Sonny Rollins

INCLUDES FREE MP3 ALBUM DOWNLOAD

PLUS 1 BONUS TRACK

PERSONNEL:

SONNY ROLLINS, tenor sax
RAY BRYANT, piano
GEORGE MORROW, bass
MAX ROACH, drums
Hackensack, New Jersey, December 2, 1955.

*BONUS TRACK:
Sonny Rollins (ts), Richie Powell (p),
George Morrow (b), Max Roach (d).
Hackensack, New Jersey, March 22, 1956.

SIDE A:
1 THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS (Irving Berlin) 6:15
2 PARADOX (Sonny Rollins) 4:53
3 RAINCHECK (Billy Strayhorn) 5:53

SIDE B:
1 THERE ARE SUCH THINGS (Stanley Adams-Abel Baer-George W. Meyer) 9:23
2 IT’S ALL RIGHT WITH ME (Cole Porter) 6:03
3 COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS (Irving Berlin) 2:31*

Born in New York in 1930, Sonny Rollins started as a pianist, switched to alto sax, and finally found the tenor in 1946. During his high-school years, he played in a band with other future jazz legends, Jackie McLean and Kenny Drew. His first recordings (with Babs Gonzalez) date back to 1949, the same year in which he also recorded with J.J. Johnson and Bud Powell. In his recordings through 1954, he played with such important figures as Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk.

In 1950, Rollins was arrested for armed robbery and given a sentence of three years. He spent 10 months in Rikers Island jail before being released on parole. In 1952, he was arrested for violating the terms of his parole by using heroin. He was assigned to the Federal Medical Center, in Lexington, which was the only assistance in the U.S. for drug addicts at the time. While there he was a volunteer for the then experimental methadone therapy and was able to break his heroin habit. Rollins himself initially feared sobriety would impair his musicianship, but then went on to greater success. He began to make a name for himself as he recorded with the Modern Jazz Quartet and with Miles Davis in 1951, taping his composition “Oleo” among others. In 1953 and 1954 he worked again with Monk and in the last months of 1955 he joined the Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet (recordings made by this group have been released as Sonny Rollins Plus 4 and Clifford Brown and Max Roach at Basin Street; Rollins also plays on half of More Study in Brown). Worktime, which also features Max Roach, was a quartet set recorded at the tail end of 1955, when Rollins was in the process of joining the Brown-Roach quintet.