Doc's Jazz Music Reviews

Pick up a copy of Roadshow by Sonny Rollins - you will not be sorry!

I already reported on the Sonny Rollins concert but that was not the only show we took in last night. Over at the Mainstage outdoor stage Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings were putting on a show - that ran at the same time as the Rollins one around the corner.

We caught about a half hour of Sharon but what we took in was good. My wife Lin commented about how powerful a voice she has. It was a fun show - not really jazz but more in the funk category. If you have heard Brian Culbertson's "Bring on the Funk", you know what I mean.

I want to give a shout out to our daughter Tiffany. We are having too much fun on our vacation but I may do a podcast on the Jazz Fest in the next few days once we get out of Toronto.

I mentioned how the staff at the Centre stopped me from taking photographs. The whole experience was almost funny because once I was stopped it looked like a lightening storm - people were taking photos all over the place. Oh well, we did get a few and once I get a chance to Photoshop them, they will be posted. In the meantime here are a few I found that should give you a taste of what we saw last night plus a few vintage.

Talk to you later, Jim

The Incredible Sonny Rollins

Sonny was quoted recently and he said that he was still chasing the lost chord, still trying to get the music out that he is hearing inside. Last night at the Four Seasons Performing Arts Centre here in Toronto I think the chase was still on. Words are hard to find to express how impressed I was with this jazz virtuoso's performance. The man is bad, he is the jazz saxman.

When I think of the fact that Sonny played with Miles on Milestones, my adulation only increases. To be able to play this level of music 50 years later is amazing.

The highlight of the show if I must choose one had to be when he played his best-known composition "St. Thomas", a Caribbean calypso based tune sung to him by his mother in his childhood. You could feel a kind of emotive transference when he played and yes, Sonny can still move a little bit too.

I can't remember the names of his sidemen but I am sure this happens to others who attend Sonny Rollins concerts. (see comment on previous post) I think at this point it would be fair to say that the focus of the concerts are to pay homage first to a great musician, and then to enjoy the music currently still coming out of this man. The sidemen are good but nothing they did would elicit anything new except for some brief interactions between them and Sonny.

I got slammed trying to take pictures last night but there are some recent videos as well as a few vintage ones in this post.



Here is a portion of a review from back in 1984 that ran in the Times:

SONNY ROLLINS AND BAND
By JON PARELES

WHEN Sonny Rollins plays the way he did Saturday at Avery Fisher Hall, he reaffirms his place in the jazz pantheon as the modern tenor saxophonist against whom all others can be measured. His solos were stunning for their harmonic and rhythmic invention and, most of all, for their range of feeling.

Mr. Rollins plays standards with gleeful ambivalence, simultaneously honoring and mocking their sentiments. He turned ''My One and Only Love'' into a fluctuating mixture of romance and irony - shifting his inflections phrase by phrase, even note by note, so that tender passages of melody and delicate variations brushed up against sardonic asides and gruff dismissals.

In a modal blues, after staking out the basic riffs, Mr. Rollins suddenly cut loose with a breakneck improvisation - double time and triple time - that zoomed in and out of new harmonic territory, established on the spot. And in an easygoing rhumba, he cheerfully bent and stretched the melody as if it were taffy...

Here is a very extensive article and review of Sonny Rollins

Click Here

Enjoy the videos. If anyone remembers the names of the sidemen at last nights show let me know - I would like to give them some credit. Till next time, Jim

If you can make it to Toronto you might want to check out the Jazz Fest this year. We can only make the first few days but I wish we could stay longer. The great Tony Bennett is going to be there in July. Here is a little promo to wet your appetite. I will report on the Sonny Rollins show after Friday. They say you have not really experienced Sonny Rollins and his music until you see a live show. If you get to Toronto by Saturday you may see Lin and I.

My wife and I are off on a much needed vacation next week. We will finish things up in Toronto at the Jazz Fest. We have some good tickets to see Sonny Rollins on Friday. My daughter suggested that I do some live updates - we will see how it goes. In the meantime here is a podcast I found, enjoy!

When I started collecting vinyl record albums I noticed a marketing ploy from back in the 50's and 60's. Look at the cover of the original Miles Davis' "Someday My Prince Will Come", and you will see an attractive white woman. This clip from Ovation Tv about the history of Blue Note will give some insight.

I fall in love too easily
I fall in love too fast
I fall in love too terribly hard
For love to ever last

Composer Jule Styne and lyricist Sammy Cahn wrote “I Fall in Love Too Easily” for the 1945 film Anchors Aweigh

Here are five different versions of the same song. The first three are instrumental and the last two include vocals. This is the genius of a jazz standard. It's appeal is timeless and the variations unlimited. If you get any bad links blame it on the youtube police. Enjoy