Solitude (Sonny Rollins’s version)

Sonny Rollins (tenor sax), Ray Brown (bass) and Shelly Manne (drums). From the album Way Out West (1957).

Ray Brown was one of the most important double bass players in the history of jazz. He was heavily influenced by Jimmy Blanton, the bassist of the Duke Ellington’s big band. The first day he arrived in New York in 1945 he met Dizzy Gillespie and after playing with him he was hired. He was one of the founders of the Modern Jazz Quartet, later replaced by Percy Heath.

He married Ella Fitzgerald in 1947 and played in the Jazz at the Philharmonic concerts organized by Norman Granz, where he met Oscar Peterson and became a member of his trio. After leaving Peterson in 1966 he went to Los Angeles and since then has recorded with countless jazz musicians and was manager of several artists. He died while sleeping in 2002 at the age of 75.

It sounds a sad theme that Rollins embellishes with his saxophone with all kind of sound resources and Brown interrupts him for a short solo. Rollins returns with his solo based on the melody saying that in his loneliness he torments himself by remembering days gone by. He alternates long and complicated sentences with passages of the theme. Then he sits desperated in his chair thinking he’s going crazy. Afterwards Brown comes back with a long, slow and serene solo, and Rollins reappears tirelessly, playing again with melancholy and introducing quick phrases when you least expect it. At the end he re-exposes the theme in a different key.