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R.I.P. Sonny Rollins (1930-2026)

Posted in Jazz, R.I.P. with tags , , , , , , , , on May 26, 2026 by telescoper

I woke this morning to the sad news that the great tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins passed away yesterday at the age of 95. He was one of the most influential and creative musicians of his time and there are many justifiably glowing obituaries of him. I can’t add much that hasn’t already been said by them, other than say that I consider myself deeply privileged to have been able see and hear Sonny Rollins play live, not once but twice, during the 1980s. The first was in the relatively intimate surroundings of Ronnie Scott’s club in London and the second in the Royal Festival Hall. On both occasions he was fantastic. Sonny Rollins was one of those musicians who made me think when I watched him that if you took the instrument out of his mouth it would somehow carry on playing on its own. At Ronnie Scott’s club he opened one set by starting to play in the band room, walking out through the audience onto the stage still playing and then about an hour later walked off back the way he came, still playing. The tune was Thelonious Monk’s 52nd Street Theme. He ended his set at the Festival Hall with an unstoppable version of Don’t Stop The Carnival that had everyone leaping about in the aisles. There was so much music in him it just had to come out. Was he playing the music or was it playing him?

Sonny Rollins began playing professionally when he was a teenager in the late 1940s but came to the attention of the jazz world in earnest when he teamed up with Miles Davis for a 1954 recording session that led to a record called Miles Davis with Sonny Rollins. (Coincidentally, today would have been Miles Davis’s 100th birthday). That record, originally issued on a 10″ LP, showcased Rollins’s big muscular sound on tenor sax, but also consisted of four tracks, three of which were compositions by Sonny Rollins, including a now-standard Oleo. That record was really Sonny’s breakthrough and he went on to record dozens of superb albums both as leader: A Night at the Village Vanguard, Saxophone Colossus, Newk’s Time, and Way Out West, to name just four. He also made many records as a side man, including the must-have album, Brilliant Corners with Thelonious Monk.

Having established himself as a major artist, Rollins suddenly took a three-year break from playing between 1959 to 1961 to develop his technique. Lacking space to practice in his apartment, he did so every day on the Williamsburg Bridge. When he returned to a recording studio in early 1962, the result was another classic album, The Bridge.

(Left: Sonny Rollins c. 1960)

Having established himself as a major artist, Rollins suddenly took a three-year break from playing between 1959 to 1961 to develop his technique. Lacking space to practice in his apartment, he did so every day on the Williamsburg Bridge. When he returned to a recording studio in early 1962, the result was another classic album, The Bridge.

In all he made over 60 albums, of which I have about a dozen. I’ll be listening to them a lot over the next few days and may post a few further items about them in due course.One thing I always liked about Sonny Rollins was his tendency to take a shine to very unexpected tunes and turn them into something magical. Off the top of my head I can think of The Surrey with the Fringe on Top, How are Things in Glocca Morra? and I’m an Old Cowhand.

It’s impossible to pick a single track than can do justice to Sonny Rollins so I’m just going to include a couple here. The first is the very first track I ever heard by him, on a Blue Note sampler album. It’s a Miles Davis tune called Tune Up and it’s from the 1957 Blue Note album Newk’s Time with Wynton Kelly (piano), Doug Watkins (bass), and Philly Joe Jones (drums). Perhaps listening to the energy and invention of his playing, delivered with that characteristically leathery tone then you’ will understand why I fell instantly in love with his music and wanted to hear more.

The second is one of my favourite records of all time. It’s called Hold’ Em Joe and it was recorded in 1965 with Ray Bryant (piano), Walter Booker (bass) and the fabulous Mickey Roker on drums:

As a sad footnote on this sad occasion, the passing of Sonny Rollins means that not one of the great musicians in this famous photograph A Great Day in Harlem, taken on August 12th 1958, is still with us:

Rest in Peace Sonny Rollins (1930-1954), Saxophone Colossus indeed.

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Joy Spring – Clifford Brown & Max Roach

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , , , on May 13, 2026 by telescoper

This tune popped into my head when I was walking home this evening so after dinner I listened to my CD of the terrific 1954 album Clifford Brown & Max Roach, on which it first appeared. Trumpeter Clifford Brown wrote the tune Joy Spring when he was just 23 for his wife Larue and it became a jazz standard. This first version features a quintet jointly led by Brown and Max Roach on drums, together with hugely underrated tenor saxophonist Harold Land, Richie Powell on piano (younger brother of Bud Powell, whose influence you can hear in his playing) and George Morrow on bass. The whole album is great, but I think the standout tracks are this version of Joy Spring and their version of Duke Jordan’s tune Jordu. Brown’s solo on Joy Spring demonstrates his beautifully crisp articulation and his superb capacity for sustained melodic invention, moving into and out of double-time. He only plays two choruses, but packs so much into them. Enjoy!

