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Sonny Rollins Impulse 2-fer


mjzee

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What label will this be on? Sonny's never approved of the live album, so unless things have changed (and they well may have)....

Shame about Sonny's attitude towards the live album because it's really prime live Newk from the mid '60s and a great rhythm section that includes Tommy Flanagan and two drummers, Billy Higgins and Mickey Roker. I've made a CD-R from my LP copy that I frequently listen to when driving.

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There's a whole run of these twofers coming from Universal over here... so far, word has been out on these:

Albert Ayler - Love Cry / The Last Album

Art Blakey - Jazz Messengers!!!!! / A Jazz Message

Alice Coltrane - Universal Consciousness / Lord Of Lords

Duke Ellington - Meets Coleman Hawkins / And John Coltrane

Coleman Hawkins - Today And Now / Desafinado

Milt Jackson - Statements / Jazz 'n' Samba

Ahmad Jamal - Poinciana Revisited / Freeflight

Elvin Jones - Illumination! / Dear John C.

Sonny Rollins - On Impulse! / There Will Never Be Another You

Pharoah Sanders - Village Of The Pharoahs / Wisdom Through Music

Shirley Scott Trio - For Members Only / Great Scott!!

Archie Shepp - For Losers / Kwanza

Gabor Szabo - The Sorcerer / More Sorcery

McCoy Tyner Trio - Inception / Reaching Fourth

Too many contain one recently reissued album, alas, combining it with a rarer one (Shepp, Coltrane, Rollins)

The Ayler is silly... would have made sense in this case to combine "The Last Album" with the companion album... also "Love Cry" had some fine bonus tracks that will be missing here for time (and "original album" crappity) reasons.

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What label will this be on? Sonny's never approved of the live album, so unless things have changed (and they well may have)....

Shame about Sonny's attitude towards the live album because it's really prime live Newk from the mid '60s and a great rhythm section that includes Tommy Flanagan and two drummers, Billy Higgins and Mickey Roker. I've made a CD-R from my LP copy that I frequently listen to when driving.

Sonny's attitude about the record is tied closely to his strong feelings of being exploited by Impulse (ABC Paramount). "There Will Never Be Another You" was not released unitl 1978, a decade after his contract ran out. He is quoted in Eric Nisenson's "Open Sky" as saying, "For one thing, I was not paid to do that record. And also it should never have been released, just because I am off mike so much. It was just another example of their gouging more money out of the public by selling them an inferior product." Sonny has often spoken about how he felt strong-armed by the ABC lawyers during his tenure with the label and in an interview I did with Sonny last year in which we talked specifically about the reasons for his disillusionment that led to his second sabbatical, he said he felt bamboozled into signing away the rights to his score for "Alfie." (Sonny was representing himself at the time.)

Having said all that, his playing on the "There Will Never Be Another You" concert is incredible. Nisenson writes that Sonny did not know he was being recorded at the Museum of Modern Art, though he doesn't quote Rollins specifically on that point and I have often wondered if this is literally true -- Sonny had no idea there were recording engineers on site? (Perhaps he knew they were there doing something but his understanding was never that they were recording for the market? Just speculating. It is true that he strolled around as he played.)

Nisenson uses the fact Sonny ostensibly didn't know he was being taped as another example of the contrast between the uninhibited live Rollins versus the self-conscious Rollins in the studio. There's no doubt this syndrome is part and parcel of Sonny's aesthetic and that the disconnect people began noticing in the '60s turned into a chasm in the 70s and beyond. I just wonder if that's the whole story with this particular concert.

Edited by Mark Stryker
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FWIW, the cover photo of on impulse! was shot at the MOMA concert that produced There Will Never Be Another You (the title track of which finds Sonny musically countering with "Don't be so sure!"). I have anotehr phot in a book somwhere of the same gig with Sonny semi-hunched down facing both drummers that just reeks of "on the fly".

Mark's right - it's a great concert not so greatly recorded, but hey...when Sonny is really on, I don't know that you really have to hear it to feel it...

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FWIW, the cover photo of on impulse! was shot at the MOMA concert that produced There Will Never Be Another You (the title track of which finds Sonny musically countering with "Don't be so sure!"). I have anotehr phot in a book somwhere of the same gig with Sonny semi-hunched down facing both drummers that just reeks of "on the fly".

Mark's right - it's a great concert not so greatly recorded, but hey...when Sonny is really on, I don't know that you really have to hear it to feel it...

Would love to see those photos. As for the art work to "There Will Never Be Another You", never dug it for it represents what Sonny looked like in the early and mid '70s, a decade after the MOMA concert which took place in June '65. Again, the music is fabulous and as for Sonny's wandering on the stage off mike, that occurs primarily during the 2nd half of the concert (side 2 on the LP).

