The Freedom Suite - Sonny Rollins

Being a musician who usually plays with the trio orchestration - and having a great deal of respect for Sonny Rollins - this album has always been of particular interest to me. Playing in a trio (especially without a chordal instrument such as a piano) requires a different approach than larger groups - variety must be created by means other than simply switching to another soloist, harmony must be more sketched out by lines than chords, etc.

Tackling an extended work like this suite (clocking in at nearly 20 minutes) only magnifies some of these challenges - and really calls upon the musicians to exploit all manner of textural, dynamic and melodic variations (great and small) to keep the music interesting and engaging. It's all too easy for a trio to lapse into a sort of monotone, two-dimensional sound if the playing isn't inspired. Fortunately, the "Freedom Suite" doesn't suffer from any lack of inspiration.

As can be surmised from the title, "The Freedom Suite" has the overtones of a political statement - Sonny's commentary on the burgeoning civil rights movement. Having come from a "free jazz" background, I was initially drawn to the title of the suite for other reasons as well, being curious as to whether or not this was also indicative that some especially unique example of Rollins' playing that I'd yet to hear.

As even a cursory listen will reveal, there's nothing particularly "out" or "free" about the playing here (certainly Sonny's collaborations with Don Cherry in '63 or 1966's East Broadway Run Down are further "out"), but "Freedom Suite" is nonetheless brimming with wonderful examples of Sonny's playing during this period. A bit less fiery than the Vanguard live recordings of the previous year, but be all means worth the listen. (Several listens in fact: there's no shortage of great playing here). No matter where this album stands in the continuum of bop to free, Rollins was clearly blazing the trail in the late 50's, providing a blueprint for generations of horn-led trios to follow, a roadmap of how to work with this orchestration and integrate elements from the different stylistic camps evolving in the music at the time.

The opening theme is some is something few could pull off with the utter cool that Rollins does (Dexter Gordon maybe) - it's a potentially hokey little melody in the wrong hands. What Sonny and the band does with it alludes to "free" jazz more than explicitly embodying it's aesthetic: the theme is merely used as launching pad, albeit one that Sonny deftly refers back to with a number of clever turns of the line in his subsequent solo(s). Max Roach really does the work of several band members, using his polyrhythmic style to really work the form. In many ways, Max's playing comes off as the most "free" of the group, less constrained by the "tyranny of the bar line" and sundry post-bop conventions and cliches in general. For his part, Pettiford compliments this seamlessly by interspersing pedal tones and ostinato riffs with walking lines. Rollins can just sing above it all, and does, sailing over the shifting textures with cohesive lines that unify the whole. While all of the playing is still rooted in the post-bop vocabulary (and far from being "outside") "Freedom Suite" strikes me as more of a "shape of jazz to come" phenomenon: the way the trio is playing together - and how they're approaching the tune - is all indicative of the more adventurous ensemble playing that many would explore in the sixties. Fanning the flames of the revolution.

Sonny Rollins - The Freedom Suite (Riverside RLP 12-258)
NYC, March 7, 1958

Here's a somewhat related morsel - an interview with producer Orrin Keepnews regarding the "Freedom Suite" sessions:

Go - Dexter Gordon

Right from Gordon and Higgins' entrance over Butch Warren's descending bass line on Cheese Cake, this album lives up to its name, and goes. Dexter wades right into his solo with a self-assured and confidence that leaves no question that this is going to be smokin set. His tone is expansive and majestic throughout - Sonny Clarke follows with a brief, terse and somewhat restrained post-boppish, post-Powell solo before Dexter comes sailing back in for a few choruses, keeping the energy of the piece intact. It's easy to hear from the broad, rich tone Gordon plays with why Dexter is considered one of Trane's influences - check out the higher register wails Dexter works in.

The ballad that follows - I Guess I'll Hang My Tears Out To Dry - again seems reminiscent of Coltrane. Like Trane's Soul Eyes, (perhaps somewhat inexplicably for myself - and myself alone) it vividly conjures up the image/sensation of a late night cab ride in NYC - say, speeding uptown on Lexington in the pouring rain on one of those first fall nights, when that first chill cuts through the damp air, yet the insular environs of that cab's back seat hold the cold at bay, and the city streams by serenely in a watery blur of bending light and shadow... Such obtuse imagery and metaphor aside, Dexter's rich tone overflows from this tune, drawing the listener in, immersing you in a curious ennui...

The more rollicking Second Balcony Jump changes the pace to more of a straight-up, joyous blowing session. Higgin's nimbly timekeeping keeps a slightly loose pulse - creating an infectious swing on this tune. Higgins draws us into the groove further with the latin intro on Love For Sale. Dexter's statement of the melody - and his soaring, caterwauling, singing solo that follow conspire to make this perhaps my favorite recording of this piece. Dexter sounds at once majestic and sarcastic: injecting wry turns of phrase into lines that evoke a sense of grandeur that transcends the tune itself. His mariachi-esque entrance after Clarke's solo soon gives way to brilliant ascending arpeggios nearly spanning the range of the horn, replete with fat, bulbous low register honks (again bringing to mind Trane's playing of this period) to keening, almost vocal upper-register wails.

Where Are You brings me back to those autumnal, rain-slicked city streets, with Dexter again conjuring a sense of a kind of regal loneliness - that incomparable realization of aloneness that the city can evoke at times...

Announcing its arrival with a quote from Miles' classic If I Were A Bell, Three In The Morning is another mid tempo number that Gordon shines on: Asserting his cool, confident mastery of the instrument and the idiom. As Miles described Dexter's style of dress - "cleaner than a broke-dick dog" - this tune (an otherwise typical, forgettable hard-bop vehicle) is transformed at Gordon's hands into something with much more class - again, transcendent. One only need listen to Clarke's perfectly adroit and idiomatic solo in contrast to Gordon's playing, and Dexter's greatness is evident. Once more, Gordon enters after Sonny's solo with a tongue-in-cheek quote from Take Me Out To The Ballgame - almost trivializing Clarke's solo. Not to undermine Sonny - he's one of my favorite pianists of this period and style - just that the clarity of Dexter's inspiration on this date is in such a league of its own, rather overshadowing the playing of the rest of the band. From the perspective of being "Dexter's band," however, their performance is stellar all around. Completely supportive as a rhythm section, they lay down an infallible groove throughout, and deliver a few more modest solos that set off Gordon's work as all the more dazzling - solos that in other contexts that in their own right are nothing to be scoffed at.

What's important here, is that Go! is clearly a Dexter Gordon album - a wonderful documentation of a man playing at the height of his powers. Go! is definitely one that should be on the short list for any fan of hard-bop, 60s jazz - or for that matter, anybody with ears.

Go! (Blue Note - BLP 4112)
Rudy Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ
August 27, 1962