Thursday, September 08, 2016

Sonny Rollins Blindfold Tests 1962

I haven't posted a Blindfold Test for a while and as today is Sonny Rollins' birthday (September 7, 1930) these articles, from August 2 and 16, 1962, seem like the appropriate choice. My introduction to Sonny came by the way of his classic recordings from the 50s, starting with Saxophone Colossus, then Way Out West... Newk's Time, Freedom Suite, Monk's Brilliant Corners, Dizzy's Sonny Side Up, and one that got a lot of airtime - A Night at the Village Vanguard. These days I find myself checking out his work from the 60s,  The Bridge and Sonny Meets Hawk were introduced to me back when I was at music school, but until more recently I never really gave this era a decent listen. There's plenty up on YouTube - today I spent some time watching a few videos from the late 60s with Alan Dawson and NHOP, and a couple of earlier clips featuring groups with Jim Hall and Don Cherry. Whereas Coltrane used composition to develop his music, Rollins developed his by delving deeper into the standard repertoire. Eventually I will get around to listening to more of the live recordings from this era - they're well worth a listen!
Open the images in a new window to view the full size articles. More vintage magazine articles can be found here.

2 comments:

Kelly Bucheger said...

Great to read this -- thanks for putting it up!

AM said...

Thanks for stopping by Kelly.
If you haven't done so, check out Kelly's blog - Harder Bop - http://harderbop.blogspot.com