You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Perfect Album (almost)

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

Sonny Rollins might be the most influential saxophone player in jazz. This album is one of the reasons why - join Adam and Peter as they breakdown just what makes this album so great.Unlock your FREE Open Studio trial to become a better player today.Looking to drop a question? Want to listen to the audio pod? Look no furtherhttps://youllhearit.com/Have a question for us? Leave us a SpeakPipeCheckout courses from Adam, Peter and more at Open Studio🎹 Head over to our YouTube channel for a better look 👀.Follow us on Instagram

Hey Adam. Yo. Do you like the album that we will be exploring today? It's one of my all-time favorites, as it is for many people. Yeah, how about for you? Mm-hmm. Yep. We'll get into that.

I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast. Music Explored. Explored, brought you today by Open Studio. Go to Open Studiojazz.com for all of your jazz lesson needs for all of your jazz lessons needs. I got to put it in there a little bit. Blue season. That's all I'm saying.

It's blue season is coming up on Open Studio Pro. It actually starts. Don't tell them. Don't tell them. It's not a secret, Peter. It's a little bit of a secret. It's already begun. Go to Open StudioJazz.com slash pro if you want to know. Come on, man.

Don't tell them everything. Well, you know, what else is kind of a secret, Peter? Yeah. So this album that we're doing today, Sonny Rollins' 1957 masterpiece, saxophone colossus. Mm-hmm. I actually can't wait to get to Apex Mountain for this

because I feel like there's some real good Apex Mountain things we could talk about. I can't wait to get to Is It Better Than Kind of Blue. Yeah. Also true. Then we might have some surprises there, both on your side, my side, and we have a big surprise because, producer Caleb, will be chiming in on Is It Better Than K-O-B today for the first time ever. Oh, did he get a mic? I don't know. No. Yeah, yeah. We'll be relaying his vocals.

So, Peter, I've been trying, I have been trying to do this album for, months. Yeah. Months and months. It's one of, if you Google, greatest jazz albums of all time, it's usually in the top five.

Not that we would ever do that Google search to prep for one of these shows. Not that we would ever do that. But it is interesting to know what other people are searching for and what they enjoy. You have always pushed back on this. You're like,

nah, it's not my favorite. And there's something that happened this week where you're like, oh, you know what? I listened to it again. I really like saxon possus. And I was like, I knew you would.

It's a great album. I wonder what your story with this album is because it's obviously not in your pantheon of the greatest albums of all time. Well, I think it is now. Oh, yeah. I think what I realized was this was an album that I maybe over listened to at a certain point

a long time ago, but I kind of forgotten about that. And so as I listened to it again, not that I hadn't heard it, of course, it's such a intersection of sort of the zeitgeist of Sonny Rollins, jazz saxophone, this whole 1956 to 1959, kind of transformation. I mean, it's unavoidable in a great way.

You know, it's exactly the kind of thing. But I hadn't really sat and done some focus listening in decades, I think, which is crazy. And I forgot how much I liked this record. But there's a few things about it that are a little off-putting to me. We'll get into that a little bit. None of them have to do with Sunny Rollins. I can put that out there. Yeah, yeah.

Or any of the musicians on it. I get it. I get it. But I do think it's a great. And the reason I was kind of delaying is, I think, in the back of my mind, I sort of subconsciously was thinking, I want to listen to this again. I want to dig into it again before we dug into it here. That's really what it was.

And that's the reason I put it off. Not that I didn't like it, but I wanted to re-kind of affirm or check it. It's an important record. I knew that. And so I wanted to really have a chance to absorb it, which I have now, re-absorbed. It's so listenable. I mean, it's going to be interesting, the nubometer on this one, too, because it is, you know, when I was in

sophomore, junior in high school, whenever I bought Kind of Blue, I think I also bought Saxon Colossus that same trip to borders in Sunset Hills. Wow. Like I bought those two albums together and listened to them

in my 1984 Chevy S-10 all year. And I know this one like the back of my hand. Is that a Silverado model? Is that pre-Silverado? No, it was an extended cab red stick shift

four speed. It was great. You were driving. It was really nice. Producer Caleb just said, who! I had a tono cover. so that I can keep my keyboard back there.

Tano cover? A Tano cover on the way to the gigs. Is it the color of it or the brand? Nope, it was black. It was the, it was a style of cover. Yeah. Every single working keyboardist alive in the Midwest had some kind of truck with a tono cover

at that era that I know of. Or a Toyota Corolla. If you had a truck, you were hauling something. You were a tradesman if you had a truck. Because if you put a keyboard in an open bed item in the city, it would be stolen, my friend. Shout out the Tano. cover is four.

Oh, okay. Oh, I got you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got you. You could still easily steal all my stuff I wanted to. That's why I didn't leave it there. But we digress. I'm just saying, big time.

I'm just saying this was in my little disc man that was on the seat that went into the tape player that was put in aftermarket, by the way. Anyway. What a beautiful thing, though, I think each of us has for these great albums and for these periods, it's that whole experience. It's like you're in the truck. As soon as you said Discman, that took me back. Totally. And you had some kind of, either like an FM modulator. How did you hook it up?

No, that's what I was saying. Oh, the cassette. The S-10 itself, from 84, did not come with a cassette player. So the previous owner that had it had put in a tape cassette player in the truck. Right. I had a Sony Disc Man. We call that aftermarket. That had a, exactly, that had an adapter where you would put a fake tape, plastic tape.

Yeah, of course. Wire coming out of it that attached to the disc man. And it would just kind of like come out. And depending on the type of cassette, sometimes it would be like, pushing the little thing up or whatever the cable. 100%. It also got stuck in there quite a bit. Of course.

So if you ever had to take it out, which I never did, because I was listening to CDs. Yeah, that was Sonny Rollins' Saxophone Colossus, driving around Jefferson County, Missouri. Right. Just kind of, just KOB, Saxophone Colossus, and Grand Green's greatest hits.

That's so awesome. Those were the three that I was just, like, going through. But these intersections, I think of, like, when, where, and what we experience this stuff is so, it's priceless. Oh, that. Dude, yeah, there's teenagers like in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska right now, just like rocking out to, you know, Walter Smith III's new stuff.

Right. I mean, granted, it's all very easy now. Right. No, but I'm saying, but that's their kind of connection with it. I think if you think about, like, I know the first time that I remember hearing jazz, I'm sure I had before, but like where I really remembered, like, where I was and what I was old enough barely to be able to kind of understand that. My mom had a Dotson wagon.

Oh, beautiful. You know, like a 6-10 wagon pre-Nissan. And so this was like right when we were moving to say, I was five years old. And so in 1976. And she had an A-track. Yeah. That was rocking the A-track.

And she had like this eight, I don't know where the A-track was from, if she got it or if it came with the car or whatever. But one of the tracks on it was Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin. I don't know who was playing it. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Yeah. But I remember hearing that and being like,

that was my first really like, because I was playing piano already. But I hadn't played that. I was like, damn. That's not Chopin? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was five.

I probably didn't take it to that a little. But I do remember. But you were Peter Martin at five. You probably did. No, no. But also, she had that car for years after. So I'm thinking this could have been. But I remember on that trip hearing that.

I remember. So, you know, our gala, we were not even into the episode yet, but I just want to put a gala, a gentleman and ladies's agreement here really quickly. If you want to participate in this, if you go to the YouTube of this episode, I think everybody, or many of our listeners will have a story with this album because it is one of those albums. So put in where the first time that you heard this album

or the first copy you had was it on vinyl, was on 8 track, was it on cassette tape, was it on CD, was it streaming? Did you download it illegally from Napster via 2001? Napster. You know what I mean? Napster, Napster. Yeah, I also love the Dotson reference, Peter.

