Search - Sonny Rollins :: Sonny Rollins' Finest Hour

Young Sonny swings...solid selections

William E. Adams | Midland, Texas USA | 11/03/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This compilation offers 11 selections featuring Sonny's sax in a variety of settings. All the tunes were recorded between 1956 and '66. Two-thirds are lively, only one-third are ballads. Among the featured players are Nat Adderly, Clark Terry, Sonny Stitt, Elvin Jones, the Modern Jazz Quartet, J.J. Johnson, Phil Woods, Kenny Burrell, Clifford Brown, Max Roach, and Dizzy Gillespie (who even performs vocally on "Sunny Side of the Street.") If you enjoy saxophone, or Sonny, or classic jazz of the '50's and 60's, it is a fine addition to your collection. While not as consistently great as "Saxophone Collossus" or "Thelonious Monk/Sonny Rollins", this disc is about twice as long as those efforts, so what is there to complain about? On the five well-known songs that appear here, the improvisations depart quite a bit from the familiar melodies, so don't buy this if you want only comforting background music. This isn't "smooth jazz" or "easy listening" in the pedestrian sense of those terms, but it's good jazz, it's intriguing listening, and the disc is a good value for the price. John Coltrane gets all the hype lately from that era, and he is great, but Sonny is no slouch. He and Paul Desmond are unfairly neglected, it seems to me. All three belong in anybody's collection of exceptional sax players."

Chapeau!

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 02/23/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Sonny Rollins was an emblematic figure of the Jazz. His powerful inspiration, clear intonation and superb phrasing still remains as fundamental icon of the golden Years of this musical genre.



In spite of the fact this is not an absolute winner selections, you can make a musical journey and verify his progressive growing up process. The top selections are Manhattan, You are so beautiful, the persuasive Body and soul and We kiss in a shadow.



If you are a sincere and passionate Jazz fan, or if you want to make an essential collection of Giants in this rhythm, you won' t be able to do without of this gem.

"