SONNY ROLLINS
Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert
Milestone
Sonny Rollins’ new release Without
a Song: the 9/11 Concert as roused the sleepy world
of jazz criticism like little else this year. While acknowledging
that the Rollins sound and legendary energy remain intact,
there has been honesty in admitting that this may not necessarily
be Rollins at his pinnacle. The emotional resonance of the
performance has also played in its favor: Rollins was in
his Manhattan apartment six blocks from Ground Zero during
the 9/11 attacks, and was evacuated by rescue workers the
following day, when his building lost power. I recall Nat
Hentoff writing a piece about Rollins’ evacuation
in his back-page column in JazzTimes. Like many
during that day and the following weeks, Rollins wondered
whether to get back to the business of his life or withdraw—he
had been booked to play this concert at the Berklee College
of Music in Boston’s Performance Center on Sept. 15th.
His first thought was to cancel the performance, but his
wife Lucille convinced him that he should leave town and
do the show.
And so Rollins, along with trombonist and
nephew Clifton Anderson, pianist Stephen Scott, bassist
Bob Cranshaw, drummer Perry Wilson, and percussionist Kimati
Dinizulu headed Boston where Rollins says “Maybe music
can help. I don’t know, but we have to try something
these days” to appreciative applause from the audience.
Without a Song is, at a bit over an hour, a distillation
of that performance.
Rollins once said “I simply want to
reach a level where I will never cease to make progress.
. . . So that, even on the bad evenings, I may never be
bad enough to despair.” Certainly few would disagree
that Rollins long ago reached such a level, with the possible
exception of Rollins himself. Sonny is his own worst critic—recall
that this is the man who took himself out of the game in
order to spend time practicing on his own. So we are fortunate
to have every Rollins recording that we have, even as we
wish there were more. For that reason alone Without
a Song is a bona fide event in the jazz world. This
particular September evening was far from what anyone would
define as one of “the bad evenings.” While Rollins
and company seem to require a little warming up, sounding
a tad listless during the sixteen-plus minute title track
opener, they certainly do get there, picking up a mighty
head of steam on the calypso-influenced “Global Warming”
which culminates in Rollins’ ebullient finale that
brings a thunderous ovation from the crowd.
After his brief introductions, Rollins unfurls
a salvo of his confident, full-bodied tenor playing that
should satisfy any jazz fan who has worn out several copies
of Saxophone Colossus and Freedom Suite.
He provides a veritable master class in improvisation and
the tenor sax on “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.”
That’s followed by lengthy workouts on “Why
Was I Born?” and “Where Or When” that
provide ample evidence of the oft-repeated bon mot that
Rollins’ recordings rarely do justice to the kind
of vigor that he routinely brings to live performances.
That vitality is the lifeforce of Rollins’ playing,
and one suspects, of the man himself. More than many other
players, Sonny gives the impression that he is merely the
voice of something that pours through him. That’s
not an uncommon thought of musicians, artists, poets, and
the like. Listening to Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert,
one is grateful that we have the opportunity to be present
when Sonny is channeling his muse, and that he has labored
as intensively as he has throughout his life to be able
to play whatever might be demanded of him.
