In all its unfettered glory, whether loud or soft, the jazz saxophone is the sound of liberation. And no such horn-playing embodies that spirit of freedom more than Sonny Rollins. Sufficiently inner motivated to take two extended sabbaticals from touring and recording during the course of his lengthy career, “Newk’ also made a purposeful trip to Los Angeles CA in 1957, during the course of which his life changed personally and artistically. Go West! encompasses the musical chronicle of that quest.
Ashley Kahn’s liner notes tell those interwoven stories and the aftermath thereof, not all of which were positive. Including an extensive one-on-one interview with Rollins himself, the prose (plus the period photos) filling the 44-page bound booklet tells relates the story in a matter of fact, yet scrupulous detail. Enlightening as is that experience, however, it can’t compare to hearing the three compact discs inside this clamshell box.
Given the length of these respective albums–forty-some minutes each approximately–they might’ve been consolidated with their respective outtakes onto single compact discs (perhaps even in both mono and stereo mixes). But with each title conceived and executed with a specific purpose in mind, such sequencing would defeat the original purpose; now as then, these two albums demand to stand on their own, so it’s a tribute to the wisdom and self-restraint of the curating team, headed by Nick Phillips, to resist the temptation of the available technology.
The fact of the matter too is that the forty-two-minute disc proffers the musicality Rollins and his esteemed comrades were aiming for in its purest form. In so doing, from a slightly different angle, the leader and his accompanists reaffirm the wisdom of both the conception and execution of these sessions, nurtured by the Contemporary Records label founder and these records’ producer, Lester Koenig.
In fact, with the air of finality wafting from its closing cut, “I’ve Found A New Baby,” the logic is inescapable (as is the autobiographical slant of that choice). The irrefutable nature of Sonny’s decisions, large and small, become immediately evident in the first title devoted to blowing in a trio format: the familiarity of “I’m An Old Cowhand” and “Wagon Wheel'” benefits both musicians and listeners.
Neither rendition finds the players constrained in any way. As a result, Rollins, bassist Ray Brown and drummer Shelly Manne (neither of whom had previously played or recorded with the saxman) can instead follow flights of fancy in a perpetual motion of (re) discovery. And “Solitude” serves a function greater than just supplying a comparatively slower pace to the proceedings: the subtleties of the interactions become that much clearer at the more deliberate tempo.
Sonny Rollins And The Contemporary Leaders is almost but not quite the converse of its companion piece. More structured arrangements, plus additional musicians (there are mainly five with Victor Feldman adding vibes on “You”) compel the participants to maintain their respective spaces, while also allowing for the immediacy of mutual communication. Bernie Grundman’s remastering furthers the lucid audio as it captures the unerring instinct(s) in play during this action.
The six tracks on CD three confirm what a surplus of ideas Sonny Rollins possessed on his West Coast excursion. From the hands of another–and perhaps even his own at another time in his career–Contemporary Alternate Takes would comprise an album of bracing confidence and ingenuity. But without issuing the two carefully-wrought titles separately as he did, Sonny Rollins would not have attained the goal at which he was aiming, that is, maximizing his new-found status as a reputable star in the world of jazz through the increasing sophistication of his music.
To avoid doing so too he might well have undermined the subsequent progression of his professional career (in line with the elevated physical, spiritual, and mental health he had attained). It’s only appropriate this package’s title contains an exclamation point: this jazz icon was not a man to allow any ideas to proceed, through his horn, his mind, or his heart, without reaching fruition in the most emphatic fashion. Go West! maybe the definitive demonstration of that fundamental impulse.
