Road Shows, Vol. 3

Tenor sax giant Theodore Walter (“Sonny”) Rollins’ third collection of his road-show gigs finds the octogenarian (he turns 84 in September) in performance at five global venues dating from 2001 to 2012. Rollins has long preferred clubs and concert halls as the sites for live recordings and the six tunes on this disc were recorded in concerts in France, Japan and the United States. Not only does recording “live” free him and his combo from, say, the time constraints of a studio setting, it also allows him a direct connection with the audience as the enthusiastic responses captured here reveal, especially at the end of his 20-minute solo and multichorus interaction with drummer Steve Jordan on “Why Was I Born?” Rollins loves the “old ones” and here revisits Noel Coward’s “Someday I’ll Find You,” a lovely 15-minute waltz from a 2006 French concert that features magnificent contributions from guitarist Bobby Broom and Rollins, whose “emotional surges” (to use liner-note writer Bob Blumenthal’s felicitous phrase) show the then-76-year-old saxophonist still in stunning form. Another stand-out track is the eight-minute “Solo Sunny,” from 2009, which is exactly what the title says, and allows Rollins the freedom to quote from a number of sources (e.g., “Tennessee Waltz,” “In the Mood”). Another very worthy addition to one’s Rollins collection.