Saxophonist Sonny Rollins‘ Vol. 2 is the next archival Blue Note Records release joining the label’s Tone Poet audiophile reissue series. Available for pre-order starting today, the new edition of the landmark 1957 hard bop session was curated and overseen by the “Tone Poet” himself, Joe Harley, and produced directly from the original analog master tapes.
Rollins, who died in May at 95, sustained a prolific seven-decade career that saw him serve as bandleader on more than 60 albums and earn a lifetime achievement Grammy Award. He first appeared on a Blue Note release in 1949, as a member of Bud Powell’s Modernists. Rollins returned to the label in 1956 and, over the course of less than a year, cut four leader dates; Vol. 2, recorded on April 14, 1957 at Rudy Van Gelder’s Hackensack, New Jersey studio, was his second recording for label founder Alfred Lion. The session boasted a top-of-class band, with J.J. Johnson on trombone, Horace Silver on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Art Blakey on drums.
The six-song set kicks off with two high-energy Rollins originals, “Why Don’t I?” and “Wail March,” before closing with renditions of the popular standards “You Stepped Out of a Dream” and “Poor Butterfly.” But the album’s most celebrated moments come in the middle, where pianist Thelonious Monk sits in for versions of his own compositions “Misterioso” and “Reflections,” trading the piano bench with Silver for those two tracks.
Vol. 2 is just the latest Rollins record to become part of the Tone Poet series; his 1957 live album A Night At The Village Vanguard: The Complete Masters, which was recorded a few months after Vol. 2, also has a Tone Poet edition. Other artists represented throughout the collection include Bobby Hutcherson, McCoy Tyner, Wayne Shorter, and Hank Mobley.
