Kind of blue? Perhaps you need a new Jazz album..

Sonny Rollins' Saxophone Colossus is aptly named - Rollins assumed the mantle during the 1950's of pre-eminent saxophonist in Jazz, and this album shows why. The leader's tenor is not the only marvel on display here, since we are treated also to a tremendous display of Max Roach's god-like talent on drums.


The 1950's was a stabilising period in Jazz. The thrusting, determined modernity of Bebop became integrated into a more lyrical, accessible conception (although hot, tough music persisted in the hard-bop style, the jam session phenomenon, etc.), and Saxophone Colossus is a key work in that development. Jazz history aside, it is quite simply an amazing album of music.

First up is St Thomas, a calypso which Rollins turns into a swaggering display of rhythmic mastery and easy-going improvisational invention. Next, You Don't Know what Love is is a superb ballad showcase - Rollins plays a magnificently querulous extended solo that never runs out of great ideas. Moritat (a.k.a. Mack the Knife) is warm and lyrical (perhaps a tribute to Louis Armstrong, who revived the tune in 1954?). Blue Seven is a brilliant extended track on which Rollins and Roach both shine.

Superlatives don't do this one justice. Every music-lover deserves it.