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Sonny Rollins

Holding the Stage - Road Shows, Vol. 4

Sony Masterworks | OKeh

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Tracks
Sonny Rollins - Why Charlie Parker Is Still Important
Sonny Rollins - Read, Don't Watch TV
My Saxophone Mentors - Sonny Rollins
1 In a Sentimental Mood
2 Professor Paul
3 Mixed Emotions
4 Keep Hold of Yourself
5 Disco Monk
6 You're Mine You
7 H.S.
8 Sweet Leilani
9 Solo
10 Don't Stop the Carnival
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For his new album Holding the Stage: Road Shows, vol. 4, the great tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins once again taps into his vast archives of his own concert recordings to compile superior performances for release in the acclaimed Road Shows series. The album encompasses some 33 years (1979-2012) yet coheres with all of the compelling logic and narrative force of an extended Sonny solo. Released by Doxy Records with Sony Music Masterworks - OKeh, this recording is truly a treasure chest that includes tunes Rollins has never before recorded and musical relationships previously undocumented. "This album consists of various periods of my career, with something for everybody," says Rollins. "It's who I am, and the music represents just about every aspect of what I do."

  • The Notebooks of Sonny Rollins / THE BROOKLYN RAIL
    Posted At: February 1, 2024 12:00 AM
    THE BROOKLYN RAIL's George Grella writes…Sonny Rollins was not yet twenty-six years old when he recorded the album that would be Saxophone Colossus. No one at the time or since has ever thought of that title as any kind of hubris—the album in fact is one of the greatest documents in the entire jazz discography. The playing from Rollins, pianist Tommy Flanagan, bassist Doug Watkins, and drummer Max Roach is ...
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  • Sonny Rollins in a rare conversation with David Sanborn / 88.3WGBO
    Posted At: November 7, 2023 12:00 AM
    "My playing is my meditation": Sonny RollinsMiles Davis was an early Sonny Rollins fan and in his autobiography wrote that he “began to hang out with Sonny Rollins and his Sugar Hill Harlem crowd… anyway, Sonny had a big reputation among a lot of the younger musicians in Harlem. People loved Sonny Rollins up in Harlem and everywhere else. He was a legend, almost a god to a lot of the younger musicians. Some...
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  • Bridging the gap from Sonny Rollins to Kendrick Lamar / Prospect
    Posted At: April 5, 2023 12:00 AM
    The work of the jazz biographer is getting more and more difficult. But we still need it—and them—to help us understand today’s cultureProspect's Philip Clark writes…..The art of writing jazz biography is, these days, a race against time. A mere decade and a half ago, modern jazz pioneers such as Ornette Coleman, Dave Brubeck and Lee Konitz were not only willing to talk, but sought to untangle misunderstand...
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  • Now 91, Sonny Rollins recalls those long cold days on the bridge and on coping, after losing the power to play / The Guardian
    Posted At: January 21, 2022 12:00 AM
    The Guardian's John Fordham writes….If you happened to be gazing idly from a window of New York City’s J train crossing the East River on the Williamsburg Bridge, most days between the summer of 1959 and the autumn of 1961, you might have glimpsed a lone saxophonist huddled into a cranny of the gigantic steel skeleton.Travellers on the footway might have got close to the sound of him, too: an astonishing tu...
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  • January 'UNCUT' contains rare interview with Sonny Rollins
    Posted At: January 12, 2021 12:00 AM

    Michael Bonner writes.......This month's Uncut contains a rare interview with Sonny Rollins – the last of the true jazz titans, whose music Dylan once described as "big league sound, covering all bases". John Lewis's superb interview reads like history unfolding, as Rollins takes us through his memories of some of the 20th century's most profound musical and cultural revolutions, including jazz, th...
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  • Sonny Rollins - The man who became a saxophone / The Sydney Morning Herald
    Posted At: November 23, 2020 12:00 AM

    Overnight he plunged from being as bright a star as any in the 1959 jazz firmament to not playing in public. When health issues intertwined with a crippling dissatisfaction with his own art, Sonny Rollins, then the most lauded tenor saxophonist alive, stopped to take stock and absorb the revolution espoused by the free-jazz radicals. To avoid disturbing his neighbours, he practised for endless hours ...
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  • Rifftides celebrates Sonny Rollins' 88th birthday with two of his masterpieces
    Posted At: September 7, 2018 12:00 AM

    Today is Sonny Rollins' 88th birthday. He looks back on a lifetime in music that began when he was a teenager in New York City and took him to the heights of his profession, and of creativity unmatched by few artists in any category. It is tempting to bring you a survey of the saxophonist's most notable works, but lists can't say what music can. Mr. Rollins's best playing-with its rhythmic power, lyricis...
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  • About to turn 88, Sonny Rollins makes WBGO: Take Five, jazz legends born around labor day
    Posted At: September 3, 2018 12:00 AM

