December 15, 2023
By Dan Ouellette
There’s long been a notion that Sonny Rollins, the tenor saxophone titan, never achieved in a recording studio what he was able to in his thrilling live performances. It had nothing to do with lackluster efforts on Sonny’s part. It’s more that he flourished in front of an appreciative audience, using the energy of the rapt crowd to inspire radiant improvisation and blowing brio.
But dial back to the 1950s and you find plenty of stellar studio outings to counter that argument. While a member of the bebop-and-beyond club on the 1950s (Miles, Bud, Monk, Clifford, Max, et al), Sonny launched his solo career in 1953 with a series of Prestige albums spiked by his classic 1956 date, Saxophone Colossus. More colossal tenor action came the next year when Sonny joined the Blue Note crew for four albums recorded between December 1956 and November 1957.
Sonny’s high-water Blue Note date, Newk’s Time, was recorded on September 27, 1957 at Rudy Van Gelder’s Hackensack, N.J., studio (the saxist had turned 27 earlier in the month) and featured pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Doug Watkins and drummer Philly Joe Jones.
As for the title? Newk had recently become Sonny’s moniker, based on his so-called resemblance to the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball pitcher Don Newcombe—one of the heroes of the sport at the time who was the first black ace to win 20 games in a season (1955) and the first to win both the National League MVP and Cy Young awards in the same season (1956). So, Sonny wore the nickname as an honor.
Newk’s Time comprises six tunes, with only one (“Blues for Philly Joe”) being Sonny’s own composition—which bounds with an expansive, effusive romp that celebrates the drummer, who serves as the playmaker of the team with multiple assists throughout. It’s a bright, jovial number with Sonny’s demonstrative tenor soloing taking center stage while being impressively supported by Wynton’s inspired piano run and Philly Joe, of course, adding his say into the mix—a rambunctious solo with Sonny responding in kind. The tune is perhaps the most playful and fun number of the collection.
Newk’s Time opens with a highly charged drive through Miles Davis’s “Tune Up.” Philly Joe opens the proceedings with a cymbals splash that signals it’s time for the upbeat gambol. Sonny stars on his deep-brewed, untamed tenor, playing with both speed and grace, and toward the end joins in with his aggressive drummer for a cavorting tenor-drum interplay of dynamic accents and solo punches. That’s followed by a swinging take on Kenny Dorham’s “Asiatic Raes,” filled with Sonny’s coils of tenor sax glee and more Philly Joe boldly making his spirited presence known—and felt.
Sonny plays cheerfully on the tune “Wonderful! Wonderful!,” best known for singer Johnny Mathis’s rendition. The saxophonist’s luminous, melodic read gives the piece its exclamatory essence which animates Wynton to bounce through his break and stimulates an added pep to Philly Joe’s spotlight stretch. He’s on deck for plenty more, as he and Newk deliver a duo interpretation of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Broadway show hit, “The Surrey With the Fringe on Top,” from the 1943 musical Oklahoma! It’s easily the masterwork highlight of the album as Sonny states the catchy theme before he and Philly Joe engage with each other as triumphant soul brothers. Together, they dance around the melody’s center, inspiriting spontaneous flights of heartened fancy.
The endsong of the album is Sonny and co.’s rendering of the Johnny Mercer-penned tune, “Namely You,” which follows a relaxed route with Sonny taking the sweet tenor lead. It’s the shortest number on the album and pretty much serves as the coda to a session that exhilarates through the first five numbers. As such, it’s the beauty of the bunch that leaves the listener craving for more of Sonny’s rowdy jazz enthusiasm. Not to worry. There was plenty more to come around the corner and through the decades. But what’s special about Newk’s Time, though, is how it captures Sonny feeling confident and at home in the studio.
Get the Classic Vinyl Edition of Newk’s Time on the Blue Note Store
