Our Man In Jazz

In 1962, Sonny Rollins, then a titan of mainstream bop, formed a group with trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Bob Cranshaw, and drummer Billy Higgins. The music they played was melodically and harmonically free; the horns danced around and sometimes past each other, while the rhythm section kept things swinging fast and hard. The album is dominated by long, abstract versions of two Rollins compositions, “Oleo” and “Doxy”; he and Cherry revisit the melodies occasionally, but as springboards rather than anchors.