Music and Recording Reviews

Sonny Rollins: Freedom Weaver
Rollins, tenor saxophone; Henry Grimes, bass; Pete LaRoca or Kenny Clarke or Joe Harris, drums
Resonance HCD-2065 (3 CDs, available as 4 LPs). 2024. Zev Feldman, prod.; George Klabin, Fran Gala, sound restoration
Performance *****
Sonics ***½

At 93, Sonny Rollins is our greatest living jazz musician. He has retired from playing, but he is still in the news. Last year came Aidan Levy's monumental biography, Saxophone Colossus. There have also been major archival releases, the latest of which, Freedom Weaver, comes from a 10-day period in March 1959, during Rollins's first European tour. It contains performances in radio and television stations, clubs, and concert halls. The music has never been issued before in official releases—only bootlegs. Like all output from the distinguished Resonance label, the production offers optimized sound and voluminous documentation.

In March 1959, Rollins was 28. His legendary stamina was at its height, physically, technically, and creatively. He plays here in his best format, the trio. To immerse yourself in this music is an overwhelming experience. In the wide-open space of a trio, with no chording instrument, Rollins is free to unleash his imagination. In this compiled three-hour saxophone recital, he inspires shock and awe.

One of the insightful statements about Rollins in the CD booklet comes from Branford Marsalis. He speaks of Rollins's "beautiful improvisatory stream of consciousness" and says, "Sonny ... understood the best way to stay spontaneous was to have more information." At his best, Rollins always surrendered to the moment. This "information," in the form of his vast repertoire of standard songs, flowed through his improvisations. He was a master of theme-and-variation.

On the third CD, recorded in a French theater in the company of the great Kenny Clarke, free of the time constraints of broadcast recordings, Rollins stretches out, in a beautiful improvisatory stream of consciousness.—Thomas Conrad

Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few: The Almighty
Collier, tenor saxophone, vocals; Julian Davis Reid, piano; Jeremiah Hunt, bass; Michael Shekwoaga Ode, drums; 13 others
Division 81 DIV-005 (CD, available as LP). 2024. Collier, Sonny Daze, Maurice Montoya, prods.; Sizwe Banzi Butler, Lee Farmer, engs.
Performance ****
Sonics ***

At the Belgrade Jazz Festival in Serbia in October 2023, your correspondent heard Isaiah Collier for the first time. It was an electrifying experience. Collier, now 26, is the kind of tenor saxophone behemoth you don't hear anymore. He is a direct descendant of seers and revolutionaries of the previous century like Pharoah Sanders, Albert Ayler, and late-period John Coltrane.

His much-anticipated new album is not an unqualified success. Collier (like his forebears) conceives music as a means to spiritual liberation. His songs have titles like "Perspective (Peace + LOVE)." But when he attempts to carry his message through vocals, his lyrics are platitudinous. Collier's powerful instrumental music is, by itself, capable of embracing large themes. It does not need people chanting "Peace and love." Also, the recorded sound of this album is incapable of containing its music. Sonically, The Almighty is a flat wall of harshness, lacking texture and discriminating detail.

But there is enough great Collier here to reveal what the buzz is about. When his music erupts, with his saxophone raving, and his rhythm section (The Chosen Few) careening, Collier can sweep you away.

The culmination of the album is the 18-minute title track. Collier expands his ensemble with 11 players from his native Chicago. The din can sound like chaos until you adjust, and then you hear the recurrent motifs. The music surges to shattering catharses, only to keep ascending into still more overwhelming crescendos. Sometimes the tumult subsides for searing solos. An unidentified violinist, Collier, and alto saxophonist Fred Jackson all achieve release. Isaiah Collier is an important new force in jazz.—Thomas Conrad

Arild Andersen/Daniel Sommer/Rob Luft: As Time Passes
Andersen, bass; Sommer, drums; Luft, guitar and effects
April APR127CD (CD, available as LP). 2024. Andersen, Sommer, Luft, prods.; Mads Mølgaard Helbæk, eng.
Performance ****
Sonics ****½

As Time Passes presents a new multigenerational, multinational ensemble. Arild Andersen, now approaching 80, is one of Norway's most revered jazz musicians. Daniel Sommer and Rob Luft, emerging artists in their 30s, are from Denmark and the UK, respectively.

Andersen is a bassist of unique sensitivity and melodicism. Bassists are classified as rhythm section players. What they do is rarely described as "pretty." Andersen is one of the prettiest bass players on earth. On each track, as he insinuates a pulse, he also participates in unveiling the theme and then threads haunting countermelodies all through the song.

For many, the revelation of this album will be Luft, a source of new beauty on guitar. He is a poetic thinker whose lyricism, as it billows, ranges far and free. Sometimes he catches you off guard when he digs in and burns. Luft is also creative with overdubs and reverb, with which he expands the sonic landscape of the music.

This band, like so many today, plays originals. But unlike most ensembles, the group here contains three real composers who write from inspiration, not ego. "Fifth Winter" and "Evening Song" confirm once again that as a composer, Andersen specializes in variations on yearning. Sommer is a drummer with a gift for floating, hovering melody, as on "A Day in March." Luft's opening title track is a reverie. It establishes an enveloping atmosphere for the whole album. This release includes something that is too rare these days: informative liner notes. Journalist Michael Tucker correctly describes As Time Passes as a quintessential example of a shift in jazz that can be traced back to the Bill Evans Trio, when groups began to transcend self and pursue a shared imaginative vision.—Thomas Conrad