harlem – Hipster Sanctuary

HAPPY 85 TO JAZZ LEGENDARY SAXOPHONIST SONNY ROLLINS !

posted by robert j. carmack #@blues2jazzguy

SONNY ROLLINS SEPTEMBER 7 1930

Sonny Rollins MOHAWK — Sonny Rollins in 1959 w Mohawk

Sonny Mohawk 3 Rollins — Prestige Records Golden Sonny Rollins

Sonny Rollins turned 85 years old today . its hard to believe ,not because of his age, but, in spite of his age. He still holds court somewhere in the world on major stages blowing long, multi-note phrases, swinging violently on the most miniscule of sub-themes set up by his own improvisations. Very few things are more exciting than watching and listening to Sonny Rollins in Beast mode. My first experience seeing and hearing him was as a curious child watching 1950s television, that just happened to have a jazz band playing that night. I saw this really cool looking black man with a shiny horn , sun glasses and a Mohawk. I think it was Steve Allen or Jack Parr’s version of the The Tonight Show. Sonny Rollins was more than a jazz musician, he was a mentor to other jazz musicians, cultural and fashion icon whose influences went beyond the bandstand as well. He was the first black man I ever saw with a Mohawk (1959)..Quite the dresser on stage when he wanted to, He was the first I ever saw with clean-shaved head(1960s) and diamond-studded Ascot.

My first live Sonny Rollins concert, I was now 21 and living in Los Angeles 1971, he was performing at the museum of modern Art outside.. I watched with such wide-eyed delight as he swung so hard on unbelievable tempos, countered that with such tender,velvety arpeggios like he did on such classics as, I Can’t Get Started or Don’t Blame Me. Fast-forward to late 1990s and I’m now living in Atlanta Georgia watching a much older man with full head of snow-white hair and full beard, with a very nice suit with red “Chuck Taylor” Converse basketball shoes. This time his band personnel was young guys except for his long-time bassist Bob Cranshaw. The results were still the same…long-winded solos on jazz standards and some west indian folk songs paying homage to Rollins’ West Indian roots.

This man has appeared in countless numbers of countries on even more super numbers of stages,over (7) seven decades of playing professionally and like a great Rolls Royce classic, even though high milage, He still purrs and runs like new.

Well done sir! Happy Birthday Sonny, keep coming back!

THE JAZZ PIONEERS ROOM- ELI “LUCKY” THOMPSON

“While John Coltrane usually receives the most credit for bringing the soprano saxophone out of obsolescence in the early 1960s, Thompson (along with Steve Lacy) embraced the instrument earlier than Coltrane.”

Lucky Thompson June 16, 1924 – July 30, 2005 After playing with the swing orchestras of Lionel Hampton, Don Redman, Billy Eckstine (alongside Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker), Lucky Millinder, and Count Basie, he worked in rhythm and blues and then established a career in bebop and hard bop, working with Kenny Clarke, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Milt Jackson.

Ben Ratliff noted that, Thompson “connected the swing era to the more cerebral and complex bebop style. His sophisticated, harmonically abstract approach to the tenor saxophone built off that of Don Byas and Coleman Hawkins; he played with Be-boppers, but resisted Charlie Parker’s pervasive influence.” He showed these capabilities as sideman on many albums recorded during the mid-1950s, such as Stan Kenton’s Cuban Fire!, and those under his own name. He recorded with Charlie Parker (on two Los Angeles Dial Records sessions) and on Miles Davis’s hard bop Walkin’ session. Thompson recorded albums as leader for ABC Paramount and Prestige and as a sideman on records for Savoy Records with Milt Jackson as leader.

HIPSTER SANCTUARY HALL of FAME SALUTES TRUMPET LEGEND ROY ELDRIDGE

One of the true innovators & chief architects of the modern style jazz Trumpet after Louis Armstrong’s “smooth phrasing” style, sheer Pizazz!- Hipster Collection Corner @ Facebook

David Roy Eldridge (January 30, 1911 – February 26, 1989), commonly known as Roy Eldridge, and nicknamed “Little Jazz”, was an American jazz trumpet player. His sophisticated use of harmony, including the use of tri-tone substitutions, his virtuosic solos exhibiting a departure from the smooth and lyrical style of earlier jazz trumpet innovator Louis Armstrong, and his strong impact on Dizzy Gillespie mark him as one of the most influential musicians of the swing era and a precursor of bebop. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROY!

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