Sonny Rollins - The Bridge (1962 Japanese Victor Original LP)

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Sonny Rollins - The Bridge | Vinyl LP - 1962 Japanese Victor Original (SHP-5074, Victor Company of Japan, Ltd.)

• Rollins's first album after a three-year sabbatical during which he practiced alone on New York's Williamsburg Bridge; recorded January 30 and February 13-14, 1962 at RCA Victor's Studio B, New York; produced by Bob Prince; engineered by Ray Hall; released April 1962 in the US and the same year in Japan
• A pianoless quartet with Jim Hall on guitar - Hall's clean-toned guitar carries the harmonic role without the sustain or comping density of a piano; two Rollins originals and four standards including "God Bless the Child" and "You Do Something to Me"; "John S." is Rollins's tribute to his relationship with John Coltrane, the title standing for "John and Sonny"
• Original 1962 Japanese Victor pressing (SHP-5074), manufactured by Victor Company of Japan Ltd.; flipback jacket; same year as the original US RCA Victor release (LPM-2527)

Rollins stopped performing in 1959. Miles Davis had just recorded Kind of Blue. Ornette Coleman had arrived in New York. Rollins felt unprepared for what was happening around him and withdrew. He lived on the Lower East Side with no private space to practice, so he took his saxophone up to the Williamsburg Bridge and played there alone, day and night, for three years. The album was named for those sessions.

When he returned to the studio in January and February 1962, he chose not to innovate, at least not immediately. He brought Jim Hall on guitar instead of a pianist, which opened the quartet's sound up in a different way. Hall's single-note lines leave more space between the chords than a piano would, and his approach to accompanying Rollins runs less to standard jazz comping and more to genuine dialogue. Bob Cranshaw on bass and Ben Riley on drums complete the group; H.T. Saunders plays drums on "Where Are You" only.

Four of the six tracks are standards. "Without a Song" is the Vincent Youmans, William Rose and Edward Eliscu piece from the 1929 musical Great Day, taken at length. "Where Are You" is the Harold Adamson and Jimmy McHugh ballad from 1936. "God Bless the Child," Billie Holiday's co-composition with Arthur Herzog Jr. from 1941, was singled out in reviews as the emotional centrepiece. "You Do Something to Me" is Cole Porter's from the 1929 show Fifty Million Frenchmen.

"John S." is a Rollins original built on 34-bar choruses, an unusual structure, with a stop-start head. The title refers to John Coltrane. "The Bridge" closes Side B with alternating common time and compound metre phrases that Rollins assembled from his years of practice on the actual structure.