Search - Sonny Rollins :: Best of the Complete Sonny Rollins RCA Victor Recordings

This single-CD collection is culled from the six CDs of Sonny Rollins's Complete RCA Victor Recordings recorded between 1962 and 1964, and it provides glimpses of the great tenor saxophonist in his most exploratory and genuinely unpredictable period. "The Bridge" marked Rollins's return from his 1959-to-'61 withdrawal from public performance, and it's a lighter-textured explosion of kinetic counterpoint and tight control between the saxophonist and guitarist Jim Hall. "Dearly Beloved"--a club performance with trumpeter Don Cherry--is an improviser's tour de force, while "Yesterdays" and "Just Friends" have Rollins taking significant liberties with the standards in the company of his early idol Coleman Hawkins and pianist Paul Bley. There are also examples of Rollins's special ballad mastery--a warm combination of rugged sentiment, irony, and sheer melodic invention--on "God Bless the Child" and "'Round Midnight." The fondness for unusual textures is apparent on the concluding "Trav'lin' Light," with Rollins mixing sonorities with David Izenson's bowed bass and Hall's guitar. --Stuart Broomer