There is an extended gap in Sonny Rollins' discography between 1959 and 1962 in which he voluntarily decided not to play in public. No recordings exist from this period after the private tapes that were made during his March 1959 European tour. His subsequent recordings were the January-February 1962 sessions that would produce the album The Bridge. This marked the first of Rollins' legendary musical sabbaticals. Living on Manhattan's Lower East Side, he was often spotted on the nearby Williamsburg Bridge at night, deep in a rigorous practice session. 'I wanted to work on my horn, I wanted to study more harmony, I wanted to better myself,' he told Stanley Crouch in The New Yorker, 'and I wanted to get out of the environment of all that smoke and alcohol and drugs.' He also declared he went to the bridge to spare a neighboring expectant mother the sound of his practice routine. Critical reception to The Bridge, which was not the revolutionary new jazz approach many expected, was mixed. Rollins, who had been considered groundbreaking in his thematic improvisations, was supplanted in critical buzz by the growing popularity of Ornette Coleman's free jazz. However, if not a tremendous departure from Rollins' earlier style, the album was nevertheless quite successful. He would record a second studio album during this period in April 1962: What's New, again with guitarist Jim Hall. In July of the same year he would be professionally taped at the Village Gate in New York. The recordings, which were issued under the title of Our Man in Jazz, marked the first existing testimonies of Rollins' collaboration with Don Cherry, with whom he would often play in the early sixties. This album is presented here featuring on the cover David McLane's classic photo showing Sonny at the very Williamsburg Bridge.

Additional Details

Label: Wax Time

Genre: Jazz

Language: English

Run Time: 40 mins

Region: 0

Release Date: 05/05/15

UPC: 8436542017053