Picking up only ten days after Fantasy's
Complete Prestige Recordings box leaves off, these five discs run through one of
Rollins' most fertile (some insist, the most fertile) periods. Not only are
Rollins' Riverside and Contemporary sessions as a leader and sideman collected in toto; Fantasy also includes three tracks recorded for Period in 1957, which can finally be heard within the context of
Rollins' late-'50s hot streak. The box kicks off at the end of 1956 with almost all of
Thelonious Monk's Brilliant Corners album, where
Rollins alternates with alto saxophonist
Ernie Henry. Then comes a quantum leap in inspiration,
Way Out West, which is just bursting with invention and wry humor as well as cyclical references to previously played tunes; it relies only upon bassist
Ray Brown and drummer
Shelly Manne for support without needing anything more. Four tracks from
Kenny Dorham's Jazz Contrasts find
Rollins taking a subdued or conventionally frenetic bop backseat, while
The Sound of Sonny approaches
Way Out West's level as
Rollins operates with piano trio backing and alone. Sonny appears only in flashes on
Abbey Lincoln's sometimes melodramatic That's Him. Following the Period tracks, where
Rollins' tone is especially grandiose in the
Ben Webster tradition,
Rollins, bassist
Oscar Petitford, and drummer
Max Roach extend themselves astonishingly well through the colossal, nearly 20-minute title track of
The Freedom Suite. The odyssey concludes on the West Coast with another great session, the unquenchably swinging Sonny Rollins Meets the Contemporary Leaders --
Rollins' last before his first "retirement" -- where various combinations of sidemen provoke some especially creative playing from
Sonny. All previously released alternate takes are included, but there is only one unreleased track -- a rip-roaring alternate of "You" from the Contemporary Leaders sessions -- which will drive
Rollins completists entirely mad. If the budget allows, it's worth the splurge. ~ Richard S. Ginell