Altissimo (The Cry): Preview

Sonny Rollins on the Williamsburg Bridge, October 7, 1961 © Atsuhiko Kawabata (photographer) /Hanako Kawabata. First published in Jazz Times. A subscriber post on Substack, on the late Sonny Rollins.There’s a radio recording from the Half Note in 1966 (or perhaps 1963, depending which discography you use): Rollins with McCoy Tyner, Walter Booker, and Mickey Roker, moving in and out of tunes at will; melody stacked free associatively on melody—rhapsody, in the sense of rhapsōidos, “stitcher of songs”, as if Rollins might play every song he knew, that act of association and recall a kind of survival force. Rollins was always walking around the club while he was playing, walking off stage while he was playing, playing within the form: having already begun as he stepped out of the taxi and walked into the venue, or deciding to take a trip up the stairs and out of the club to serenade Alice and John Coltrane in their home, followed by the remnants of the faithful. Sound bouncing off…