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Sonny Rollins | Essential albums and listening guide
Explore Sonny Rollins through Saxophone Colossus. Discover what to listen for and follow related styles to your next record.
Sonny Rollins
Meet the artist
A tenor saxophonist known as the Saxophone Colossus, whose powerful tone and resourceful improvisation left a major imprint on modern jazz. He develops short melodic ideas into expansive improvisations by changing their rhythm and contour.
Pianoless trios make the exchange between tenor, bass and drums especially clear. Humor runs through his powerful tone, and familiar songs can emerge in unexpected shapes. Caribbean rhythms connected to his parents' roots add another color. Authority and playfulness coexist in music that finds countless possibilities within a single tune.
Where to start listening
Follow the way a melody changes throughout a solo. The spaces between phrases and the shifts in rhythmic placement reveal as much as the number of notes.
1956Saxophone Colossus
Sonny Rollins
A quartet recording with Tommy Flanagan, Max Roach and others. Featuring St. Thomas, it became a landmark of thematic improvisation.
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1957Way Out West
Sonny Rollins
An innovative trio recording for saxophone, bass and drums, without piano. Its Western-themed cover photograph also became famous.
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Years follow the Atlas catalogue. Recording dates, original release dates and digital reissue dates may differ.