As mentioned below Sonny Rollins music became more Avant-Garde accordingly to the deteriorating change going on around him in New York City and as racial inequality was effecting everyone in the United States. The 60’s equal rights issues was just another round to be fought and went hand in hand with jazz musicians’ everlasting plight for freedom of expression. The constant struggle for true recognition of jazz music and a place for its followers has been going on since this art form was established in New Orleans. This album, “East Broadway Run Down” consists of only 3 songs with the first one (title song) being just over 20 minutes long. It was released in 1966 and ranges from a hard bop beat to free jazz especially when it gets intense. A masterful job by Sonny Rollins and great back up by 3 superstars in their own rights, Freddie Hubbard, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones. Outstanding, enjoy!
About the album:
For Sonny Rollins, the 1960s were a period of consolidation and revolution as he refined his own concepts and reacted to the flurry of events around him. In taking stock of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Albert Ayler and Archie Shepp, Sonny formulated a series of fascinating responses, from the elegant, mainstream approach of THE BRIDGE to his free-form safaris into the underbrush of open-ended group improvisation with Don Cherry (ON THE OUTSIDE). EAST BROADWAY RUNDOWN is the apotheosis of this period, one of Sonny Rollins most powerful recordings. Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones (late of Coltrane’s band) fire each of these performances with an elemental energy. Meanwhile, the relaxed and extremely confident Sonny responds with some of his most charged improvisations, abstract and exploratory, yet lyrical and supremely bluesy. The title tune begins with an angular, fragmented blues vamp. As Garrison and Jones lock into a multi-layered 4/4 groove, Rollins sculpts in space, lagging way behind the beat with heraldic recitatives and coy snippets of the theme, teasing Jones into one rhythmic climax after another in the manner of Monk and Lester Young. Freddie Hubbard responds to Rollins’ thematic parries with fierce, bluesy counterpunches, and….Read More
