Meditating on a Riff

[Mark Stryker]

On 8/18/2018 at 9:46 PM, JSngry said:

His aim was to stand tall and strong, blow loud and long and...keep hold of himself.

 

That's an incredible "Love Letters." Does this whole concert exist somewhere on film?

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, Mark Stryker said:

Today -- August 19, 2018 -- marks the 32nd anniversary of Sonny Rollins jumping off a ledge in mid performance, because, well, Sonny Rollins. He broke his heel in the process -- but kept playing. Here's the film. Stay through the interviews for the incredible performance of "G-Man," one of Sonny's best post-1971 solos.

 

yeah, I keep forgetting about G-Man, definitely a highlight. The record is good enough, the film makes it complete.

stand tall and strong, blow loud and long. That's an amazingly massively physical act right there, as well as a wonderful example of Sonny's meditative musical process. Just a kernel of a theme for a mantra to get started, then it turns into a long tone(s) as an "ommmm", then the "clear" state arrives and here come the ideas, when the light dims, go back to the mantra, get the "om" again, and wait for the light to start shining again, keep going through the process until it gets to where it feels like it should be. By the time its over, yeah, he went there and if you wanted to go along, there it was. If you didn't...shoulda stayed at home, right?

It's so unlike what typical jazz improvisation's aims and methods are, especially in terms of what was rewarded in the jazz eco-system of the last 40-50 years, too bluntly physical to be marketed as meditation, too fundamentally "internal" to be sold as BEBOP THE MUSIC OF THE FUTURE, too much of anything except Sonny Rollins as he himself conducted his business. And yet he got the gigs and always had product on the shelves, old and new.

A self kept hold of, indeed.

1 hour ago, Mark Stryker said:

That's an incredible "Love Letters." Does this whole concert exist somewhere on film?

I have no idea, There was a live "Cutting Edge"...there was a whole set of the footage that accompnaied the Milestone shows and Montreux that year. I'm sure they still exist, but they don't seem to be on You Tube anymore.

Ok, there's this still up: