Ultra Rare Sonny Rollins Lp Saxophone Colossus.... Cover shows some wear on top right..Back Cover shows magor wear on top with writing on top part of cover and rubbing wear ...Fair/VG...Record is the Original Prestige with the Bergenfield Address..One Side of the Record shows a feelable mark which I tried to show in the photo...Lp plays through the mark and all in all the Lp played well and is enjoyable to listen to..The other side is in VG+ condition and played well  Very Rare Lp...One of his Classics Buyer to pay $4.00 s/h Thanks for looking****************************Sonny Rollins recorded many memorable sessions during 1954-1958, but Saxophone Colossus is arguably his finest all-around set. Joined by pianist Tommy Flanagan, bassist Doug Watkins, and drummer Max Roach, Rollins debuts and performs the definitive version of "St. Thomas," tears into the chord changes of "Mack the Knife" (here called "Moritat"), introduces "Strode Rode," is lyrical on "You Don't Know What Love Is," and constructs a solo on "Blue Seven" that practically defines his style. Essential music that, as with all of Rollins' Prestige recordings, One of his greatest ....Fans and Jazz  Lovers should   pick up this ORIGINAL LP and be amazed. !..Original Pressings are very hard to come by..and go for 100's of dollars

Saxophone Colossus

Saxophone Colossus is one of Sonny Rollins' most acclaimed albums. Recorded in June 1956 and released in April 1957, it has been awarded a rare Crown by The Penguin Guide to Jazz, and is widely considered the masterpiece of his mid-1950s series of recordings for Prestige Records and one of the greatest albums ever issued on that label.

History

There are five tracks on the album, three of which are credited to Rollins. "St. Thomas" is a calypso-inspired piece named after Saint Thomas in the Virgin Islands. The tune is traditional and had already been recorded by Randy Weston in 1955 under the title "Fire Down There". (In the booklet provided with the boxed set, The Complete Prestige Recordings, Rollins makes it clear that it was the record company that insisted on his taking credit.) In any case, the piece has since become a jazz standard, and this is its most famous recorded version.

"You Don't Know What Love Is" is a ballad standard by Don Raye and Gene de Paul, given a distinctively bleak treatment by Rollins. "Strode Rode" is an up-tempo hard bop number, notable for its staccato motif and for a brief, high-spirited duet between Rollins and Doug Watkins on bass. The tune is named after the Strode Hotel in Chicago, in tribute to the ill-fated trumpeter Freddie Webster, who died there.

The second side of the original LP consists of two longer cuts, both in B flat. "Moritat" is another standard, a song from Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera, better known in English as "Mack the Knife" (the original, full title of the song in German was "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer"). The album's liner notes point out that the Brecht–Weill musical was enjoying a surge of popularity at the time of the recording.

Finally, "Blue 7" is a blues, over eleven minutes long. Its main, rather disjunct melody was spontaneously composed. The performance is among Rollins' most acclaimed, and is the subject of an article by Gunther Schuller entitled "Sonny Rollins and the Challenge of Thematic Improvisation". Schuller praises Rollins on "Blue 7" for the use of motivic development exploring and developing melodic themes throughout his three solos, so that the piece is unified, rather than being composed of unrelated ideas. Rollins also improvises using ideas and variations from the melody, which is based on the tritone interval, and strongly suggests bitonality (the melody by itself is harmonically ambiguous, simultaneously suggesting the keys of Bb and E). Also notable is Max Roach's solo, which uses a triplet rhythm figure later imitated by Rollins, again helping to give the piece a coherent feel.

The original 22 June 1956 session was recorded by Rudy Van Gelder. A CD version, mastered by Steve Hoffman, was released in May 1995 by DCC Compact Classics; no additional performances were included. Another remastered version, this time by Van Gelder, was released on 21 March 2006. The album's title was devised by Prestige Records' in-house publicity director Robert "Bob" Altshuler.

Reception

The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow calls the album "arguably his finest all-around set".[2] Author and musician Peter Niklas Wilson called it "another milestone of the Rollins discography, a recording repeatedly cited as Rollins' chef d'oeuvre, and one of the classic jazz albums of all time".[4]

Track listing

Side one

Side two

Personnel

• Sonny Rollins — tenor saxophone
• Tommy Flanagan — piano
• Doug Watkins — bass
• Max Roach — drums