Product Description

Road Shows, Vol. 1 is the exciting inaugural release in a planned series of outstanding live Sonny Rollins recordings from the last 30-plus years. The seven tracks on the new CD, culled from the Carl Smith collection and Sonny Rollins s own personal soundboard recordings, were recorded in the U.S., Japan, France, and Sweden. Featuring the saxophonist with a variety of sidemen, including Al Foster, Mark Soskin, Clifton Anderson, Bob Cranshaw, and Stephen Scott, Road Shows captures the Saxophone Colossus in full flight, dazzling audiences around the world.

Track Listing

1. Best Wishes
2. More Than You Know
3. Blossom
4. Easy Living
5. Tenor Madness
6. Nice Lady
7. Some Enchanted Evening

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4560 in Music
• Released on: 2008-10-28
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Live

Review
Road Shows, Vol. 1 is one of the finest Sonny Rollins albums ever released. . . . In concert, a nearly irrational spontaneous magic is permissible. This record is full of such magic. --Gary Giddins

Customer Reviews

Sonny's the best1
Without question, this is one of the best Sonny Rollins recordings in the last 40 years.
Sonny starts on fire with "Best Wishes" and smokes his way through this wonderful cd. What's really intersting is the mix of revolving personnel over the years. It reveals Sonny's taste as a bandleader who likes consistency but spontaneity as well.

Well done Newk !

Skip Norris
Jazz Artistic Director
The Music Hall for the Performing Arts Center
Detroit,Michigan

Searing Sonny Rollins performances
I'll confess that my own jazz prejudices run pretty deep. I have always suspected that everything important in this music was pretty much said by about 1964, with the music then splitting between a mainstream that added electric basses and keyboards (yikes) and largely turned the music into instrumental pop or funk, and an avant garde that, from Albert Ayler and Sunny Murray in the late 60s through players like Jemeel Moondoc and William Parker in the new improvisatory scene, is largely keeping the true flame of creative jazz alive. What's interesting about Sonny Rollins' Road Shows is that, like the later career of Ornette Coleman, it represents both trends. Sonny's backing band since the late 70s is faceless, amplified dreck of the sort that pretty much ruined jazz, and that's what you'll hear on these tracks. But Sonny himself, well, he's really reaching out there on these performances, really tapping into the spiritual vein of the avant garde. I found myself really digging it. Take his treatment of the great old standard "Easy Living," for instance, performed in Warsaw in 1980. He really tears it up, and even the sour electric piano and cheesy electric bass can't ruin it. All in all, I approached Road Shows with trepidation. I mean, how could you make a decent album out of a bunch of highlights from disparate concerts over the past 25 years? It was a recipe for disaster. But the result is astonishingly coherent, a testament to how consistent Sonny Rollins mature vision has been, at least in live performance. Great stuff.

Are You Kidding Me?
It's just magical what this man has done, can do and continues to do even into his 80's. I've listened to Sonny since my youth and have seen him on a number of occasions. He is on fire on these live recordings and lifts the roof on the Tenor Madness cut. This the one he did with Coltrane in the 56. His group is superior and anyone who likes jazz must own this. Sonny plans to release a number of live recordings that span the last 30 years. I am already anticipating the releases. I bow to the genius. Thanks Sonny, I love you man.