    Labor Day weekend is a time to honor our workers, and the spirit of industry they embody. Of course it also carries other connotations: backyard barbecues, furniture sales and family road trips, for starters. When thinking about a Labor Day edition of Take Five, I decided to bypass the standard fare - like Cannonball Adderley's "Work Song," which refers to a different set of circumstances than the on...
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  • Sonny Rollins looks back on 'Way Out West' and the ensemble format he made famous / JazzTimes
    Posted At: June 30, 2018 12:00 AM

    When Sonny Rollins' Way Out West was released by Contemporary Records in 1957, it got plenty of attention, and not just for its sharply funny cover photo featuring the saxophonist as a mock-cowboy. The album was a departure for Rollins in two major ways: He was teaming with players (bassist Ray Brown and drummer Shelly Manne) he'd never worked with before, and, for the first time on record, he wasn't usi...
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  • Sonny Rollins establishes ensemble at Oberlin
    Posted At: February 20, 2018 12:00 AM

    It was a letter that helped jazz legend Sonny Rollins make up his mind. The 87 year old jazz legend, whose life life-long mission has been to give back to others wanted to award a major gift to one of the schools that had  honored him with a doctorate. The question became: "where?" Rollins who has received honorary degrees from a number of institution was considering Berklee College of Music, The Ne...
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  • The Williamsburg Bridge could be getting a new name / Time Out - New York
    Posted At: October 25, 2017 12:00 AM

    The Williamsburg Bridge is one of New York City's many architectural gems. When it was completed in 1903, it was the largest suspension bridge span on the planet. Since then, it's been a vital connection between Lower Manhattan and the Brooklyn neighborhood after which it is named. But a new campaign could give the 114-year-old marvel a new moniker: the Sonny Rollins Bridge. Since last spring, Je...
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  • Monterey Jazz features a tribute to Sonny Rollins / The Mercury News
    Posted At: September 14, 2017 12:00 AM

    The saxophone master is a longtime festival favorite, having appeared at Monterey Jazz many times over the years - including at the inaugural event in 1958. Rollins is now retired, but festival artistic director Tim Jackson - who describes the legendary musician as "one of the Mt. Rushmore artists in jazz" - has organized this amazing tribute with Jimmy Heath, Joe Lovano, Branford Marsalis, Joshua Redman...
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  • Sonny Rollins turns 87 and reflects on his jazz legacy / CBC Radio - q
    Posted At: September 6, 2017 12:00 AM

    It's not often that you can justify the use of the term living legend. But when it comes to jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins, the title fits. In a career of over seven decades, with more than 60 albums under his belt, Rollins has pushed the boundaries of the genre to a wealth of new directions. Newk, as Sonny is affectionately known, has become a giant of the scene. Due to health reasons, Rollins can n...
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  • NPR interviews Sonny Rollins about his collaborations and contents of his archives
    Posted At: June 12, 2017 12:00 AM

    Everyone knows the legendary names of 20th-century jazz, but there are only a handful of those greats still around to tell their stories. One of them is saxophonist Sonny Rollins. He recently donated his personal archives, which cover a seven-decade career, to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library. NPR's Audie Cornish and Christian McBride, bassist and ...
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  • Sonny Rollins archive acquired by NYPL - Schomburg Center / NPR
    Posted At: May 31, 2017 12:00 AM

    Sonny Rollins wasn't really thinking about the formation of an archive as he went about his life and career over the last 60 years - as a tenor saxophonist of unsurpassed stature, an artist of active spiritual and social engagement, and an embodiment of jazz's improvisational ideal. But his accumulation of writings, recordings and other material does amount to a formidable collection, and it has ...
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  • NYPL - Schomburg Center acquires Sonny Rollins archive / New York Times
    Posted At: May 29, 2017 12:00 AM

    The saxophonist Sonny Rollins, perhaps jazz's most respected living improviser, is also one of its most relentless seekers. But that's well known; what's not as widely recognized is the diversity - and the depth - of his inquiry. Yes, there's his herculean practice regimen (upward of eight hours a day, even into middle age) and the yearslong sabbaticals he took from performing to hone his craft. But Mr. ...
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  • Jazz greats come together to celebrate Sonny Rollins / Jazz-Quad
    Posted At: April 17, 2017 12:00 AM