My mom had an 83 VW rabbit, and I'll never forget that car. Your mom's first car. It's like the first car you remember. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

That's great. I still remember hearing. Shout out to dads in the 70s that obviously didn't do much parenting. Hey, now, moms took us everywhere. They didn't do a lot of pickups. Mom took me everywhere, and I'm not throwing her on the bus. This is very common. No seatbelt.

Just my mom's arm. Oh, my mom's arm. Like here, she's not wearing a seatbelt. I'm like, Mom, we're both going into the dash. Something happens here. Well, my mom, since my mom is an avid, apologies. Shout out Ralph Nader for getting everybody to wear seat belts, yeah. I would throw my mom literally under the bus.

But our mom's almost threw us under the bus with there. smoking in one side and the other hand, who had the hands, and it was a stick shift. Yeah, exactly right. But my mom said, oh, well, before, I remember when my kids were little,

she's like, you know, we're doing all the car seat and there's the different one that's facing backwards and you have to have all, he's like, oh, you guys are fussing with all this stuff. And, you know, when you guys were little,

I just used to throw you in the laundry hamper. I was like, what are you talking about it? In the car? Yeah. And she said, yeah, because you'd be sleeping and you were so happy. And I'd have the clean laundry with the towels and you'd

love the way he smelled. I would just place you in that. And then I would just put you right, you know, on the seat. I was like, in the front seat also. She's like, yeah, because that I could watch you. And if anything happened, I could, you know, put my hand there or whatever. So. Makes perfect sense. Could you imagine if they tried the past seatbelt laws now, all the conspiracy theories online that would go on about why they would be doing? You know what I mean? Like with everything anybody tries to do now for safety or there's all these conspiracy theories. Which directly connects with Sunning Rollins. Back to it. This is why he's a pro.

this is why he's a pro. So some cultural context. This album came out again, saxophone colossus. And it's kind of a seatbelts weren't a thing, see? Put in the comments your connection

to saxophone colossus. Also put in the comments how much your mother loved you when you're in the vehicle as a young person. That's true. Cultural context, number one movie in the United States

anyway was the Ten Commandments. Damn, the OG one? The OG Ten Commandments. On TV, the month of this album was released, the final episode of I Love Lucy aired. That's how old I Love Lucy is.

Yeah. Great theme. The number one song in America was all shook up by Elvis Presley. The president was Dwight D. Eisenhower. Wait, who? Dwight D. Eisenhower. Oh, interesting. Yeah.

A little background here. Big fan of the military industrial complex. Not. The founder. The artist background info. Sonny made six albums as a leader in 1956. Okay, can we just talk about that and just... That's crazy.

And great ones, including Tentor Madness, which maybe even more, well, we'll get into it. Tentor Madness might even be more sought after, but I don't know. And he made the one where he's got Clifford Brown and Max Roach on, I mean, it was a lot of like overlap you recorded with Clifford. Just you and your boys just recorded a bunch of albums together. But these are like important marker albums. It's not like a bunch of scrub albums and then Saxon and Colossus. For sure.

For sure. They recorded this in 506. Recorded was a Thololini Monk as well that year. That's right. Great stuff. Yeah, this was an incredible year. I mean, we're going to do our yearly report here on 1963, which is a big year where, like, Coltrane releases four albums as a leader.

Maybe we should do a, like a tier list, 1963, 1993, 1959, 1956. And then what can we get from the 2000s that could? Well, are we going to skip over the 70s, 80s and 90s? Probably. Well, I mean, we should do an episode where we pick the greatest year of each decade. The problem is, is after, maybe after, 62, 65-ish,

the sessions, like there wasn't, I don't, we could look at this, you know, like budgets and record companies or whatever,

how were they able to do, how was he able to do six major label releases in one year, record? That's crazy. You know, obviously they were doing things fast.

Yeah, like one day in the studio, two days in the studio. Yeah, but we've done that before too. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know.

It's interesting. It is interesting. Yeah. So, yeah, six albums as a leader in 56, including Tanner Mandus, a month earlier.

Sunny was part of the Brown, Max Roach Quintet, and Clifford Brown died in a car accident just four days after this recording. Yeah. Clifford Brown and Richie Powell, a great pianist. By Powell's younger brother, Richie. Yeah. On the way to Chicago in Delaware. Sunny Rollins was 25 when this was released. Tommy Flanagan was 26. Tommy Flanagan is the pianist on this record. Doug Watkins plays bass. He was 22. And Max Roach on drums was the old man of the group 32 years old. It's so interesting to you to see these names and like how close and there's always one.

Yeah, there's always one older guy. It's like Ron Carter, or what Miles was a little bit. Yeah. I think, too, like, you know, mentioning Clifford Brown, although he's not on this record, he's such a,

not only the fact of his tragic passing right around this time, but was such an influence and friend and connector with Sonny Rollins. And Clifford Brown is, and I think Clifford and Sunny are the connectors,

Clifford Sonny in mind, you could say, are the connectors between the B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B- era of the late 40s and early 50s into the early 60s. And Matt Roach don't always mock. Yeah. But this era is really interesting.

Yeah. 54 to 59, right? Or 50 the end of 58. It's a really interesting time for the music. And right around this 54, 55, 56, we don't talk enough about it because we don't like to go negative. Or not negative. Just, I don't know.

It's a little bit of a third rail for talking about in jazz. and I don't think it should be because it just it is what it is. But the heavy heroin use and narcotic use that was dominating, more than I've ever realized. You know, I would hear little things and you'd see stuff.

It's been a little bit whitewashed in jazz biographies and books and stuff and some of the lionization of musicians. It's like we don't want to talk about that. Yeah. And then there was like pushback on like the Charlie Parker movie. Did it talk about it too much?

Yeah, I mean there's both sides of it. It also has been a stigmatization. Yeah. of jazz musicians at the same time. But it is a really sad era for that. Well, we're losing a lot of great musicians. Exactly. Very, very young.

And then the Sonny Rollins, like, this was such a triumphant, you know, his battle against and then winning over this in sobriety for, Sonny's still with us, you know what I mean for 50 years after this? More, I'm sorry, 70 years. What am I talking about? He's 25 here. You know, he's like 94 or 5 now, 96. Incredible.

So I think that, you know, that so many music, Clifford Brown, from what I understand, was very unique, and this is what I'm saying, we don't talk about this enough, and that he was clean, always. And he was young, but he was known as that, and was like a little bit of a thing. Like, he came on and, like, messed up not only trouble players, but all the horn players, everybody,

because he was just wiping the floor, technically, crisp, musically. I mean, he was a force, and only the fact of his tragic dying in the car accident did that altered thing so much. But I know Sonny Brown's has talked about extensively, and written about his influence on his sobriety and his clean living and all things spiritual that he was segueing to right around this time.

Yeah. So very interesting in how, I don't want to speak to how it affected this exact recording because I don't know that. But I know that the trajectory in this period, he's talked about that. We know Clifford affected Sonny. Absolutely.

And Sonny is, of course, this is his recording. I think about it. Every time I hear Clifford Brown play, every time I hear his name, I think, you know, what might have been if he hadn't known. tragically left us so soon and lived as long as Sunny lived and give all the music, think about all the great music we got from Sunny this whole time, you know.

