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Saxophone Colossus

Saxophone Colossus
Saxophone Colossus - Sonny Rollins.jpg
Studio album by Sonny Rollins
Released 1956
Recorded June 22, 1956
Studio Van Gelder Studio in Hackensack
Genre Hard bop
Length 39:58
Label Prestige
Producer , Rudy Van Gelder
Sonny Rollins chronology
Tenor Madness
(1955)
Saxophone Colossus
(1956)
Rollins Plays for Bird
(1956)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
AllMusic 5/5 stars
Down Beat 5/5 stars
MusicHound Jazz 5/5
The Penguin Guide to Jazz 5/5 stars
The Rolling Stone Album Guide 4/5 stars
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide 5/5 stars

Saxophone Colossus is a studio album by American jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins. It was recorded on June 22, 1956, with producers and Rudy Van Gelder at the latter's studio in Hackensack, New Jersey. Rollins led a quartet on the album that included pianist Tommy Flanagan, bassist Doug Watkins, and drummer Max Roach. Saxophone Colossus was released later that year by Prestige Records to critical success and helped establish Rollins as a prominent jazz artist.

In 2017, Saxophone Colossus was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant."

There are five tracks on the album, three of which are credited to Rollins. "St. Thomas" is a calypso-inspired piece named after Saint Thomas in the Virgin Islands. The tune is traditional and had already been recorded by Randy Weston in 1955 under the title "Fire Down There". (In the booklet provided with the boxed set, The Complete Prestige Recordings, Rollins makes it clear that it was the record company that insisted on his taking credit.) In any case, the piece has since become a jazz standard, and this is its most famous recorded version.

"You Don't Know What Love Is" is a ballad standard by Don Raye and Gene de Paul, given a distinctively bleak treatment by Rollins. "Strode Rode" is an up-tempo hard bop number, notable for its staccato motif and for a brief, high-spirited duet between Rollins and Doug Watkins on bass. The tune is named after the Strode Hotel in Chicago, in tribute to the ill-fated trumpeter Freddie Webster, who died there.


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