Sonny Rollins, Coleman Hawkins ‎– Together At Newport 1963

1 Announcement 0:34
2 Remember 15:16
3 All The Things You Are 11:02
4 The Way You Look Tonight 12:02
5 Blues 8:49
6 Every Time We Say Goodbye / Four 17:21
7 Sonny Boy / Oleo / Dinah 5:55

Bass – Henry Grimes (tracks: 2 to 4), Walter Booker (tracks: 5 to 7)
Drums – Mickey Roker (tracks: 5 to 7), Roy McCurdy (tracks: 2 to 4)
Piano – McCoy Tyner (tracks: 5 to 7), Paul Bley (tracks: 2 to 4)
Tenor Saxophone – Coleman Hawkins (tracks: 3, 4), Sonny Rollins

Jazz On Jazz ‎– 244552(EU)

Tracks 1-4 recorded at the Newport Jazz Festival, Newport, Rhode Island, July 7 1963.
Tracks 5-7 recorded at the Half Note, New York, February 11 1963

Coleman Hawkins was fast approaching his 60th, while Sonny Rollins was close to half his age, when a week before the pair were due to cut the first of two albums for RCA, The Hawk joined Newk on stage at the 1963 Newport Jazz Festival. Together they spent a fraction over 23-minutes performing extended versions of ‘All the Things You Are’ and ‘The Way You Look Tonight’. This wasn’t conceived as some main event-style tenor sax battle once common to JATP bloodletting jousts. Neither was it a question of Master-and-Servant or Old Skool versus New Thing. It was a respectful exchange of mutual ideas by Hawkins who had first created the blueprint for the modern tenor sax, taking it from a novelty instrument to where artists like Rollins had picked up the baton and were continuing to push back the barriers. Furthermore, there was no hidden agenda or any suggestion of a generation gap to where the protagonists were trying to intimidate one another. This was just an historic moment in time with both players enjoying each other’s company. What makes this release even more appealing is a broadcast by Sonny’s Quartet from New York’s Half Note which features McCoy Tyner on loan from Trane. Though the fidelity leaves much to be desired, Rollins is at his most mischievous during a frantic medley that bookends ‘Oleo’ with ‘Sonny Boy’ and ‘Dinah’.

Author: Roy Carr

BOX 14