Plus there was like a real thing. I don't know how prevalent it was, but it was prevalent among musicians, great musicians and aspiring young, I mean these are these are young guys, aspiring players. There was a real like you have to be high or you have to be affected in order to be hit those top levels because so many of the great players that were a little bit older than your Charlie Parker's and I don't know who else

but like that were really the heroes and just at this mythical level there was a real thing of like there's an artistic connection that was the whole beatnik generation all this I don't want to speak out of term because you know I'm caveating a lot of things but that stuff was real.

No, Byrd's influence on this the fact that Byrd did what he did despite really being in the throes of addiction makes it seem like that's part of it. Yeah, even though he said, and would tell younger musicians, it's like this, that he was already, before he got involved

with that addiction, was already had documented a lot of his great works on record. Of course. Of course. This is, this is... It's part of the lore, though. No, the junk didn't make bird bird, bird.

Bird was already bird. Yeah, yeah. But that wasn't a known thing at the time. And we could be like, why that's so stupid, why they were young. You know what I mean? You get caught. I mean,

And you talk about the cultural context of how this country was, how African-American artists, even in New York City and stuff, Sunny Rolls grew up in New York City. Even there, the most progressive place for a minority people, how that affected all these different things, the police presence, all the stuff. You know, it was a different time. It was a different time. And this was some triumph, some triumphant stuff that Sunny rounds and then led his whole life and how he went on to influence.

I mean, is there more influential? We can talk about train for sure and Wayne Shorter. But Sonny Rolls is right. I mean, for the musicians I hear now and like our generation and a little bit before. Of course. His influence is still rippling out 100%. And all of the people who have been influenced by him have then just, you know, added some energy to that ripple. But there's a lot we can talk about with Sunny.

And I'd love to do at one point, Tener Madness. I'd love to do the bridge. Like I would love to do all of these other way out west. is another one. Great record. So, all coming, but we've got to start somewhere. And there's no better where to start than saxophone colossus. And there's no better track to start with than the opening track.

Fans of Peter Martin will be familiar with this because Peter has a very famous solo on a Josh Redmond version from Live at the Village Vanguard, Spirit of the Moment. But this is the original OG St. Thomas. Sonny Rollins, Tommy Flanagan, and piano, Doug Watkins on bass, and Max Roach on the drums. How good do those drums? I hate to stop it, but I just got to take a note. I know the piano is not going to be good, but the drums sound amazing. Piano sound is not going to be good. Yeah, piano sound, not Tommy Flanagan.

What is that? Jazz record in a way. This first track is. This is several third rails today. Drugs, smooth jazz. That's Roachman. Unapologetically, there's thematic, rhythmic, interactive, like jumping right in there. I mean, that's his whole thing.

Yeah. I mean, there's, talking about influences. Yeah. When you hear folks like, I mean, nearly everything, but like specifically people like Joshua Redmond. Oh, Dr. Smith III comes to. James Carter. James Carter comes to.

Mark Turner even. Oh, for sure. Wayne Shorter. Yeah. Very influence by Simon. Animal equivalent. It's almost like a Keith Jarrett kind of thing where, get even more. more excited because like stuff we know he can do.

You know, it's like saxophone to get even more excited. So like this stuff is like, look easy. And just the most stylish, coolest. Yeah. Musician on the planet at this time or any time. It's such a connector with bebop, but also pre-bibbop, big, big tenor, almost like Texas tenor kind of bluesy stuff, you know, walking the bar. It's like he's walking the bar as he's post-bopping.

Yeah, that's true. And then Max Roach. Maybe, man, we talked about the theft award. I know. It might be that. I thought I had him. Is that what you got? I think so.

Well, not there you go. Is there a more technically proficient and just thematically solo and drummer than Max Roche? It's hard to see it. I mean, you could say Art Blakey here in his period, Philly Joe Jones. Roy Haynes. Roy Haynes. Yeah. But, I mean, Max's precision and his technical prowess is.

This material is also very well-futed for everybody on this record. And one of the great moments of the record comes out of this solo. Yes. Are we tipped? Swingometer. Swingometer. And Max R Us swingometer. It's such a dominant and distinctive way of swinging.

He's busy with the left hand. He's on the front end of the beat. Max is a little bit on the back end, I would say. which gives a nice... Doug Watkins is an interesting... Yeah, come on, let's go. He's confident with his saxophone playing, I would say.

During his period. Like, you can tell he's good practicing... He talks about writing 12 hours a day. Now I can hear the piano. Amazing. Talk about the snobble meter. The piano meter just went up. Oh.

Yeah. Any pianist, I recommend you transcribe this solo. It's so easy to hear. And the range is a compact solo. He jumped on some diads there Look at you with the big book have Yeah any Tommy Planagan solo from this era of the 50s Or any Red Garland solo from this era of the 50s

It's like it distills the earlier B-Bop down Into something a little bit more practical For the modern player to latch on to Not because there's anything wrong with just transcribing all Bud Pal. I think this was a one take I bet this was one thing I think so I would think

I thought you'd make six records in a year Yeah, everything's one take. It's personalization, David. Yes. Philosophy. There's not a single note or phrase that he isn't putting something distinctive in. Yeah. I mean, if you listen to that entire performance, again, every single phrase, every single note, there's nothing thrown away, there's nothing, I'm just running my fingers over my saxophone.

Everything has an emotional punctuation to it. And it is fucking amazing, man. It's why Sunny is sunny. It's like a great vocalist. A great vocalist gives you some kind of emotional clue with every single phrase, every single note. Same thing. Yeah, the intentionality that's coming through is like off the charts on that.

You rarely, and I wonder if that was some of the Clifford Brown. Like, that's something I always got from his playing. And look, these things are not, it's not like this is what gets you to become a great player. I would say Miles Davis during this period. or really almost any period there's some things but a lot of the stuff that's even thrilling Miles playing

I don't know I'm comparing Miles to Sunny but I mean he was a big time player around the time but like Miles didn't have that level of of precision combined with intent like he had a lot of authenticity and intentionality

and what he's playing but he's not always totally achieving what he's going after which is not a bad thing you know I got a great video that I want to play with Miles for our next episode

We'll talk about this. We're going to do a... We're going to do... Next episode after this is a little bit of a mix bag, some speak pipe stuff. We're going to listen to some music. But I got a great, a very fun clip of Miles Davis. Every note he plays this intentional,

but that's neither here nor there. That was awesome. Can I read this review? We used to do this. We're going to get back on this. I think this is fun. It's kind of like the lore of a record like this and musicians talking about it,

it and then adding little things and like there's a legend part of it that sometimes becomes a little bit less than accurate or whatever so i was think it interesting to see like what how was it received at the time so ralph j gleason who was a uh long time reviewer for i think it was san francisco chronicle or l.a times one of those west coast guy but he also did downbeat reviews and stuff he did a review of this this is from june 27th 1957 you remember where you were that day no no me neither um five stars yeah that's always good to nail that. Yeah.

Kind of embarrassing if he gave it two and a half stars some 75 years later. Possible. Bad take. Could I had a bad take. Almost as if

in answer to the charge that there is a lack of grace and beauty in the work of the New York hard swingers. Interesting. Comes this album in which Rollins

displays humor, gentleness, a delicate feeling for beauty in line and a puckish sense of humor. And all done with the uncompromising

swing that has characterize them all along. The treatment of Moratat, is that how you say it, Mac the Knife, Moratat. For instance, or Blue Seven show Rollins particularly interesting statements and restatements of ideas. The latter tune is an especially compelling work

from the fascinating bass introduction through the discontinuity of Sonny's first chorus, the piano solo, the duet between Sonny and Max, on through the rest of the piece till the final fade out. It's all modern jazz of the first. rank. Ron's playing on the slow ballad, you don't know what love is,

was a moving experience for me to hear. A gentle, easy, careful man, rather like a giant male nurse handling a particularly angry wound. Aw, that's a great... Isn't that interesting? That's a great, very creepy description. And dated.