    Voted by Miles Davis as the greatest tenor ever, Sonny Rollins is known for being an inventive saxophonist and an astonishing soloist. Jazz greats come together to celebrate Sonny Rollins and his music on Saturday, April 29, 8p at The Performing Arts Center, Purchase, NY. While Mr. Rollins won't take the stage on this night, he is anticipated to attend, and his legacy will be on full display. Pl...
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  • Shouldn't we name the Williamsburg Bridge after Sonny Rollins? / the Paris Review
    Posted At: April 9, 2017 12:00 AM

    The Williamsburg Bridge is a fine name for a bridge, especially when one half of that bridge ends in Williamsburg. But not every Williamsburg Bridge has given a safe harbor to one of the greatest jazz musicians in history-and say one had? Shouldn't we name it after the saxophonist, and not the neighborhood? The neighborhood has had a good run; it's time for a change. Amanda Petrusich has the st...
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  • A quest to rename the Williamsburg Bridge for Sonny Rollins / The New Yorker
    Posted At: April 7, 2017 12:00 AM

    Between 1953 and 1959, the jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins released twenty-one full-length albums. This kind of prolificacy seems absurd now, during an era in which new musical material is meted out on a preordained, market-friendly schedule-a few weeks of recording, a year or two of touring, a cashed paycheck, repeat. But music rushed out of Rollins, like an overfed river. Miles Davis described...
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  • What's it all about Sonny? / The New Yorker
    Posted At: April 2, 2017 12:00 AM

    The attention paid to movie scores-particularly in concert halls, where they're often played live to accompany screenings-doesn't, for the most part, serve movies any better than music. It's painful to think of musicians, expert in works from Beethoven to Boulez, sawing away for two hours at a score by John Williams (as the New York Philharmonic will be doing for screenings of "E.T." three times in May) ...
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  • Sonny Rollins - Holding the Stage: Road Shows, Vol. 4 makes NPR Music ' 2016 Jazz Critics Poll'
    Posted At: December 22, 2016 12:00 AM

    For his new album Holding the Stage: Road Shows, vol. 4, the great tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins once again taps into his vast archives of his own concert recordings to compile superior performances for release in the acclaimed Road Shows series. The album encompasses some 33 years (1979-2012) yet coheres with all of the compelling logic and narrative force of an extended Sonny solo. Released...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Watch Sonny Rollins masterclass on 'mezzo'
    Posted At: September 30, 2016 12:00 AM

    Saxophonist Sonny Rollins, who had always refused to be filmed 'off stage', accepted the invitation of 'The Music Lesson'. Rollins follows the rules of the programme: at Salle Wagram, four young musicians, Charles Schneider (tenor saxophone), Marc Thomas (alto saxophone), Yves Torchinsky (bass) and Stéphane Gremaud (drums) dutifully follow his advice in front of two cameras. All al...
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  • Richard Corsello, Sonny Rollins' Go-To Engineer / JazzTimes
    Posted At: July 22, 2016 12:00 AM

    Richard Corsello is Sonny Rollins' Go-To Engineer. How did he transform the subpar source recordings into Rollins' triumphant "Road Shows" series? The four volumes of Sonny Rollins' Road Shows are the most important archival jazz releases of the new millennium. Until Vol. 1 appeared in 2008, our greatest living jazz musician had not issued a representative recording in 40 years. The Road Show...
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  • Sonny Rollins is WEAA Radio's Jazz Master of the Month
    Posted At: July 3, 2016 12:00 AM

    On September 7, 1930, Sonny Rollins was born in New York City. Rollins' artistic neighborhood included such musical giants (to-be) as Jackie McLean, drummer Art Taylor and pianist Kenny Drew. He lived only blocks away from the famous jazz spot The Savoy Ballroom and the world famous Apollo Theater, and only a few doorsteps from a saxophonist soon to become one of his idols, Coleman Hawkins. Start...
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  • The Zen of Sonny Rollins / JazzTimes
    Posted At: June 24, 2016 12:00 AM

    Sidelined by lung disease, our greatest living jazz musician longs for the stage and ponders the nature of existence. The most recently recorded track on Sonny Rollins' new album, Holding the Stage: Road Shows, Vol. 4 (Doxy/OKeh), is a ballad called "Mixed Emotions." On its face, it's the latest manifestation of the sublime way that Rollins-jazz's preeminent tenor saxophonist and most heralded ...
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  • Sonny Rollins makes cover of JazzTimes' June saxophone issue
    Posted At: June 10, 2016 12:00 AM

    For his new album Holding the Stage: Road Shows, vol. 4, the great tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins once again taps into his vast archives of his own concert recordings to compile superior performances for release in the acclaimed Road Shows series. The album encompasses some 33 years (1979-2012) yet coheres with all of the compelling logic and narrative force of an extended Sonny solo. Released...
    Bookmark and Share

