Sonny Rollins – Freedom Suite – Keepnews Collection Riverside/Concord RCD 30507 **** 51:50:
(Sonny Rollins, tenor saxophone; Oscar Pettiford, bass; Max Roach, drums)
Freedom Suite, Sonny Rollins’ second album for the Riverside label, has been reissued as part of the Keepnews collection, a collection of reissues remastered by Riverside’s former resident producer, Orrin Keepnews. As with other Keepnews remasters, the modus operandi is sharpening instrument tones and bringing out each individual sound as clearly as possible. But just as much as Keepnews 24-bit remastering is for audiophiles, his reissues also bring attention to sometimes long-forgotten albums. Sonny Rollins’ discography is really an embarrassment of riches and it’s a shame that so many fledgling jazz fans are either ignorant of the man or avoid a catalogue without a Kind of Blue or Giant Steps to jump out and scream “Buy me!”
The title track is rollicking, endlessly melodious, and folksy song that actually earns its nineteen-minute-plus length. To hear Sonny Rollins explore every crook and corner of the melody, Oscar Pettiford pick out insistent line after insistent line, and Max Roach play enough breakbeats in a under a minute to keep a thousand DJs employed–well, jazz-wise, that’s as good as it gets. When the last Mosaic box set of yet another hard bop hanger-on turns to dust, this stuff is still going to sound fresh.
The one previously unissued cut is take number 4 of the album track Til There Was You, which frustratingly sounds very close to the original album version. As usual, Rollins is a master of the standards. One of the simplest ways he brings them to life is to respect their melodies, something that’s strangely lost on so many other artists. One of the album’s bonus tracks is a track Pettiford and Roach recorded together while waiting for Rollins to show up to the session. While there is no mention of studio tinkering, there is something atmospheric to the mix not found on any of the other cuts.
If it’s not clear by now, I highly recommend Freedom Suite, in whatever form you can find it. Anybody who even remotely likes jazz needs to hear more Sonny Rollins. However, if you do already own the album on CD and find my prattling on about it to be missing the point (i.e. is it worth my hard-earned audiophile cash?), I would say to sensitive-but-by-no-means-perfectly-honed ears, Keepnews’ remastering is quite good but not fantastic.
TrackList: The Freedom Suite, Someday I’ll Find You, Will you Still Be Mine?, Til There Was You (Take 4), Shadow Waltz, Til There Was You (Take 1), Til There Was You (Take 3), There Will Never Be Another You.
– Daniel Krow
(Sonny Rollins, tenor saxophone; Oscar Pettiford, bass; Max Roach, drums)
Freedom Suite, Sonny Rollins’ second album for the Riverside label, has been reissued as part of the Keepnews collection, a collection of reissues remastered by Riverside’s former resident producer, Orrin Keepnews. As with other Keepnews remasters, the modus operandi is sharpening instrument tones and bringing out each individual sound as clearly as possible. But just as much as Keepnews 24-bit remastering is for audiophiles, his reissues also bring attention to sometimes long-forgotten albums. Sonny Rollins’ discography is really an embarrassment of riches and it’s a shame that so many fledgling jazz fans are either ignorant of the man or avoid a catalogue without a Kind of Blue or Giant Steps to jump out and scream “Buy me!”
The title track is rollicking, endlessly melodious, and folksy song that actually earns its nineteen-minute-plus length. To hear Sonny Rollins explore every crook and corner of the melody, Oscar Pettiford pick out insistent line after insistent line, and Max Roach play enough breakbeats in a under a minute to keep a thousand DJs employed–well, jazz-wise, that’s as good as it gets. When the last Mosaic box set of yet another hard bop hanger-on turns to dust, this stuff is still going to sound fresh.
The one previously unissued cut is take number 4 of the album track Til There Was You, which frustratingly sounds very close to the original album version. As usual, Rollins is a master of the standards. One of the simplest ways he brings them to life is to respect their melodies, something that’s strangely lost on so many other artists. One of the album’s bonus tracks is a track Pettiford and Roach recorded together while waiting for Rollins to show up to the session. While there is no mention of studio tinkering, there is something atmospheric to the mix not found on any of the other cuts.
If it’s not clear by now, I highly recommend Freedom Suite, in whatever form you can find it. Anybody who even remotely likes jazz needs to hear more Sonny Rollins. However, if you do already own the album on CD and find my prattling on about it to be missing the point (i.e. is it worth my hard-earned audiophile cash?), I would say to sensitive-but-by-no-means-perfectly-honed ears, Keepnews’ remastering is quite good but not fantastic.
TrackList: The Freedom Suite, Someday I’ll Find You, Will you Still Be Mine?, Til There Was You (Take 4), Shadow Waltz, Til There Was You (Take 1), Til There Was You (Take 3), There Will Never Be Another You.
– Daniel Krow