Flanagan... A giant male nurse handling a particularly angry wound. Angry wound. Yeah. You know, everybody who's coming out of the war in this period. They're dealing with a lot of stuff. A little 12 years.

Yeah, we'll let it go. Flanagan's soul on this track is a thing of rare beauty. He has an unusually gentle tone on the piano. Shout out RVG. Unusually gentle. He's playing as hard as he can. He's banging, actually. Watkins' bass throughout the track, and the entire LP

is continually deaf, elemental, and a propelling force. Deft? Deft. Deft. A deaf. Like, deaf, punk. Lest you should think I am overlooking Roche You say like deft punk?

Daft punk Hey, cultural... Wait, so a very big difference between deft and daft. Yes. Is it an E or an A? It's an E. Okay, great.

Yeah. Last, sorry, I was trying to make a joke. I thought it was funny. Deft punk is funny. Lest you should think I'm overlooking Roach, I would like to say that this record contains for me some of the best drum brakes and solos I've ever heard.

True. Ralph, he didn't really nail it on the angry male nurse. His metaphors are weird, but... But this one, he kind of... Yeah, I got to go with him on that one. Roach continues to be head and shoulders above every drummer in his musical conception of a drum soul

in his exploration of the potentialities of the instrument and his unfailing good taste in the use of the sounds and combinations of sounds his explorations produced. That's pretty good. Was that Ralph Gleason?

Yeah, Ralph J. Gleason. Ralph J. Gleason. I find this entire album excellent on all counts, and for all persons concerned, the recorded sound is a gag. by the way. But I especially endorse it because of the object lesson in how to play the drums. Interesting. So he really, this might foreshadow a little bit of who stole the record, in our opinion,

that we'll be getting to in a minute. We'll get into a minute. That's pretty good. I skipped a little bit. Let's talk some bangers, Peter. My track banger with St. Thomas, which you've already listened to. But your track banger is also my solo banger. It's Blue 7. Yeah. And I think this is one of the greatest tracks in the history of the music. This isn't a master class, if you're a musician, of how to spin a melody out of the melody of the song. Yeah. And turn your solo into this just continuation. I would say that Sonny is better at this than almost anybody.

Maybe Miles or Monk, you can put up there for the similar thing. But this is, I think, the pinnacle of how to do that. Yeah, and not to take away anything from this. I think, in fact, it would add to it. This was apparently, and again, legend, lore, how do we verify this stuff? But apparently this was just, he made up this tune. was not a pre-conceived composition. Play a B-Fla blues.

It was like, yeah. Let me come up with the head. Here's Blue 7. Saxophone classes. That's a woody bass sound. Shout out. Shout out to trees. Keep on barking.

Oh, God. Stop it. I love the way Max Roach's dances in. It's playful. The whole album is playful. Like, what is that? Dang, dang. Jeff Tane Watts.

Big influence from Max Roach. Which you wouldn't... Like, immediately directly connect. Exactly. I never thought about that. That's a great point. Great take. Hey.

Drop 11 kind of thing. A little flat 5 kind of thing. Sunny's really good in this tenor range. So good. It's good at the sunny stuff is on point. That's perfect. You can't do anything else. I love that.

There's not like, oh, it's too early to do double time. We're going to be playing for 11 minutes. No. Um. Time stuff, though, is there's no hurry to just, like, shove it down our throat. Right. And the way he... He'll do these phrases and then he'll...

It's so... And then just like, give it some space and so. He doesn't play in a way where he's stuck there. And thematically, it's all connective. It's double time or it's straight. Or when he's kind of floating in between a little bit. It's an exercise we do when we do improv games on Open Studio Pro. We'll do, you have to play a phrase that's very busy and very fast.

And you have to alternate that with a phrase that's very spacious or slow. So that's our banger track for Peter Bangor solo. It's a great solo. That's your banger. solo, right? Yeah, that's my bangor solo. I think it's terrific. There's a couple other tracks here that I definitely want to get to, Peter. Your banger solo is Strode, is a more a tat. Moritat. Moratat. I call it Mac the Knife because I... It is Mac the Knife. Although I am German and American, I prefer English. It's a Kurt. My first language. Kurt Vile tune.

Kurt Vile! What? I don't know. Are you... Are you... Aren't you German? Well, it's a Kurt Vile tune. Still working on. Still working. And they took it, they took it and they made Mac the knife out of it, which is a violent song. Band. It's a very violent song. It's not banned here, though. But the original tune is Kurt Vile, and this is, this is, actually, so there's five tracks on this.

There's St. Thomas. There's, you don't know what love is, which I do want to listen to a little bit, because the beginning of you don't know what love is, is incredible. And it is that beautiful walking ballad feel that I love so much. Also, Stroke Road is, should be a more played standard. That was almost my banger track. A Strodo is incredible. Every track, all five, are incredible. They're all different, and it's balanced.

Yeah. Very well balanced. Let's hear this more tat. Yeah. You can jump to this solo. Oh. High hat swing. High hat swing.

That would have a bespoke genre for this beginning. Is there a better high hattest than Max Roach? No. Oh, not right now. Name me one. Name me one better highhattist. Name a higher hat than that. Max Roach is the peak high hatter.

Yeah. Of all time. Peak high hat. Apex Mountain for highhead. Really? Yeah. Mr. High hat. Did he wear a top hat during that performance?

We don't know. We can either confirm nor deny that. Oh, transition from two to four, perfectly executed. I give it an A. And the sound of this album, too. I know the piano sounds particularly wimpy. And you don't like it, which we'll get to. But overall...

I was out on high. Why you pulled me down? There's a reason why... I can you pause for just a second? I want to go back and hit it. So I want to... Max does this a bunch of time. It's part of his style.

Oh, Max. But he does this on... Great. Yeah. Mr. Roach. Gagang. Like, that's a common fill that people stolen from him.

him and I'm sure Max wasn't the first to do it. But his placement of this, on this track several times, is so, like, appropriate and just brilliant and, like, pushing things ahead, but complimenter. I don't know. I can't come up with the words. Back it up. It's just, please, back that thing up. No, not that much.

Okay. That transition, though. Good transition. Sonny, killing. Got it. Yeah. No. He dropped the bomb.

Also, he's dropped the bomb on me. Oh, shout out to Tommy Flanagan. Yeah. Even though you could barely hear him. I know. He's really providing a lot of music. I have to shout out to him because he's so far away. He's got to shout at him.

Shout out, where are you? He's in a different building. He's in a different building. I don't enjoy the party. That's more on what you were talking about with the double time seamless. But it's like. So I'm speaking for myself. Whenever I go into double time like that, it's like, oh, now I'm in a double time.

double time and I hang on to that, you know what I mean? More like that's my instinct. I have to practice kind of against that to do more of this, which is like you can play a double time phrase. It doesn't mean the energy automatically has to shoot up. Right. Now we're in the stratosphere. It's like, listen to what's happening here.

