Paradox (Sonny Rollins) (LP 2373 - 2376)

Dizzy Gillespie/Sonny Rollins  Duets (CD, Classic Jazz Records, 2010, originally released 1958) ***  

Sonny Rollins  Tenor Madness (CD, Classic Jazz Records, 2010, originally released 1956) ****  

Sonny Rollins  Plays For Bird (CD, Classic Jazz Records, 2010, originally released 1957) *** 

Sonny Rollins  Worktime (CD, Classic Jazz Records, 2010, originally released 1955) ****  

Genre: Jazz 

Places I remember: FOPP

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Tenor Madness

Gear costume: The Most Beautiful Girl In the World (Tenor Madness)

Active compensatory factors: These four albums form a '4 Originals' CD package and the four albums are featured in the order above.

First up is really a Dizzy Gillespie album with Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt taking turns on tenor sax with Dizzy's trumpet. I'm not a Gillespie fan. My dad liked him but I find his tone too strident.

Ray Bryant (piano), Tommy Bryant (bass) and Charlie Persip (drums) are the other musicians featured. 

Tenor Madness features the title track with John Coltrane joining Sonny. The other players on that track and the rest of the album are impressive as well - Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on double bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums.

AllMusic sums this album up with: a recording that should stand proudly alongside Saxophone Colossus as some of the best work of Sonny Rollins in his early years, it's also a testament to the validity, vibrancy, and depth of modern jazz in the post-World War era. It belongs on everybody's shelf.

Sonny Rollins Plays For Bird features material associated with Charlie Parker. It also has Kenny Dorham on trumpet, which both adds and detracts from Rollins own playing.

Worktime is a classic sax, piano, bass, drums quartet with Rollins joined by Ray Bryant (piano), Max Roach (drum titan), and bass player George Morrow. 

It's a terrific album. No trumpet cluttering up the approach. One of my favourite albums from Rollins, along with Tenor Madness.

Where do they all belong? Next up in the jazz section - St Germain.