Sonny Rollins - Newk's Time Sonny Rollins

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.

Sonny Rollins first appeared on a Blue Note recording session in 1949 as part of Bud Powell’s Modernists during a period when the saxophonist was coming up on the scene and cutting his teeth alongside bebop innovators including Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis. After he began leading his own record dates in the 1950s, Rollins hooked up with Alfred Lion again and recorded four tremendous albums for Blue Note in less than a year between December 1956 and November 1957. Following two quintet dates that were released as Sonny Rollins, Volume 1 and Vol. 2, the saxophone colossus returned to Van Gelder Studio in September 1957 with a quartet comprised of pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Doug Watkins, and drummer Philly Joe Jones to record Newk’s Time (the album title was a reference to his nickname Newk due to his resemblance to Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Don Newcombe). Rollins & Co. romp through a typically eclectic set that includes pieces by his jazz peers (Miles Davis’ “Tune Up” & Kenny Dorham’s “Asiatic Raes”), Broadway showtunes (the saxophone-drums duet “Surrey with the Fringe on Top” & the sumptuous “Namely You”), pop songs (“Wonderful! Wonderful!” which was a hit for Johnny Mathis in 1956), and Rollins’ own spirited original “Blues for Philly Joe.”