Prestige Profiles, Vol. 3

Performer: Sonny Rollins
Engineer: Rudy VanGelder
Producer: Bob Weinstock; Ira Gitler
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: Personnel: Sonny Rollins (tenor saxophone); Earl Coleman (vocals); John Coltrane (tenor saxophone); Clifford Brown (trumpet); John Lewis, Kenny Drew, Ray Bryant, Red Garland, Richie Powell, Thelonious Monk, Tommy Flanagan (piano); Milt Jackson (vibraphone); Doug Watkins, George Morrow , Paul Chambers, Percy Heath, Tommy Potter (bass instrument); Kenny Clarke, Max Roach, Philly Joe Jones, Art Blakey, Art Taylor (drums). PRESTIGE PROFILES, a 10-volume series, highlights the work of the major artists who recorded for the label. Tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins made some of his finest music for Prestige, including SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS, which is widely considered a definitve bop recording. Songs from COLOSSUS are included on this 10-song sampler, as are tunes from his other Prestige discs, all of which are top-shelf. The personnel, which includes Max Roach, Thelonious Monk, Clifford Brown, John Coltrane, and Art Blakey, reads like a who's who of jazz history.

"Saxophone colossus" is not a bad description for a tenor player who is one of the greatest living jazz artists. Sonny Rollins made his first record date at the age of 19 in the late 1940s, and unlike Parker and Coltrane, the magnitude of his talent was immediately apparent. After strip-mining the hard-bop vein in the early '50s, he absorbed from Monk the notion of using the melody rather than the changes in his improvising. An urbane, sardonic counterpart to Coltrane's incantatory searcher, Rollins is capable of playing hour-long unaccompanied solos of flawless invention with the most powerful sound ever wrung from a saxophone.

Click Here for Shipping Options and Policies

Shipping or Dimension weight in pounds: 0.25