Despite it’s happy feel, this track will always be tinged with tragedy. Less than two years after this session both Clifford Brown and Richie Powell were killed in a car crash: Brown was 25 and Powell 24.

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The Original Peaky Blinders Jazz Band

Posted in History, Jazz, Television with tags , , , , on April 15, 2026 by telescoper

I’ve been greatly enjoying the boxed set of six seasons of Peaky Blinders that I received as a gift recently. I may do a sort of review when I get to the end, but until then I thought I’d throw in a few tangential things. This post is an example. Here’s another one. This clip is from Episode 2 of Series 1, when the Shelby family are celebrating the reopening of the Garrison pub after it was destroyed by a firebomb earlier on. Listen to the background music at the start.

The music being played is Livery Stable Blues by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, a record I blogged about here. Released in 1917, it is no exaggeration to say that this was the first every commercial jazz record; I blogged about the 100th anniversary of its release.

The band was originally called the “Original Dixieland Jass Band“. A few months later they changed the “Jass” to “Jazz” – it is claimed because people kept defacing their posters by removing the letter “J” – and the new name stuck. The Original Dixieland Jazz Band is usually referred by Jazz buffs as the ODJB.

Led by cornettist Nick LaRocca and clarinettist Larry Shields, the ODJB was a group of white musicians from in and around New Orleans who had picked up their musical ideas from listening to musicians there, including playing for the pioneering mixed-race band led by Papa Laine, before moving to Chicago which is where they were spotted by representatives of the Victor label. Although the sound quality isn’t great, it gives a good insight to what ealy jazz drummers were like – thumping bass and tom-toms but little use of the cymbals – and shows Larry Shields was a dab hand at glissandi…

Series 1 of Peaky Blinders is set in 1919 (mainly in Birmingham but also with scenes in London). Not a lot of people know that the ODJB actually visited England in 1919. They performed in review at the Hammersmith Palais and then did a command performance in front of King George V, who (apparently) particularly enjoyed their version of Tiger Rag. There is no evidence that they visited Birmingham, but we get a glimpse before the above clip of a band decked out to look like them, playing live in the Garrison pub. I very much enjoy little details like that!

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Fat Tuesday – Bourbon Street Parade

Posted in Biographical, Jazz with tags , , , on February 17, 2026 by telescoper

Today’s  the day folk in England  Shrove Tuesday, when one is supposed to get “shriven” by doing a penance before Lent. Another name for the occasion – favoured in Ireland – is Pancake Day, although I’m not sure what sort of penance it is to be forced to eat pancakes. Further afield the name for this day is a bit more glamorous. Mardi Gras, which I translated for the title of this post as Fat Tuesday using my schoolboy French, doesn’t make me think of pancakes but of carnivals. And being brought up in a house surrounded by Jazz, it makes me think of New Orleans and the wonderful marching bands that played not just during the Mardi Gras parades but at  just about every occasion for which they could find an excuse, including funerals.

The Mardi Gras parades gave rise to many of the great tunes of New Orleans Jazz, many of them named after the streets through which the parade would travel, mainly in  the famous French Quarter. Basin Street, South Rampart Street, and Bourbon Street are among the names redolent with history for Jazz fans and musicians around the world. The New Orleans Mardi Gras has on recent occasions sometimes got a bit out of hand, and you probably wouldn’t want to take kids into the French Quarter for fear they would see things they shouldn’t. Personally, though, I’d love the chance to savour the atmosphere and watch the parades.

Anyway, the clip I’ve chosen to mark the occasion of Fat Tuesday is Bourbon Street Parade. The one and only time I went to New Orleans I felt a real thrill walking along this Bourbon Street, just because I’ve heard the tune so many times on old records.  I didn’t go in Mardi Gras time, however, but in the middle of summer. The heat was sweltering and the humidity almost unbearable, but the air was filled with music as well as moisture. It was impossible to sleep in the heat, so I stayed up moving from bar to bar, drinking and listening to music until I was completely exhausted.

The tune was written by the late Paul Barbarin, who died in 1969 during a street parade in New Orleans. What a way to go! He also plays on the clip I included here. I picked this particular version because it features a much underrated British musician, Sammy Rimington. My Dad once played with Sammy Rimmngton and I remember the unqualified admiration with which he (my Dad) spoke of his (Sammy’s) playing.

P.S. This year Pancake Day coincides with both the Lunar New Year and the start of Ramadan. Best wishes to all who celebrate any of these!

