Search - Sonny Rollins :: Definitive Sonny Rollins on Prestige, Riverside, & Contemporary

The Definitive Sonny Rollins on Prestige, Riverside and Contemporary comes out a few weeks ahead of Rollins' 80th birthday on September 7, 2010. This Sonny Rollins set covers almost an entire decade, from a December 1951 session in New York for Sonny Rollins with the Modern Jazz Quartet to an October 1958 session in Los Angeles for Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders.

"That was such a significant period in the development of jazz in general, and Sonny Rollins was at the heart of all that was going on during that decade," says Nick Phillips, Concord Music Group's Vice President of Jazz and Catalog A&R and the producer of the Definitive series. "Just look at the Miles Davis session where he recorded `Airegin,' `Doxy' and `Oleo,' for example. Those are all tunes that he penned, and all remain indelible jazz standards. That's a whole lot of jazz history that was made on just a single day in the summer of 1954."

Liner notes for The Definitive Sonny Rollins are provided by music journalist Bob Blumenthal, co-author with photographer John Abbott of the forthcoming book, Saxophone Colossus: A Portrait of Sonny Rollins.

"That the marks of [Rollins'] genius were fully apparent in the music he made over a half-century ago has been obvious to all who have followed the trajectory of his unprecedented career," says Blumenthal. "As a contract artist with Prestige Records between 1951 and 1956, and through his work on various labels from 1957 until the beginning of an extended sabbatical two years later, Rollins laid the foundation for his status as a master improviser, saxophonist and composer; an influence far beyond his chosen instrument and idiom; and a living icon of affirmative creativity. Concord Music Group is the steward of many of the finest Rollins performances of the '50s, and has culled them well in presenting this short course in what made Sonny Rollins Sonny Rollins."