Movers And Shakers
A new box set chronicles the “saxophone Colossus”’s late 50s California sojourn.
Sonny Rollins Go West! The Contemporary Records Albums ★★★★
Craft CR-00434 (3CD, 3LP)
It’s March 1957 and 26-year-old Sonny
Rollins feels like he’s in dreamland as he stares into a camera lens under the blazing sun in the middle of the Mohave Desert. It’s the New
York saxophonist’s first time in California and he’s in a celebratory mood. He’s just met model Dawn Finney, the girl he’s going to marry, and has also finished recording his debut album for producer Lester Koenig’s Los Angeles-based Contemporary label. A longtime aficionado of cowboy movies, Rollins agrees to let noted jazz photographer William Caxton take pictures of him for the album cover wearing a 10-gallon hat and gun holster; though some accused Rollins of cheapening his talent with unnecessary gimmicks, the saxophonist-as-gun-slinger image went on to grace Way Out West, one of the biggest musical milestones in the saxophonist’s long and storied career. That classic album is now revived as part of
Go West! The Contemporary Records Albums,a 3LP/CD box set celebrating Rollins’ late-50s
West Coast sojourn.
Rollins ventured west as a member of drummer Max Roach’s band but his reputation as a “saxophone colossus” had already preceded him and while there, he was approached to record what became Way
Out West. Rollins chose his own sidemen, and going against the grain, he opted to hire just two other, older musicians: bassist Ray Brown and drummer Shelly Manne. Explaining why the session didn’t feature a pianist, he told this writer in 2019: “I felt the trio was giving me my best opportunity to show Sonny Rollins and express what I could do. I felt more free and able to hear what I needed to hear when I played without a chordal instrument.”
Certainly, the absence of a piano liberates Rollins from any harmonic constraints and allows him to play with a palpable sense of impunity throughout Way Out West; at times, his improvisations, especially on the lengthy, selfpenned Come, Gone, appear to evolve in a streamof-consciousness way. Some of the arrangements are quirky too; for the intros to I’m An Old Cowhand and Wagon Wheels, Rollins has drummer Shelly Manne replicating the clip-clop of horses’ hooves by combining a woodblock, rimshot, and bass drum. Surprisingly, the effect is mesmerising and atmospheric rather than corny.
After the minimalism and harmonic transparency of the commercially successful Way Out West – which was the saxophonist’s first LP to dent the US jazz charts – Sonny Rollins & The Contemporary Leaders, his second outing for the LA label, was a more expansive but also musically more conservative affair. Recorded during another California excursion in late 1958, Rollins teamed up with musicians that were all leaders in their own right for Koenig’s label, including pianist Hampton Hawes and guitarist Barney Kessell. What resulted was a solid collection of jazz standards that had a pronounced west coast feel and whose laidback vibe contrasted with the visceral intensity of some of Rollins’ previous work. Perhaps for that reason, the album has often been overlooked but this new reissue shows that Rollins’ playing was at a sublimely high level; check out his amazing version of How High The Moon as an example of his peerless improvisational prowess.
“Being out west felt like new beginnings to me,” explains Rollins, now 92, in the set’s liner notes, reflecting on his time in California. “That whole experience in L.A. was a moment of growth.” Veteran audio engineer Bernie Grundman’s impeccable all-analogue remastering certainly helps brings the saxophonist’s West Coast excursion to life while an album’s worth of fascinating alternate takes illuminate the creative process for the listener. More importantly, their presence confirms Rollins’ endless ingenuity as an improviser. On the compelling evidence of Go West!, calling him a “saxophone colossus” seems like an understatement.
His playing was at a supremely high level