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Time After Time – Chet Baker

Posted in Jazz with tags , , on February 14, 2026 by telescoper

It seems an appropriate evening for a romantic love song. Lyrics by Sammy Cahn, music by Jule Styne, vocals and trumpet by Chet Baker. Baker’s singing is quite unlike most jazz singers, and many jazz fans don’t like it very much, but I think his intimate, tender, and somewhat melancholic vocal performance together with his spare yet lyrical trumpet playing combine make this a classic.

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The Girl from Greenland – Chet Baker

Posted in Jazz with tags , , on January 20, 2026 by telescoper

One reason this track caught my eye is probably obvious given current events, but another is that the tune was written by another superbly individual yet largely forgotten pianist from the 1950s, Dick Twardzik. Sadly Twardzik died of a drug overdose just a few days after this was recorded, in October 1955 at the age of just 24. Chet Baker – who had his own share of problems with narcotics – became very popular for his very attractive singing voice as well as his “cool” trumpet tone, but this one is purely instrumental. The other members of the quartet are Peter Littman (drums) and Jimmy Bond (bass).

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De-Dah – Elmo Hope Trio

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , , , on January 14, 2026 by telescoper

I’m in the middle of marking examinations so I will only do a brief post, while I take a short break, to follow up on the one about Hampton Hawes I did a couple of days ago. When I wrote that one it struck me that there are rather a lot of great musicians, especially pianists like Hampton Hawes, who were never appreciated as much as they should have been. Another that springs to mind is Elmo Hope, for whom Thelonious Monk seems to have been a great influence and who therefore provides an interesting contrast with Hampton Hawes who was perhaps more influenced by Bud Powell. Elmo Hope died young, largely because of a bad heroin habit, which also affected his career through his erratic behaviour and the criminal record he acquired for narcotics offences. He was a really fine musician and composer, though, with a very original voice and idiosyncratic sense of time. This track was recorded in 1953 with Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums, both of whom were to find fame with Miles Davis a few years later.

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Carioca – Hampton Hawes Trio

Posted in Film, Jazz with tags , , , on January 11, 2026 by telescoper

The tune Carioca was a big hit in 1933 as a result of the film Flying Down to Rio (which, incidentally, saw the first pairing on screen of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers). There is a dance that goes with the tune, which involves the two dancers pressing their foreheads together, which always seem to me to risk an accidental headbutt (or present an opportunity for non-accidental one). Incidentally, “Carioca” is a slang term for a native of Rio de Janeiro.

Anyway, the popularity of the tune meant that many swing bands did versions: Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw and Woody Herman all had a go at it; the Artie Shaw version being particularly good. Later on, after the end of World War 2 and the arrival of the bebop era, many jazz musicians began to incorporate Latin-American rhythms and melodies into their work and this tune survived in various forms. There’s a very nice version by Chet Baker and Gerry Mulligan, for example.

My favourite is this marvellous up-tempo rendition by the shamefully underrated pianist Hampton Hawes and his trio recorded in 1955 with Red Mitchell on bass and Chuck Thompson on drums.

The pre-eminent modern piano stylists of the early fifties were Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell; Hawes was closer to the latter in approach, but it always seemed to me that he was the pianist paid the most direct musical homage to the great Charlie Parker; his solo on this is full of bebop licks and is taken at such a breakneck pace that even the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire wouldn’t have been able to keep up.

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O Tannenbaum – Vince Guaraldi Trio

Posted in Jazz, Television with tags , , , on December 22, 2025 by telescoper

A jazz version of an old song from an album called A Charlie Brown Christmas may not seem a very promising concept but I like it, so there. The original lyrics of O Tannenbaum don’t refer to Christmas at all, incidentally, but it has become a Christmas standard. This version is by the Vince Guaraldi Trio and it was recorded 60 years ago in 1965. Vince Guaraldi was a fine jazz pianist who had an interesting solo career as well as playing with bands led by Woody Herman and Carl Tjader, among others. He is best remembered, however, for composing the music that went with TV adaptations of the Peanuts cartoons written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz of which this is a nice example.

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Blue Christmas Again

Posted in Jazz with tags , , , on December 12, 2025 by telescoper

I’ve had a very busy penultimate week of term and am out of energy so instead of attempting a new post I thought I’d repost this “festive” classic. I posted this one during the “festive” season” in 2013 and haven’t posted it since. Until now. The band is led by none other than Miles Davis; the other members are Frank Rehak (trombone), Wayne Shorter (tenor sax), Paul Chambers (bass), Jimmy Cobb (drums), and Willie Bobo (bongos); the arrangement is unmistakably by Gil Evans. The vocalist is the legendary Bob Dorough who also wrote the lyrics.

“Bah Humbug” never sounded so cool!

 P.S. I’m not particularly blue myself, just tired…

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