Blue 7

Sonny Rollins (tenor sax), Tommy Flanagan (piano), Doug Watkins (bass) and Max Roach (drums). From the album Saxophone Colossus (1956).

In one essay, Gunter Schuller studied how Rollins improvises, commenting on his ability to perform solos by simply varying and deepening simple musical concepts. This was true. At a time when solos were nothing more than a discontinuous amalgam of scales and phrases, Rollins constructed his solos phrase by phrase, like a building that is built brick by brick.

Rollins was always surrounded by the best musicians. As a teenager he formed a group with Jackie McLean, Art Taylor and Kenny Drew. He later played with Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Bud Powell and the Modern Jazz Quartet. He was part of the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet and competed with John Coltrane on the theme “Tenor Madness”. When he started recording his own albums, few musicians had an experience like his.

Watkins makes an introduction and Roach joins playing a cymbal. Then Rollins comes in playing a brief song and starts his solo with the blues harmonies. He uses all kinds of resources, from short and quick phrases to simpler passages and silences. Then it's Flanagan’s turn, who displays a slow and unhurried solo. Rollins then intervenes to give way to a long solo by Roach who does it calmly and smoothly. Rollins returns, playing a new solo, wiping out everything in his path and making allusions to the theme, although he slowly calms down. Afterwards, you only hear the double bass walking accompanied by the drums. Rollins comes back to swap four-bar solos with Roach and then continues to perform another solo with which he ends the theme.