Last night’s historic Sonny Rollins show at Carnegie Hall was, among other things, a terrific and much-needed jolt of New York energy for this writer. Drummer Rashied Ali marched into the Pick-a-Bagel as I was finishing my sandwich. You just don’t experience this sort of thing in Philly. With a cursory glance around the lobby and inside the hall, one could spot saxophonists Joe Lovano, Paquito D’Rivera, Antonio Hart, Kenny Garrett, Loren Schoenberg, Bill McHenry, John Zorn (in black leather and red camouflage); New Yorker editor David Remnick; pianist David Berkman; organist Dr. Lonnie Smith; drummer Lewis Nash; guitarists Russell Malone and Pat Metheny. And a good many journalists and critics.
Why the fuss? Ben Ratliff’s Sept. 16 piece in the NY Times spells it out: this was not only the 50th anniversary of Rollins’s Carnegie Hall appearance with bassist Wendell Marshall and drummer Kenny Dennis. It was also the first Rollins appearance with a trio in a very long while. Rollins made a number of extraordinary trio records back in the ’50s and changed the very language of jazz in the process. But in recent years, to the frustration of many, he’s chosen to lead a sextet — with some talented players, but not on the level of his trio partners last night, bassist (and Philadelphian) Christian McBride and drummer Roy Haynes.
The game plan was to play the same three tunes he’d chosen in 1957: the blues “Sonnymoon for Two,” the ballad “Some Enchanted Evening” and the midtempo standard “Mack the Knife.” Last night’s revisitation will be released on CD alongside the ’57 tapes (discovered in 2004 in the same haul that gave us Thelonious Monk with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall). The compare-and-contrast opportunity will be rich, though I haven’t heard the ’57 material so I’ll refrain from speculating at this point.
Out came the trio, with Sonny in a billowy white shirt, black pants and dark shades. He launched into the descending “Sonnymoon” riff without waiting for the standing ovation to stop. Ping-ponging the melody every which way, he avoided obvious rhythmic placements to such an extent that it took a few moments to hear the tempo clearly. In the ensuing 45 minutes or so, Rollins defied every expectation. The labyrinthine, showstopping solos came not from the tenor, but from McBride’s bass. Rollins himself was fairly reticent, more interested in generating dialogue than hogging the spotlight. To be sure, he brayed, whispered and shouted the blues as only he can. But in place of extended solos, he preferred to trade choruses and fours, even when Haynes played brushes during “Some Enchanted Evening.”
The ballad was a marvel: Rollins built a tower of melody, accenting here and there but otherwise playing the tune as written. His huge sound and sparse articulation created a palpable sense of awe. But again, no big splashy solo: instead a delicate process of sketching around the form, leaving copious expanses of space, culminating in one long, loud, quivering note at the end. Of all the comparisons with ’57, this one could be the most revealing.
“Mack the Knife” had Rollins digging into the horn’s lower register, quoting “If I Should Lose You” brilliantly on the second eight and launching into chorus after chorus of traded fours with Haynes (who quoted the intro to “Salt Peanuts” in turn). Following McBride’s best solo of the night, Rollins came back in, but his main goal was to coax Haynes into a drum solo. This was the method of the set: details left loose, transitions communicated on the fly, with some tentativeness but also moments of high inspiration. Haynes signaled the end with a rubato turn, inviting Rollins to venture a brief cadenza and a cakewalk finish. All too quickly, Rollins’s hotly anticipated trio return was through. We can only hope for more.
After the break there was a short sextet set, and it featured Rollins in more of a leader role, playing a handful of tunes from Sonny, Please (including the vamp-based, strikingly contemporary title track). The crowd energy was undimmed, and yet this music could not but seem anti-climactic. Rollins, ever eager to showcase his bandmates, gave percussionist Kimati Dinizulu and drummer Steve Jordan fairly long solos — but in a 45-minute Sonny Rollins set, surely one would rather hear Sonny Rollins.
On the Amtrak back to Philly, I read further into Ben Ratliff’s new book, Coltrane: The Story of a Sound, which I’ll soon review for the Inquirer. The intersecting story of Coltrane and Rollins is fascinating, and Ratliff does a fine job with it. With the sound of Sonny still in my ears, I paused to ponder the assertion that he “was so psyched out by the whole Coltrane situation — for the second time, after his first retreat in 1959 — that he made no new studio records between 1966 and 1972.” By “the whole Coltrane situation,” Ratliff means Coltrane’s late-period music and the ferocious controversies that surrounded it. There’s a YouTube on the Rollins-Coltrane relationship at sonnyrollins.com.
Rollins’s career is a long tale of jaw-dropping talent marked by stops and starts, hiatuses and returns. Last night it was our luck and privilege to see yet another return.
Comments are closed.