This book lists Sonny Rollins as the author and Sam Reese as the editor but it appears to have been both edited and written for publication by Mr. Reese. The book has been constructed from many notebooks and jottings by the saxophonist, starting, it seems in 1959. This was a significant year for jazz with several now classic records being issued. As Reese points out, this was also the year Rollins disappeared from the jazz scene, aged 28, an undisputed master of the tenor saxophone and a former teen prodigy.
He was then spotted by a journalist, late at night, practising his instrument high up on the Williamsburg Bridge in New York. For two years Rollins did not record or play in clubs or anywhere else for that matter. The explanation for his withdrawal was given in an interview in Downbeat magazine in late 1961. Rollins said: “When I quit, I suppose I had the intention of changing myself drastically, my whole approach to the horn.” He later realised that wasn’t what he wanted at all. He said “I began to study what I had been doing… explored all the possibilities.” For two years Rollins followed a disciplined practice schedule with specific goals re-evaluated frequently. Musical practice was complemented by physical exercise and meditation. He continued with a strict regimen of reading and research blending diverse musicological texts with philosophical and political treatises.
This was also the time he began writing his notes, sometimes on a yellow legal pad, other times on pamphlets, photocopies or, as Reese puts it, anything that came to hand.
Reese points out that Rollins left the scene at a time seen as one of momentous transition. Rollins’ hard-bop style was branching out into the modal jazz of Miles Davis’s Kind Of Blue and the free jazz of Ornette Coleman’s The Shape Of Jazz To Come. Not surprising then that when Rollins came back to recording and playing clubs, his new record, The Bridge, was expected by many critics and jazz followers to be something new and revolutionary. It wasn’t. It was merely a good jazz record not dissimilar to his previous albums.
The author points out that if people had paid attention to what Rollins said about his withdrawal, they might have known what to expect. Rollins had said it was not just his own performances that bothered him, it was a general dissatisfaction with the world of jazz. Rollins said he wanted to achieve “mastership” through critical self-evaluation. To put it simply he was just trying to better himself, to produce, as he put it in his notes, “the instantaneous creation of music – an unbroken link from thought to thing – immediately – at once – intelligently – but with emotion.” Which suggests that with The Bridge, he wasn’t trying to produce an innovative blockbuster for 1961 but just an exceptionally good record played very well indeed.
Although most of Rollins’ notes are disjointed and constantly flit from one subject to another, there is one constant. The desire to play better and better and produce the correct sound of the music. Rollins writes the word “sound” in capitals. He wrote that he must be inspired and not concerned with applause from the audience. “I must be of a clear head and pure heart (no stimulants). I should not be either pleased or despondent over a performance or solo – always directing my attention to the SOUND of the music, and in this way, what is produced will assume its subsidiary nature to what my intent and ideal is. In this way I will be doing my part to inspire and uplift the congress of people who ‘came to see’.”
As the jottings are random, the reader might be reading about Sonny’s view of Indian music one minute and then see a sentence like “Stomach out when breathing today.” Or “Cheeks must be puffed out when playing C.” He also writes tellingly about acquiring a great dislike for the people that run nightclubs. He complains that they (the owners) are not only ignorant of good music but morally opposed to its promulgation. They just want the money. The very brief entries are those like “Persevere I must.” Regarding his own favourites, Sonny makes clear his admiration for Coleman Hawkins, Coltrane, Parker and Lester Young. And at one point adds Wayne Shorter as an afterthought.
Personally, I found this book fascinating, revealing and frequently amusing. Not least when Rollins listed Casablanca as a favourite film saying: “Everybody’s favourite but Dooley Wilson’s band sealed it for me.” Or what about “Laura. Who can resist Gene Tierney? The song isn’t bad either.” I’m with you there Mr. Rollins, all the way!
The Notebooks Of Sonny Rollins, edited by Sam V. H. Reese. New York Review Of Books, pb, 152pp