Right. You know? Taking it back. Beautiful, beautiful estimate. It's like matured regulated so well. He regulates it so well within the form of the solo. But he's the, it's why he's one of the all. time great artists.

Yeah. He uses these melodic lines. A painter would use brushstrokes. There's the busyness or a composition of any kind of visual art, right? There's like the busy sections, there's the negative space. Sunny has that. Yeah. It's so great to connect things on a macro level, like chorus by chorus, like the entire solo.

And then from a technical, I don't play the saxophone anymore. I used to when I was a kid. Sorry, too much. Okay, so that, like, playing at that alternate time there, this is the reason, as I was listening to all these tracks, I was trying to figure out, like, the banger track, that's the reason I picked this track. Let's do that again.

He's just, like, right in that eighth and swing. Oh, that three different registers. Almost triplets. He's playing another time, but he's like, oh, and then maxed with all that, just, there's such a freedom with his. this very like simple kind of constricted harmonic uh form of a tune you know when you're doing all this like real traditional tenor stuff somehow at the same time yeah it's just like a finance humility kind of all wrapped up together great solo very good so i want to i want to make note of one

thing that i think we another thing that we maybe don't acknowledge enough and that is is Sonny's solo on that, and is playing on this record in general, and during this period, I think is so great in somewhat equal parts to a master musician, a master artist, but also a master technician. And by technician, I mean somebody who's just practicing, like, crazy. That's what I was about to say. And has mastered his instrument, but not, like, been like, oh, I'm good. Yeah.

I'm really good. I can play whatever I want. but like almost a maniacal kind of approach. Like, you can hear that. Of course, there's lore about that, too, that I know. But you can really hear that. Like, it just sounds like somebody that can play anything that they hear.

100%. 100%. And the sound, his sound, I know that that is technically kind of the, that's what saxophone players geek out about. Of course, the chops and the speed and the clarity and all that. Yeah, the sound. But the sound is so huge and so beautiful.

I mean, that takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of work. And the control and, like, the intonation, the vibrato, and the control of the vibrato. I mean, it's very much like a, you know, like, even if you're not into basketball, if you watch Steph Curry shoot, you're like, wow, okay, that guys practiced that before. And practice it again, and practice it again. Like somebody, it's fun when another human dedicates themselves.

Yeah. Like a crazed animal going after a bone for hour after hour to get so good at something. Just so motivated. And then to be able to watch it. Well, when we get to the bridge, not the part of the tune, but when we get to the album, the bridge eventually, we'll talk all about that. I want to, before we get to the categories... Aren't you glad we finally did this record, Adam?

I don't know why. Let's move on. Well, let's talk about why we didn't. Yeah, this would be a good time. Okay, we're talking about... Oh no, we should wait until we get to underrated? Yeah, let's get underrated. One more thing about Morat.

So this one was tough for me. Like I said, I got this album when I was 16. Yeah. Just before that, there was a huge McDonald's advertising campaign where they used Mac the Knife with this lounge singer at a piano with a moon for a head. Do you remember what I... I think I...

I think that's... This is, I don't remember it, but it's bringing up memories somehow. It's a good time for that great taste at McDonald's. So there was a little too much overlap for you. When I first heard that, I just couldn't get the McDonald's song out of my head because I was a teenager. And I would just, the campaign was huge. And it was very catchy, obviously. I didn't even know Mac the Knife.

Right. Like my dad would be like, oh, yeah, it's Mac the Knife. And I'd be like, what's that? You know, I just knew it as a serial killer from Germany. I just knew it as the Moon guy from McDonald's. And then I heard it on this jazz album. And I'm like, that's weird. I don't know.

Yeah. You know, cultural context. Cultural context. It's why it's like when we all listen to these at different times, it's very,

it causes different experiences. Could you pull that up? That would be fun to see. I'm trying to find it now. So McDonald's. As you're doing that advanced Google search. Moonland commercial. Mac the knife,

French fries. Mac tonight. Yeah, you share my screen. Yeah, you got it. It's up there. It's up there. Oh, that's creepy.

This is what I'm saying. Come out to play, baby. I just couldn't get that commercial. Dinner. Out of sight. Yeah, the night time. Oh, let's get the little. Like that.

Big time. And make down your head. I just couldn't get this commercial out of my head. Is that Michael Bublay? It sounds a little with a moon. Bube-ish. That's weird. That was weird.

Yeah. Thank you for pulling that up, though. You're very welcome. Is that the jazziest McDonald's commercial ever? We should do jazziest commercials. Because, you know, there's whole Ella commercials. Oh, that's true. You should do jazz and pop culture.

It's been a while since we've done a jazz and pop culture. Okay. Okay. So I just wanted to flag that for my, because I still think about it. I still have to fight against that McDonald's every time I hear it. It's Mac tonight. It's so funny. What we hear when we're little kids.

I would love to be in the marketing meeting. I would love to be in like the commercial came out. What's that? I would love to be like with the composer and the marketing folks when they're like, okay, we need something kind of Michael Bubellish. I know he hasn't been born yet, but we wanted to be a standard that rhymes with

Mac to Knight, Mac, Mac the Knife. And can the aesthetic be like lounge singer meets the labyrinth? Like, it'd be like the creepiest thing you've seen. With a little bit of hints of Avatar. That's so creepy. But it's funny, like the first time I hear that tune is in a commercial.

So what you were to be? And it just never leaves you. That you encountered this commercial and this album. Commercial, it just said there was 80. and the album was probably 93 or 4 is when I got it. Okay, nice. Yeah. But that's what I'm saying. The first time I ever heard Maconauty.

It was already, yeah. It just shows you. I just want to, cultural context, the first time I've ever heard you don't know what love is was this. How great is that? What an influential way to start a ballad for a saxophone? And again, this is a theme here, but these walking ballads, Peter,

these ballads in four. That are like, they aren't at 60. they're more like an 80, you know what I mean? Yeah, they're more 8th-old than 8th-no-ty-old triplet. That's great. And then shout-out to, you don't know what I love. It's also shout out to Strode Road. This was kind of a standard for a while.

It's falling off. It should be, right? As much as Aragon or... It's a great tune. We'll do a JPM on it. You're going to do a JPM on the McDonald's Mac the Night? I will. It's great bridge.

Four bars on a bridge. The form is so cool. Yeah. Max Roach nailed his delivery of this, too. Solo here, too. Yeah. Yeah. James Carter called, and he's heard this.

So that's all the tracks. That's all five. Yeah, I wrestle with that being also. They're all bangers, man. Every single one. All five is an incredible. Especially for Sonny. Oh, my gosh.

For his soloing. And they're very, they're all unique. And obviously Sonny is the connector. But Max, too, well, we're going to get into this. Should we get into some over... Let's do some categories. Yeah, some over underdog. Underrated, Doug Wackens?

Or market corrected? Doug Warkins. Market corrected by who? Maybe a couple. Maybe Wibor Ware? Wilberware? Maybe P.C.? I mean, Doug Wackens was great on this record

and on other ones. And before this, he was a little older, right? Than PC and Wilburware. Oh, then those guys? Probably. Yeah. Maybe not rated enough. That's the problem with, like, base players.

If you're not Ron Carter or PC, you're kind of underrated, period, in a way. Let's get into overrated, though. Overrated? RVG piano sound. Now, this is, it can't be overrated. If it's rated at all, it's overrated in my book. You hate it.

