Sonny, Like He Is

On Tuesday night, I went to see Sonny Rollins at Carnegie Hall. While it wasn’t my first time seeing Sonny play live, it was my first time at Carnegie Hall. The gig also marked the 50th Anniversary of Sonny’s first Carnegie appearance, so I was pretty amped. Even though I got there early, I had to wait almost an hour to get inside. There was some combo of human and computer error that kept folks waiting even longer than I did for their tickets.

I guess I wasn’t paying attention as the run-up to the concert was happening but it turned out that Gil Noble was the host. Mr. Noble and Like It Is, his long-running public affair show on WABC Channel 7, is one of the reasons I became a journalist. I remember coming home after Catholic mass and turning it on and learning about black people in ways that I wasn’t getting in school.

You can get some insights about the show here and here. For my part, I thought Sonny was in fine form. His tone sounded more full-bodied than the last few times I saw him live, when his sound was more astringent and bracing in the upper registers of the horn.


Thankfully, I managed to catch the last two songs in the trio format. Man, Christian McBride just smokes on the bass. I think I’ve seen him before but it’s been long enough to forget just how good he is. This was my first time seeing Roy Haynes ever and it’s stunning to think that he’s 82 and still playing the drums. Stop and think about that for a second… dude’s been sitting on a stool banging out rhythms for upwards of 60 years. I kept on thinking, “How are your hands NOT a painful arthritic mess?” I didn’t know that they’d publicized the set list for the trio portion of the program beforehand, so I was really happy when the band launched in Moritat. I was humming that while waiting in line and Sonny amazed me with the way he’s still able to do those nimble little noodle-y bits that he plays really fast, as if to clear a whole bunch of impulses from his brain.

I’ve occasionally been on those people who hates on the electric bass in Sonny’s band. (Yes, I know that Cranshaw plays it because of his bad back, but it doesn’t move me the way upright does. Sorry.) But, the difference is really striking when it’s directly contrasted during the same night. Nevertheless, I like the stuff the sextet played. Lots of people complain about how much calypso stuff Sonny’s latter-day ensembles play, but I’ve gotten used to the fact that if you’re going to see him play in 2007, you’re gonna hear that stuff.

The thing about Sonny is that he carries the weight of history and legacy on his shoulders. He knows that and I think he knows that his audience knows that. It’s a lot of pressure and the fact that he manages to play and exist gracefully in the midst of it is pretty inspiring. When I think about it, three of the men on stage –Gil Noble, Roy Haynes and Sonny–continue to do the damn thing way past retirement age. Just something else to try to live up to…