This release is particularly exciting as it encompasses both a 15-track piano album performed by Augustine Mayuga Gonzales alongside a collection of sheet music for intermediate piano players prepared by pianist and project producer David Peacock.
His widely acclaimed album Saxophone Colossus was recorded on June 22, 1956, at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in New Jersey, with Tommy Flanagan on piano, former Jazz Messengers bassist Doug Watkins, and his favorite drummer, Roach. This was Rollins's sixth recording as a leader and it included his best-known composition "St. Thomas", a Caribbean calypso based on "Hold him Joe" a tune sung to him by his mother in his childhood, as well as the fast bebop number "Strode Rode", and "Moritat" (the Kurt Weill composition also known as "Mack the Knife").[4] A long blues solo on Saxophone Colossus, "Blue 7", was analyzed in depth by the composer and critic Gunther Schuller in a 1958 article.[15]
gonzales piano solo pdf 62
In the solo for "St. Thomas", Rollins uses repetition of a rhythmic pattern, and variations of that pattern, covering only a few tones in a tight range, and employing staccato and semi-detached notes. This is interrupted by a sudden flourish, utilizing a much wider range before returning to the former pattern. (Listen to the music sample.) In his book The Jazz Style of Sonny Rollins, David N. Baker explains that Rollins "very often uses rhythm for its own sake. He will sometimes improvise on a rhythmic pattern instead of on the melody or changes."[16] Ever since recording "St. Thomas", Rollins's use of calypso rhythms has been one of his signature contributions to jazz; he often performs traditional Caribbean tunes such as "Hold 'Em Joe" and "Don't Stop the Carnival", and he has written many original calypso-influenced compositions, such as "Duke of Iron", "The Everywhere Calypso", and "Global Warming".
At the end of the year Rollins appeared as a sideman on Thelonious Monk's album Brilliant Corners and also recorded his own first album for Blue Note Records, entitled Sonny Rollins, Volume One, with Donald Byrd on trumpet, Wynton Kelly on piano, Gene Ramey on bass, and Roach on drums.
In 1957, Rollins pioneered the use of bass and drums, without piano, as accompaniment for his saxophone solos,[17] a texture that came to be known as "strolling". Two early tenor/bass/drums trio recordings are Way Out West and A Night at the Village Vanguard, both recorded in 1957. Way Out West was so named because it was recorded for California-based Contemporary Records (with Los Angeles drummer Shelly Manne), and because it included country and western songs such as "Wagon Wheels" and "I'm an Old Cowhand".[18] The Village Vanguard album consists of two sets, a matinee with bassist Donald Bailey and drummer Pete LaRoca and an evening set with bassist Wilbur Ware and drummer Elvin Jones. Rollins used the trio format intermittently throughout his career, sometimes taking the unusual step of using his sax as a rhythm section instrument during bass and drum solos. Lew Tabackin cited Rollins's pianoless trio as an inspiration to lead his own.[17] Joe Henderson, David S. Ware, Joe Lovano, Branford Marsalis, and Joshua Redman have also led pianoless sax trios.[17]
In 1957 he made his Carnegie Hall debut[21] and recorded again for Blue Note with Johnson on trombone, Horace Silver or Monk on piano and drummer Art Blakey (released as Sonny Rollins, Volume Two). That December, he and fellow tenor saxophonist Sonny Stitt were featured together on Dizzy Gillespie's album Sonny Side Up.
It was also during this period that Rollins's passion for unaccompanied saxophone solos came to the forefront. In 1979 he played unaccompanied on The Tonight Show[51] and in 1985 he released The Solo Album, recorded live at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.[52] He also frequently played long, extemporaneous unaccompanied cadenzas during performances with his band; a prime example is his introduction to the tune "Autumn Nocturne" on the 1978 album Don't Stop the Carnival.[53]
Other recent projects include a string quartet for the Banff International String Quartet Competition, a piece for Yarn/Wire for two pianists, two percussionists and electronics premiered at her Miller Theatre portrait concert, a solo piano work for Julia Den Boer commissioned by the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust Fund, a piano/violin duo with Jenny Koh, and a string octet premiered by JACK Quartet and Parker Quartet at the Banff Centre. Upcoming projects include a Koussevitzky commission from the Library of Congress for percussionist Steve Schick and ICE, a commission for the Grossman Ensemble in Chicago, and a new chamber work for The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.
2ff7e9595c
Comments