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Sonny & Co. Go To Work
25 MAR 09 CHRIS SLAWECKI
A business-like quartet session, Sonny Rollins recorded Worktime in December 1955 with pianist Ray Bryant, bassist George Morrow, and Max Roach (Rollins' most recent employer, in the Max Roach/Clifford Brown quintet) on drums.
I have found it tough to wrap my mind around the genius of Rollins because there's so much genius to wrap my mind around. He worked the same fertile ground that gave us Miles' murderously cool, muted ballad style, 'Trane's sheets of bedrock sound and Monk's conceptual three-ring musical circuses. Yet it seems to offer no corresponding "hook" -- no singular "thing" -- for Sonny, because he played everything and played everything well. "There's No Business Like Show Business" swings to the point of rampage. Which one seems harder to believe -- the unquenchable torrent of ideas that bursts from Rollins' brain or that his fingers and breath manage to keep up with them?
Drummer Roach, a concussive combination of tap dancer and pugilist, rips off solo breaks in "Show Business" and "Rain Check" that blast through Bryant's chords like unheeded stop signs and swaps staccato phrases through exhilarating drum-saxophone duet sections in Rollins' "Paradox."
Worktime heralded a year of unprecedented growth and success for Rollins that came immediately hereafter. In '56, he released several landmark titles, including Saxophone Colossus and Tenor Madness, among several Prestige sessions worth rediscovering as part of the label's 60th anniversary celebration.
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There's No Business Like Show Business
Sonny Rollins, from Worktime [Rudy Van ...
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Rockin' Chair
Ray Bryant, from Alone With The Blues
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You Stepped Out Of A Dream
Max Roach, from Deeds, Not Words
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Theme Of No Repeat
Clifford Brown, from Memorial
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Oleo
Miles Davis, from Bags' Groove [Rudy Van ...
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I Love You
John Coltrane, from Lush Life [Rudy Van ...
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Bemsha Swing
Thelonious Monk, from Brilliant Corners ...
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You Don't Know What Love Is
Sonny Rollins, from Saxophone Colossus ...
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My Reverie
Sonny Rollins Quartet, from Tenor Madness ...
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