Landmark Jazz Album #5 - Sonny Rollins: Saxophone Colossus (Prestige)

Rollins (ts), Tommy Flanagan (p), Doug Watkins (b) and Max Roach (d). Rec. 1956

Was Sonny Rollins ready in 1956? Was he ready! Apart from this masterpiece, he also lead from the front on Plus 4, an album featuring the Brown/Roach Quintet of the day in all but name, plus Tenor Madness (the title track featuring a head-on with Coltrane) and the exquisite Plays For Bird.

But Saxophone Colossus towers above them all, not only because it concentrates on a quartet setting allowing undiluted access to the creative process of Sonny at his most inspired, but because it is one of those happy coincidences where all elements came off equally well, including the use of unusual repertoire and inspired originals.

Rollins himself was clearly inspired enough by such material as ‘St Thomas’ and ‘The Moritat’ from Threepenny Opera to still be playing them in concert 50 years later. Nevertheless, it is tempting to call these original recordings definitive, if only because they do in fact define the essence of Rollins’ approach to improvisation, wringing every nuance and variation he can from the theme and its associated melodic and rhythmic patterns.

The blues ‘Blue 7’ was famously dissected for such methodology by Gunther Schuller back at the time of Saxophone Colossus’ initial release but that failed to stop Rollins from another two years of super-human saxophone playing before his dramatic retirement in 1959. This is still the biggest-selling jazz album of all time in Japan.

Credits: (KS)