I don't hate it. It is known to the listeners of this podcast every time there's an RBG's piano sound. This record is a great example. Because the sound is of Sunny Rollins, of everybody, except the piano, is so great. why do you think it's so great

Rudy Van Gelder for sure but why but in the mix why does everybody sound so good have you put these two things together no I don't believe that because first of all

there's this is an especially egregious Rudy Van Gelder piano sound in terms for me this is one of the lesser ones and look I'm not a hater okay Rudy Van Gelder is a legend for a reason that I understand and appreciate deeply right

but it's one of those things when you're so when you makes some things so great. You raise the bar so high that if anything's a little bit under, you know, it's like, whoa, it's like the McDonald's commercial is so great, but the moonhead a little bit off, right? It's a, it's an issue with a piano in a mix, though. Piano is the hardest piano and acoustic bass are the hardest two things to mix. Right. So you just shove it in the background. Well, no, but I understand why Van Gogh is. Because it's going to fight with the drums, certainly going to fight with the kick drum and the snare drum. And this was mono.

There was not a sterile version of this, I don't believe. It's going to fight with the ride symbol. Yeah. It's going to fight with the tenor saxophone. Yeah. It's all of it is in the, and it takes up such a huge overtone spectrum because it's playing, because the pianist is also playing six, seven notes at a time. That it's like, it's a bear to try to mix in there.

So I get what his philosophy is. I agree with you, though, that as a pianist, it sucks. Like, I can't hear anything that he's playing. You know what it is? I think that, yeah, and maybe that's like the thing. of like he was so obsessed with getting this incredible drum sound, which he does. I mean,

like, this is an A-plus drum sound of Max Roach. I don't think it could be any better. Of Sonny Rollins, I don't think it's ever been, he's been recorded as well as this, but never better. Yeah.

The bass, I would say is kind of a minus. And in general, that's what I'm like a little bit, even like his PC base, the playing is incredible and the intonation and the woodiness. It's fine. But I mean,

but the piano to me, it's just, yeah, there's a compromise. So I don't know. I'm not an engineer. Maybe that is the only way to get those other things so great. I think with stereo, he certainly improved.

It took a while, but with the placement, you know, like where you're going to pan things and put the piano. But he still, he didn't have the piano wide. It was wherever it was placed, it was like narrow. Whereas the drums would be like crazy wide, you know, especially when it went to stereo. Oh, and, you know, and I think there is some limitations with technology they had, certainly, with the mixing technology they had with the microphone technology that they had.

There's some limitations. Yeah, but that's what I'm saying with like finding notches in the mix on a mono recording in 1956 is tough. That's a tough beat. For whatever reason, it was just harder. And I think the mic placement,

he might not have been spot on with that, you know. Yeah. I don't know. I think it's... I just think it's over... I feel weird saying it's overrated because I don't... Again, this is something that we, in jazz,

we don't, like... It's sacrilege. It's the third rail. You can't question Rudy Van Geller's. sound. That's the greatest studio ever. It's the greatest sound ever. Well, for me, not the piano this, because I can't hear Tommy Flang's playing. And then they're turning it up when he goes to solo, but it's like a thin kind of like, that's not the way Tommy, I heard Tommy Flan. I knew Tommy Flanagan. I was friends with, no, but I mean, like, that's not the way he sounded.

Who's that way? Lloyd Benson. Lloyd Beston. Lloyd Benson. Benson from the TV show, Benson. What? Lloyd Benston. I knew John, I knew JFK. Right. That, I knew JFC. I worked with JFK. You are no, you sir. You sir. Lloyd Benston. You don't remember him?

Are you making that name up? Sir, sir, Lloyd Benston. I knew Lloyd Bentston. B-E-N-T-S-E-N. Thank you. He was the Secretary of Treasury ran for vice president with, I believe, Michael Dukakis. Yeah.

Somebody like that? What a ticket. Dukakis Benston. Yeah. But yeah, no, I mean, Tommy Flanagan, I just, I loved hearing him on other recordings where you could really get the full breath and depth

and thinking about that, it's trio stuff with vocals. So, yeah, no, I get it. I get it. And I don't want to overstate this. But that's my only, like, knock on this record. Kind of blue. Two years later.

Yeah. Piano sounds great. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Full, you can hear it. Yeah. Balanced with the rhythm section.

Yeah. So it's possible. It is possible. Yeah. Apex Mountains. Apex Mountains. Was this Sunny Rollins, Apex Mountain?

I mean, I mean, this year, you'd have to say he's got as much juice as anybody. Right, but, so I heard Sunny Rolls live a couple of times. I heard him solo one time. I think it was at, like, I want to say at Lincoln Center, maybe outdoors. I have to remember, no, it wasn't outdoors. I heard him outdoors one time, too. But I heard him play solo one time.

And, I mean, it was one of the most stunning things. So it's hard for me to say, like, this was, because I always feel like weird when you're 25, years old or 26. That was his Apex Mountain. Do you know what Apex Mountain means? Yeah, your greatest, the very top. That's your top of your career. So you have the most career juice.

You have the most power in your career. Now, I thought we're saying Apex Mountain is like the greatest moment musically. Nope. You mean the career? Like you earn the most money? No, that you have the most like... Power?

This is, we, of course... Take him out. Get rid of Rudy Vangelder. I'm so powerful. We stole Apex Mountain from the rewatchables, which is maybe the greatest podcast. ever. Apics Mountain for rewatchables? Apex Mountain for culture podcasts,

possibly. But they are very confused about what Apex Mountain needs to. So usually it's supposed to mean your career juice. Like how hot are you in the zeitgeist, right? Oh, I definitely don't think it's... Okay, we've been misusing it. Why are you telling me this now? This has been from the beginning, Peter.

No, I thought it was like their greatest moment recorded or their... That's usually what it turns into. Because so... So when would Miles Davis's Apex Mountain be then? What is that? Kind of Blue. Okay, but that wasn't his, probably like when he was on Saturday Live or something. No, it would be.

Kind of Blue has to be his Apex Mountain. Yeah, but that's because of the lore and like after. And the record sales and how, and he could do anything he wanted after that. So Apex Mountain is a number of record sales. No, but it's, again, it's how relevant are you in the cultural zeitguise? Now? Either, no, of, at the moment. At the moment then?

How big of a star are you? How big is your britches? Sonny around is definitely 59 was not when he was the biggest star. 57. I think you can argue it could be. Tenor Madness and Yeah, but that was all built up over years of lore, like how great they were. Right. What's Sunny Rollins' greatest

album? Is it this? Sunny, I don't know. Probably something from 1957. Okay. You know what I'm saying? I'm just saying. Maybe. But Peter It's when Peter heard a solo performance at a park. That can't be in the Apex Mountain?

No, it wasn't like I'm walking by and he's there by himself. It was a thing. Is it Tommy Flanagan's Apex Mountain? No. What is? When I saw him in 1991 playing trio in Tremino, Italy at the festival, it was amazing. It was amazing. Okay.

I'm going to rethink my Apex Mountain. It might be. Now I got it. I'm going to be prepared. Is it Max Roaches Apex Mountain? Probably not. I would say Max Roaches Apex Mountain is probably with Clifford Brown. Like, because he was the leader.

Just culturally relevant. Yeah. Yeah. What he made. is undeniably immortal when you think. Like, think about this. Apex Mountain is... Oh, what was the record with...

What's the first line that they're going to say in your obituary? Right, right. You know? For Sunny Rollins, it's probably going to be Saxon Colossus. What about freedom now? That might be for Max Roach.

Could be for Max Roach. That could be, yeah. Okay. For Tommy Flanagan, it could be giant steps. Yeah, I mean, in terms of... Yeah. Okay.

