You Don’t Know What Love Is (Sonny Rollins’s version)

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

In the late 1950s, the main challenge to Coltrane’s predominance as a prestigious saxophonist arose from the jazz tradition, from Sonny Rollins. While other saxophonists explored dissonance, free and extended forms, fusion with classical music, exotic instruments and large groups, Rollins focused on building a classical style as a soloist.

You could hear in his playing the influence of Coleman Hawkins or Don Byas. Rollins has never liked recording studios and his perfectionism makes it difficult to listen to multiple takes in search of what he thinks is the least defective. He said there is a connection between jazz of any age and that you can hear both the old and the new.

Rollins starts the theme at medium tempo supported by Watkins’ walking. He tells the story of a love loss and how your heart hurts when your love cannot live, but never dies. Then he plays a heartbreaking solo, as if to say, “Why has this had to happen to me?” His quick and repetitive phrases reflect grief and despair. He continues to abound in his misfortune with cries of lament. Then Flanagan comes in with a slightly more positive attitude, taking it more calmly, but Rollins returns to re-expose the theme.