Sonny Rollins - east broadway run down / single layer SACD

• This Single-Layer SHM-SACD can only be played on a Super Audio CD Player

• Single-Layer Stereo SHM-SACD, to secure enough reflectance and not to compress DSD file.
• Label of the disc is printed with a special green ink called 'Onsho Shiyou,' which minimizes diffuse reflection.
• Carefully selected master audio is used, from existing DSD files to newly converted from analog tapes.

The title track is a 20-minute tour-de-force featuring a bluesy nine-note phrase, a series of brilliant hide-and-seek games with the rhythm section and some novel tape-echo effects towards the end – predating Teo Macero’s similar production work with Miles Davis by at least three years – when Rollins plays through his horn with the mouthpiece removed. Garrison lays down the strong grooves and striking flamenco-like phrases that have influenced everyone from Charlie Haden to Stanley Clarke.

Side two kicks off with “Blessing In Disguise”, a title that could serve as Sonny’s mantra, another remarkable series of improvisations centred around a catchy five-note phrase. The album closes out with the sublime “We Kiss In A Shadow”, a composition from the musical “The King & I” – even at the height of the avant-garde era, Rollins didn’t abandon standards.

Seldom have Rollins and Jones sounded better – brilliant engineering from Van Gelder lets us hear all the overtones of Sonny’s tenor and Jones’s cymbals. Add to that the gorgeous cover painting by Mel Cheren and Nat Hentoff’s fine liner notes, and “East Broadway” is a formidable package.

So why did Sonny take a third, long sabbatical from jazz after its recording, not releasing anything for six years? His explanation was straight to the point: ‘I was disillusioned with the record business and all of the social turmoil of the time.’ So, in late summer 1967, he travelled to a Mumbai suburb called Powai Lake for four months to study yoga and meditation. A year later, he repaired to Japan for even longer.