First calls... Oh, no, let's do some awards. Oh, wait, I got one more Apex Mountain. Yeah. for the Apex Mountain for the high hat. What Max Roach did on that, on that intro, went on the two-field high hat.

It could be Apex Mountain for the hi-hat. Yeah. Apex Mountain for St. Thomas, the island. Well, of course. Oh, for the island? No, that was when I went there on my honeymoon in, in 1998. Apex Mountain for Mac the Knife.

No, definitely the McDonald's commercial. Definitely, that was bigger. That was bigger. Apex Mountain for made-up tunes on the spot on the session. Maybe. Possibly. Definitely. Apex Mountain for just

random blues at the end, unlike that other album that we reviewed a couple months ago. Yeah. This is better than that. Yeah. That's the better last track. You said it.

You said it. It is a better final track. It really is. It's a great record. It's a great record. Apex Mountain for jazz records? It's up there. Okay.

But probably not. Okay. But it's up there. But you're for sure, like, this is Apex Mountain for Sunny Rollins. I think this is all downhill for him after this.

No. Well, when you put it like that, it sounds very negative. I think this is, I think when people think about in history, 100 years from now, when people talk about Sunny Rollins, this will be the first album they talk about. Okay. So I think in that sense it is...

Yeah, I'd agree. I'd agree. Let's talk about some awards. Okay. We have first and perhaps most intriguing and important the John Coltrane Thief Award. And just to clarify what this is, we're kind of saying that, obviously, in this case, this is Sunny Rollins' record. So it's not going to be Sunny Rollins. He's not going to steal it from himself.

but does somebody steal the record from him? I mean, you can make a case... Like low-key. Max Roach does. That would be the closest thing, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Tommy Flanagan, maybe, but we couldn't hear him.

Does RVG steal it from Tommy Flanning? He steals his artistic soul a little bit. Yeah. The Oscar Peterson overplaying award. Also Max Roach. I mean, he's actually, he may be the closest to, like, corollary with Oscar Peterson when we talk about just song on top

of someone, but somehow pulling it off. Maxwell kind of does that, although that's more of a drummer thing, too, but like in terms of a snare drum. When you got huge ears, it's kind of like the more you can play. The Keith's Jared Vocalization Award, not really hearing any anybody speaking. First call subs. Yep. What do you got?

So piano, I've got Red Garland. That's a great call. But I'm really, again, I'm really not sure because couldn't hear clearly. But I mean, yeah, Red Garland, maybe you went and Kelly. Kelly would be good. I mean, Richie Powell would have been awesome. Right.

Even Bud Powell. I mean, I don't know. Interesting. Yeah. It doesn't really, could be anybody. Can't hear them. Yeah. Sunny Clark would have been interesting. Oh. Sonny Clark would have been interesting. That might be the one.

That would have been a good one. Now, Tenor, this is the hardest one always for like the band leader because it's not going to be. But think about this. Give me somebody that you think could fit in with the title. We're doing a record session. Sonny Rollins, Saxophone Colossus, but Sonny can't make it. it. Who could step into those very big shoes?

Dexter. I like it. Sunny Stitt? I like both those. Yeah. John Coltrane maybe, 1956. Yeah. That'd be a weird sub, though. It'd be a weird sub, but he'd fit right in with this material. He would. Especially at this time. And it'd be a colossus

kind of situation. I like all those. It'd be a little bit more of a wild card than a sunny stick. Yeah, it'd be a wild card. You also have here in the notes, you have Joshua Redmond slash James Carter. Yeah, if we're transporting, like, because they could just play everything. Either one of them, literally the Sunny player, like before he even knew it. Base would be interesting to hear Wilbur Ware,

who would go on to play with Sunny with all the live, the Vandeguard stuff, which is such great. They had such great chemistry. That's perfect. And then John McBride, or Christian McBride. From the future. Naturally, Peter, Kristen McBride, Ron Carter, always. That's right. And Hutch always and probably Brian Blade always.

So we've got to start throwing some other bass players, too, that could be maybe on the Ron Carter level. Well, I mean, Christian McBride, I think we did. John Patateucci. I mean, you know. But for this, imagine Blue 7 starting off with Ray Brown. Yeah.

Imagine that. Imagine Blue 7 with Ray Brown for a second. I would like that. It would be different. It would be different. It would be amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Drums. Touch. He could do it. He could totally do it. Philly Joe could do it also. Yeah. Max Rhodes.

Ulysses Owens? Art Taylor. He's got some, Art Taylor. I like 18. He would fit in with this. Roy Haynes. Roy Haynes.

Bespoke genre. I have two. So I'm going to go first, then you go. Okay. Blues hues. Now, this is about the cover. Can we see the cover? A series of albums.

Yeah. From Blue Train, saxophone colossus. No, the real one. Real cover. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of blue in a sense.

of just a hewed blue cover. It is a whole genre. It's a subgenre of jazz, the blue hue. Yeah. You know what I mean? And the blues being kind of the undertone, right? Blues, hues, and also a nod to blues, clues. No, no.

That wasn't existing yet. All right. What's your bespoke genre? I don't know why I did this. Saxy tour to force. Okay. Yeah. Saxy tour to force.

Because it's a little bit smooth jazzy. Are you saying sexy as like a pun on sexie? Yes, but it's sax. It's a sexy record, though. I've never connected those two things. Saxy and sexy are so close. One letter off. But then I was thinking the title of the record, if we can see we're going deep into the annals of Google Image Search,

I'm sure as we speak. No, we're there, we're there. But I think saxophone, first of all, great. We're going to talk about that. I mean, that's an all-timer. But I think for the genre. Blues Hughes. Can saxophone colossus be the genre?

Yeah. That's a great title. Every sunny record, every Cull Train record, every Dexter record is the saxophone colossus. Yeah. It's a great title. Like Blue Train, but like their top albums, they could all be considered saxophone colossuses. My second bespoke genre is the indoor sunglass glass bob. Indoor sunglasses bob.

Right. I got you. Next up is accruedments, and it is, if you can keep the cover up there, great timing. It's, this is... It's all about timing. The top. I mean, that's a top three for me. It's incredible. It's one of the most amazing album covers ever.

It's gorgeous. He's the coolest thing that's ever been recorded. It says what, I mean, the perspective of it coming from like he looks like huge, you know, like, and like he's towering over all of us. I do not believe he's a huge man. There is a saxophone there. Isn't he a tall guy? I thought he was a tall guy. How tall.

It's just gorgeous. It's gorgeous. It's an incredible striking cover, and I love it. Yeah, I love it. Give it up for prestige for the covers, by the way. Right. In high fidelity, no less. Wait, can we see it one more time? Sorry. There you go. Things I want to, like, look at the way that the saxophone is, what do you call this? Like, they sent it through some kind of Instagram filter back in 1957, didn't they? They did. They did. They did. It was a blues close. An OG IG filter. But, so you've got several different hues there, but like the way that the. saxophone keys are with that light blue, I think is very interesting and artistic. I love the, what is that font for prestige and high five? It's gorgeous. I love the Colossus is white. Did you say all this already while I was doing my Google search? No, no, no. Okay, good.