  • Sonny Rollins interview with audioBoom
    Posted At: June 7, 2016 12:00 AM

    Today at 4 PM (edt) my special guest is jazz great Sonny Rollins, who recently released a new album Holding the Stage: Road Shows, vol. 4, on Sony. The great tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins once again taps into his vast archives of his own concert recordings to compile superior performances for release in the acclaimed Road Shows series. The album encompasses some 33 years (1979-2012) yet coher...
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  • Sonny Rollins - Holding the Stage makes Rhapsody - 5 New Jazz Releases You Need To Hear
    Posted At: May 18, 2016 12:00 AM

    Warrning! Rhapsody's 5 New Jazz Releases You Need To Hear have little or nothing in common. No thread running through them, no concept linking them, just talent, feeling and a bit of complexity thrown in to keep you on your toes. So goes the world of the Jazzbeaux, whose aim is to eliminate the snob of jazz-snobbery. There's no previous experience or expertise required because this is a place wh...
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  • Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / Jazztimes review
    Posted At: July 21, 2014 12:00 AM

    If you are able to own only one of the Road Shows albums (which would be a pity), make it the newly arrived Volume 3. It contains six performances that took place between 2001 and 2012 on three continents. There is some variation in personnel, but the core is Sonny Rollins' working band, with Bob Cranshaw on bass, Clifton Anderson on trombone and either Bobby Broom or Peter Bernstein on guitar. Rollins' ...
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  • Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / The Scotsman review
    Posted At: July 20, 2014 12:00 AM

    This recording Road Shows Vol. 3 provides proof that age is no barrier to exuberant performance. Its star, tenor saxophone titan Sonny Rollins, is to be heard in one powerhouse live performance after another during a period (2001-2012) when his age ranged from 71 to 81. Particularly riveting is Solo Sonny, an eight-minute stream of musical consciousness in which Rollins steams through a couple of chapter...
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  • Sonny Rollins on all that jazz / Stuff.co.nz
    Posted At: June 29, 2014 12:00 AM

    Now 83, jazz legend Sonny Rollins talks about times good and bad and why he never listens to his own music. With a roar and a thump, the sky began to fall. It was September 11, 2001, and the first plane had just slammed into The World Trade Center in New York. Just a few blocks away, on the 40th floor of his apartment building, jazz pioneer Sonny Rollins, then 71, says it felt like the apocalypse had...
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  • The Curious Case of Sonny Rollins / iRock Jazz interview
    Posted At: June 26, 2014 12:00 AM

    In a space defined by its progressive thought and forward-thinking, Sonny Rollins maintains his place as one of jazz's most eccentric personalities. And as such, it affects the way in which we examine his life. For most artists, we track their lives through the lens of artistic output, because what is the creator without his creation? With Sonny Rollins, however, we must address the inner workings of...
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  • Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / Rifftides review
    Posted At: June 24, 2014 12:00 AM

    Thriving on the energy he gets back from his listeners, Sonny Rollins can electrify them. In the third volume of his Road Show series the formidable tenor saxophonist sends currents through audiences in Japan, the United States and four places in France. The solitary listener to the recording may find himself joining in the ovations for Rollins's audacity, humor and explosions of creativity. From 2001 to...
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  • Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / WRTI: 'June Jazz Pick'
    Posted At: June 24, 2014 12:00 AM

    Sonny Rollins: Road Shows, Volume 3 - They say Sonny Rollins still practices three hours a day, and I wouldn't doubt the stamina of this jazz nobleman who, at 83, continues to perform at sold-out concert halls all over the world. He still plays faster and with more finesse than players half his age. If you've been fortunate enough to see Rollins in concert, you've experienced that charismatic energy radi...
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  • Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / Financial Times review
    Posted At: June 20, 2014 12:00 AM

    Sonny Rollins: Road Shows Vol.3: Though each track on a different source and personnel – the time-span begins in Japan in 2001 and ends in France in 2012 – the album feels like a typical late-life Rollins performance. The saxophonist first worries a simple theme into music of substance and then constructs an improvisation of architectural grandeur helped by a solid band. There's a funky o...
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  • Sonny Rollins - Road Shows Vol. 3 / Chico News & Review
    Posted At: June 19, 2014 12:00 AM

    Tenor sax giant Theodore Walter ("Sonny") Rollins' third collection of his road-show gigs finds the octogenarian (he turns 84 in September) in performance at five global venues dating from 2001 to 2012. Rollins has long preferred clubs and concert halls as the sites for live recordings and the six tunes on this disc were recorded in concerts in France, Japan and the United States. Not only does recording...
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