark, Vol. 1 & 2 ) do not leave any " creative determination ”. For Eric Nisenson , while Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders did not have the high standard of Way Out West (1957), there are still some notable things to be said about this session. His tone is just great. While it seemed a sufficiently entertaining album, the result was apparently reason enough for a perfectionist like Rollins to retreat for a while. For the author, the highlights of the album included the two versions of I've Found a New Baby , actually a popular track with Dixieland musicians. "Sonny is changing it into a perfectly viable vehicle for modern jazz "; it is a wonderful example of Sonny's joy in playing music and his sense of humor. The alternate take of the song is completely different and reveals what an improviser Sonny Rollins is.
Trivia
The album cover of Donald Fagen's solo album The Nightfly (1982), which worked through his musical socialization in the late 1950s and early 1960s, shows the LP version Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders .
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Marc Myers: Sonny Rollins: Koenig's Leaders. Jazzwax, January 3, 2017, accessed January 3, 2018 .
- ^ Billboard June 22, 1959
- ^ Review of the album Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders by Scott Yanow at Allmusic . Retrieved January 3, 2018.
- ^ Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings . 8th edition. Penguin, London 2006, ISBN 0-14-102327-9 , p. 1125.
- ^ Max Harrison , Charles Fox, Eric Thacker, Stuart Nicholson : The Essential Jazz Records: Modernism to postmodernism Continuum International Publishing Group,. 2000, p. 332
- ↑ Eric Nisenson: Open Sky: Sonny Rollins and His World of Improvisation . New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000.
- ↑ History is made: On the historiography of popular music , edited by Dietrich Helms, Thomas Phleps (dec.). 2014
- ↑ Barney Hoskyns: Major Dudes: A Steely Dan Companion . 2017.