Where better to start with Sonny Rollins than his rendition of a calypso sung to children in the Caribbean.
“St. Thomas” is the first track on Rollins’ classic 1956 album, Saxophone Colossus.
At the outset, Max Roach establishes the proper sentiment with a drum line that is so joyful and ephemeral, it couldn’t have been borne out of anywhere but the Caribbean. A proper introduction for Mr. Rollins, who then enters boisterously twice trumpeting the main theme from his tenor sax.
The head is simple, arguably juvenile, at least melodically, but Rollins makes it profound. In fact I would argue that he is the unrivaled master of making trivial melodies meaningful. Give a listen to his album Way Out West, with renditions of “Wagon Wheels”, and “I’m an Old Cowhand” and see for yourself. Certainly his unmistakable tone and compelling rhythmic plays help dignify these childish melodies but I think it is something more. After all, Rollins can play a single note for an entire chorus and make it sound damn good. Perhaps the simpler melodies isolate the more complex variables of melodic progression and note choice, and instead showcase Rollins’ sentiment. The man pours his heart into and out of his horn, and it might simply be easier to hear (for non-giants of jazz) when he does it through simpler melodies.
The head finishes with a playful drum fill from Max Roach before passing it back to Sonny. Rollins starts the first chorus restlessly pedaling between G and down to C through E (concert key) about fifteen times before flurrying into a perfectly formed idea that couldn’t have been composed more masterfully should he have had months rather than seconds to lay it out.
When you listen to enough jazz a fundamental intuition you gain is to identify when something sounds contrived. Players quote each other all the time, but when the quotation comes for lack of a better idea rather than being borne of true sentiment, then it sounds mechanical and premeditated. Rollins is of the highest echelon of integrity when it comes to truly improvising.
And if the story is ultimately about tension and release then Rollins succeeds by being honest about the tension of improvising. He shows you the pain of conceiving, of working for inspiration instead of just spontaneously receiving it. Other great jazz musicians are sometimes effortless to fault. You neither know how they got there, nor why they got there. Rollins isn’t afraid to show a piece of his process; something other musicians guard as if it were a trade secret. Rollins is indeed the wizard that pulls the curtain aside.
He’s pedaling between those few notes repeatedly before the melody blossoms, because he is literally conceiving the idea right then. And so through the flourish (and the second chorus) he takes you on a carefully crafted journey that puts you right back where it began: a bounce on G and down a fourth to C. But along the way, he’s shown you how he got there, and why.
The climax comes during the fifth bar of chorus three at 1:43 where he wails a high E down to C#, then resolves it with a soaring, never ending line that swings you right into the rest of the story and into chorus 4. It is as upbeat as it is reflective.
After a moving fifth chorus, Roach takes his drum solo, yet the melody doesn’t stop. Max infuses the ideas with a musical quality that echoes that of his bandleader.
BOOM!
At 3:53 Rollins hops in for his sixth chorus, rips out our training wheels, and thrusts us face forward into some of the most bad-ass lines in jazz history with Roach intensifying his attack to egg him on.
He begins chorus nine at 4:42 by ripping a blistering six-note pattern nine times in a row before evolving it to a brief climax and then tossing us off to Tommy Flanagan for the last solo
Flanagan, underrated among the giants of jazz piano (more on that later) bringing all the sensitivity, and lyricism we’ve come to love him for. But here it almost feels like damage control. As if Flanagan knew he was the last piece of narration before returning to the sweet little Calypso that somehow spawned Rollins’ fury. By the time that simmering six-by-nine blues line came crashing through, Rollins and co. had introduced a level of passion unfit for a child’s ears, and it was up to Flanagan bring the gap.
With a moment to cool off, Rollins hops back in with the “St. Thomas” theme ending the piece where it began: a damn good lullaby.