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If some of these are going to have tracks left off, that's just annoying.

Bertrand.

What I meant were GRP/Impulse Master bonus tracks, not actual albums tracks. Universal hasn't done any reissues with bonus material for years now - the LPR series was the end of that, alas.

Anyway, I only just see Chuck's comment now as well:

Curtis Fuller's Cabin in the Sky seems to have lost a tune.

... and that definitely sucks!

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FWIW, the cover photo of on impulse! was shot at the MOMA concert that produced There Will Never Be Another You (the title track of which finds Sonny musically countering with "Don't be so sure!"). I have anotehr phot in a book somwhere of the same gig with Sonny semi-hunched down facing both drummers that just reeks of "on the fly".

Mark's right - it's a great concert not so greatly recorded, but hey...when Sonny is really on, I don't know that you really have to hear it to feel it...

Would love to see those photos. As for the art work to "There Will Never Be Another You", never dug it for it represents what Sonny looked like in the early and mid '70s, a decade after the MOMA concert which took place in June '65. Again, the music is fabulous and as for Sonny's wandering on the stage off mike, that occurs primarily during the 2nd half of the concert (side 2 on the LP).

I never knew that the cover photo on "On Impulse" was taken at the MOMA concert; I wonder if somebody's original plan might have been for the first Impulse album to be a live record from the concert but then plans shifted, perhaps becasue it was realized that too much was off-mike for a commercial LP (and just to be clear for those who have never heard it, the sound in no way impedes the enjoyment/appreciation of Sonny's genius). I also notice on my LP that Rudy Van Gelder is listed as the recording engineer. If that's true, then going back to a point in my original post, it's unlikely that Sonny literally didn't know tapes were rolling -- Rudy was there with equipment and never said "hi"?

Coda 1: Tommy Flanagan also sounds exceptionally good to me, especially on "Three Little Words," where Sonny's pace and inspiration really push him.

Coda 2: Among the slew of Sonny's great moments, I really love the sudden key change during his solo on the title tune -- on the fly, indeed! -- and the expansive fours with the drummers on that tune and how Sonny often phrases into or through their bars to finish his ideas. Plus the way he just keeps going and going as the tune evolves, even including a calypso bit near the end of his cadenza and the long final note (circular breathing). Well, it's not quite the final note as the tune starts up again as a "walk off" coda.

Coda 3: The liners on the LP include a reprint of a Down Beat review of the concert published in the Aug. 12, 1965 issue. The review says the concert started with "Will You Still Be Mine?" -- "the faint sounds of a tenor saxophone playing "Will You Still Be Mine?" could be heard in the distance ... enthralled listeners turned toward the sound and saw Rollins in a green jacket and blue beret emerge from behind a tree in full musical flight."

So, anybody ever heard a recording of that part of the concert which isn't included on the LP? Plus, the record opens in the middle of "Green Dolphin Street." Does an unedited bootleg exist of the whole concert?

Edited by Mark Stryker
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If some of these are going to have tracks left off, that's just annoying.

Bertrand.

What I meant were GRP/Impulse Master bonus tracks, not actual albums tracks. Universal hasn't done any reissues with bonus material for years now - the LPR series was the end of that, alas.

Although the Amazon listings say there are bonus tracks on both the Scott and the Jackson, so who knows?

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Yes the MOMA concert was supposed to be Sonny's first Impulse. It rained during the concert and Sonny wandered off mike so they decided to make a studio album instead.

Sonny gives a wonderful musical hint to the listener about the rain when he throws in a brief quote of "Stormy Weather" during the opening to "Green Dolphin Street". Works it in beautifully.

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If some of these are going to have tracks left off, that's just annoying.

Bertrand.

What I meant were GRP/Impulse Master bonus tracks, not actual albums tracks. Universal hasn't done any reissues with bonus material for years now - the LPR series was the end of that, alas.

Although the Amazon listings say there are bonus tracks on both the Scott and the Jackson, so who knows?

Interesting! The "Love Cry" CD bonus tracks (from the GRP reissue) seem to be there as well! That's good news!

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Great news about There will never be... I've enjoyed the LP for many years. Any thoughts about the Sanders? I don't know either of them, and his later Impulse! period never inspired me enough to hunt them down either as Japanese CDs or as (pricey) 2nd hand LPs. Also pleased to see Milt Jackson's Statements; I don't know that one, and unless my memory is playing tricks it has Hank Jones on piano, who worked well with Bags (eg the 50's sides with Lucky Thompson).

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