Sonny Rollins
Way Out West

For Sonny Rollins, 1957 was truly a special year. His discographies credit him with no less than fourteen releases, both studio and live. Among all those works, this "Way Out West" stands out, not only as a cornerstone of the year but of his entire career and, I believe, of jazz in its worldwide impact.

What made this work so decisive and unique is something very simple to understand by listening to it, but not as much by trying to describe it. First of all, the idea of removing what was then considered the indispensable instrument: the piano, to leave the full and sole tonal expression to his saxophone. This choice proved to be very strong, but it allowed Rollins to carve out unusual spaces, creating new sound patterns consisting of both main phrases and fragments of eloquent sound balance, derived even in the darkest corners of a consistently perfect metric. And it is precisely the metric aspect that is another of the key points of this record: the rhythmic section composed of the phenomenal bassist Ray Brown and the clean and intuitive drummer Shelly Manne, managed to create a fabric of incredible and elegant timbral orthodoxy, on which Rollins could insert, at his pleasure, a series of unique, new, virtuosic, and lapidary solos that only he could deliver. These are melodic ideas with subtle balances and endowed with a rare passing effectiveness, technicalities embellished by a taste for harmonic development that can stand out both in the boldest improvised phrasing and in unusual and almost miraculous melodic lines of more direct approach.

In this development all his own, the record establishes six moments. Moments that do not try to chase or borrow from each other, but stand out in their readability as separate universes. Moments that stand as self-elegies to be a source of inspiration for jazz and jazz-rock in the years to come. "Come, Gone" and "I'm an Old Cowhand" pop out, monuments showing how certain jazz can become a living and timeless pulse. "There Is No Greater Love" explodes in magic, a page of sublime formality that lends itself to a host of readings on different planes, as demonstrated by the dozens of jazz, jazz-rock, and even pop covers repeated over the years. The sensitivity of revisiting "Solitude," written by Duke Ellington in 1934, is nothing short of noble, and the playful and mocking concluding act of the title track seems to say: "Here, now you know what to do ..."

The integration between the instruments is total in a whirl of rare harmony, played on intuition, accentuation, showing that sometimes "not doing" can have more power and allure than "doing."

From a technical aspect, the record borders on perfection, and the instruments can be focused, identified in their position exactly as Rollins wanted them during the recording, giving the sound extraordinary physicality and presence.

For all this and, above all, for how much this record can give emotionally, it can only be spoken of as a milestone.