The Colossus is in white, everything else is in blue, including names. In quite a few different fonts, which typically doesn't work, but this works. It looks like there's, well, there's two fonts for the title. Well, there's one font for the title, and then the player's names are in a different font. not egregious. It's truly font-tastic. It is fantastic. And then Prestige, hi-fi has its own silly hi-fi font. But man, that's just great. I mean, instantly recognizable sets the mood of the album, everything you would want. I really love to be at like the three martini meetings of the ad agency. They came up with that, the design firm,

you know. They had all these goofy covers. Can you put the European one back up for a yeah. So this we found out, remember we had sort of talked about before, this is the Esquire, and I'm sure we have some LP enthusiasts and jazz historians that will know this much better than us. I'd love to hear about this in the... This is not a bad cover. That's a bad cover. I mean, only compared to what we just saw. It's not

a bad... If you didn't know... This is... No, this is the cover... This is the cover... That the art director brought to the meeting, the three martini... And then Don Draper was like... It turned it into the other thing? It's not about that. It's about... We're always about... Don Draper was a wordsmith. It's about...

Don Draper was a visionary. And I won't hear any less. Don Draper was like, it's about a Colossus. Right, right. And then put that one, and the whole room was like, Dwight Draper's the best. Dwight Draper's the best. And they're like, what if we put a saxophone in a boot?

Saxophone galoshes. I don't know. It's saxophone galoshes. You know those meetings go? You know how those meetings go. You like that, huh? Saxophone galoshes. And then it was like, let's put a Hungarian vibe on it.

saxophone goulash, you know, like dripping into the boot, the soup with the saxophone. Put a prison vibe on it. Saxophone goulot? No. Not good. But no, but the Esquire version. So what I found out was with my Google searching that, remember we always thought these were bootlegs from later? That was actually the release in the UK and perhaps the European, well, it wouldn't have been the European Union.

It just would have been Europe at that time. but they would have separate like some kind of licensing thing or like Esquire was releasing the version in Europe and apparently that's like a hot item a rarity to get that album. Why wouldn't they want to use the cover?

I don't know. I don't know if it was like a differentiation or what? Producer Caleb might know but he's not telling us. I mean, you know, Europeans. He's holding close to the goulashes. Famously have great taste in arc.

You would think that... I know. Yeah. So accrued months, we're giving it an A, right? Oh, A plus. Yeah, for sure. one of the greatest. Hot takes slash rants. We need some justice for Tommy Flanagan. Can't hear the piano.

It's a weak sound. It sucks. Also, justice for Tommy Flanagan. I like what you spelled Tommy Flanagan on this one. You really went with the Irish spelling. F-L-A-N-N-N. Sorry, that was horrible. Yeah, that's how I spelled it.

That's actually a harder spelling. I spelled it in a cartoonish way. Justice for Tommy Flanagan, not just for his RVG sound here, but also because, you know, famously in the next year, the year, two years, later. He's on giant steps. Yeah. And famously doesn't have a great time. Yeah. On the title track. But he's

playing his ass off here. We didn't really listen to too many of his solos that are any on this episode, which is shame on us. But he is crushing this album. It's not called piano Colossus. It's called Saxon. Yeah, but Tom Flanagan rules this record. He does. There's some great playing. Shout out T. F. Yep. Snobometer.

I already did my rant, so I'm not going to do that again about the piano sounds. Yeah. Snobometer. formerly snobometer, now we're calling it the snobometer. This is weak on the snobometer. Huh? For me, this is a weak snowmometer. This barely registers on the smolometer.

It's a weak snobometer. It doesn't get... No, say the words... Snobometer. That's, okay, that's better. It's a weak snobometer. What was I saying? I don't know.

Snobometer. What is that? Just give us a refresher on... Peter's like, what? Tell me... I already know... This is here. I already know what it means, but you tell me what it means.

Well, no, no. refresh me. I'm serious. I always forget. So if it's high, if it's good... high marks on the snobometer, that means snubs really love it. Yes. Which they do.

And it also means that, uh, yeah, yeah, normies, people who aren't into jazz don't like it. But I think, use that word anymore. I think this is, this is very low on the snobometer because I think Aunt Linda loves this one. This is, if you were to show someone their first jazz album. Like she's all over, the way you represent her, she's all over the place. Kenny G. But that she loves snobometer. I mean, um, Saxophone Colossus. I think you shows, you, you, you, you, you know, you.

You play St. Thomas for anybody who doesn't know much about jazz. It's one of the first things you would play for someone. That's why I was like, is that a smooth jazz? Yeah, you even mentioned it. I think it's very, very palatable for even people who aren't connoisseurs of the music. Okay. So I'm going to, ooh, I was going to do five. So you're going three?

I'm going three. I was going to go five. That's what I have. I'm changing to four because you have a strong argument there. But also, I was saying five because it seems to sit right in the middle of, like, the ultimate jazz snob could, would say, nothing negative about this record. True.

Except for maybe the piano sound or whatever, if I'm a snob. But, I mean, like, in terms of, like, they wouldn't be like, oh, that's not even Sunny's best playing or anything, you know? I don't think they would say that.

Well, actually, the bridge is much more, yeah. Although some might be like, that's not even his best record of 1956, 10 of Madness, you know? That's true.

Yeah, yeah. But no, I think it sits right in the middle of that. Well, anyway, with JJ Johnson. Yeah. And having mass appeal. But it's also, like, only got five tunes on it, and they're long.

So that always makes me think like it's got to be more snobby. The last two tracks are double digit times over 10 minutes, which is long. So yeah, that would push it out. You know what? I'm going back to five. I'm going up to four. Okay. It's a great take, Peter, great take. Reminder, the snobometer is not an exact science. It's not even a real thing. We just worked it out. We had evidence. We presented cases. I feel like it's as good as it's going to get. But this next category is an exact science. Is it better than binary? Is it better than K-O-B? Well, I thought it was binary. Now, I see what you put.

It's triunary. It's dionary. I'm dying to hear what you're always about to change it. I'm going to change it, actually, after listening to it. Okay. Better than KO.B. Adam. No.

Okay. I agree. Yeah. But very close. As close as anything we've listened to. It's very, very good. Yeah, I would have no arguments if somebody said even like you did. If KOB is a 9, it's an 8.

five. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Good. Well, this was fun, man. It was fun, man. Thank you for doing this. I know this isn't your favorite album in all time. Thank you for pushing on and getting on the schedule. But it's... And look, shout out, like, the way we're doing this now. We're scheduling a little bit further in advance. Yeah, put in the comments. Which has been fun for us to be able to listen to stuff and really do some deep listening. And I recommended that this has been a great thing for me. It's like, get some great records that maybe you want to familiarize yourself with or re-familiarize talking to you, dear listener. I'm looking at the camera here. Bespoke camera. No, but it's like, you know, put it on your schedule. Like, we put crappy stuff in life

that we don't want to do, like going to the dentist. It's necessary. But isn't it fun to put on, maybe for next week, Saxophone Colosses deep listening for an hour. It'd be amazing. We do have some suggestions for some albums we could do. And we got a good one from a speak pipe from a guitarist.

We have a lot of guitarists that listen. I don't know if you know that. Why are you turning up your nose? But our guitar friends are a little worried that we don't give the guitar enough love. In fact, we've only done one album Interplay that had any guitar on it at all. And someone suggested we listened to West Montgomery... Tune in to the next episode

where Adam will be just demonstrating giving love to a guitar. Gross. Someone recommended that we listen to West Montgomery smoking at the half note, which I know you like. Oh, I love that record. I think we should listen to West Montgomery Smoker as a half-offord. Yeah, it's an all-time great record. I put it on a list. Yeah, all right.

Cool. Thank you. Until next time. You'll hear it.