Sonny Rollins - Freedom Suite

By 1958 Sonny Rollins was already able to claim the jazz high road as a tireless innovator who chose to test the mainstream's boundaries. Freedom Suite made his place in the vanguard all the more stable. Rollins slimmed his ensemble down to a trio--as he had done a few months earlier on his Village Vanguard live recordings (see volume 1 or volume 2). But Rollins turned the trio to his own extended work, this CD's title suite, and his horn playing thrived under the extensions. "Freedom Suite" is a winding, episodic piece, full of stair-climb segues and solos that seemed to be collective with drummer Max Roach. And its political implications were fully externalized in the title, declaring Rollins's position on the burgeoning civil rights movement. Rollins didn't altogether give up the standards or show-tune repertoire, however, staying in the pop-music ring with Noel Coward's "Someday I'll Find You." --Andrew Bartlett

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