Saxophone Colossus

Saxophone Colossus
Studio album by
Sonny Rollins
ReleasedMarch/April 1957[1][2]
RecordedJune 22, 1956
StudioVan Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey
GenreHard bop[3]
Length39:58
LabelPrestige
ProducerBob Weinstock
Sonny Rollins chronology
Tenor Madness
(1956) 		Saxophone Colossus
(1957) 		Rollins Plays for Bird
(1956)

Saxophone Colossus is the sixth studio album by American jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins. Perhaps Rollins's best-known album, it is often considered his breakthrough record.[4] It was recorded monophonically on June 22, 1956, with producer Bob Weinstock and engineer Rudy Van Gelder at the latter's studio in Hackensack, New Jersey. Rollins led a quartet on the album that included pianist Tommy Flanagan, bassist Doug Watkins, and drummer Max Roach. Rollins was a member of the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet at the time of the recording, and the recording took place four days before his bandmates Brown and Richie Powell died in a car accident on the way to a band engagement in Chicago (Rollins was not travelling in the car carrying Brown and Powell). Roach appeared on several more of Rollins' solo albums, up to the 1958 Freedom Suite album.

Saxophone Colossus was released by Prestige Records to critical success and helped establish Rollins as a prominent jazz artist.[5]

In 2016, Saxophone Colossus was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[6]

  1. ^ "SINGLES & ALBUMS RELEASED - For period March 16 thru July" (PDF). The Billboard. August 19, 1957. pp. 36, 60. Retrieved April 11, 2019 – via americanradiohistory.com.
  2. ^ "Special Merit Jazz Album" (PDF). The Billboard: 29. April 27, 1957. Retrieved April 11, 2019 – via americanradiohistory.com.
  3. ^ Rosenthal, David H. (1993). "Selected Hard Bop Discography". Hard Bop: Jazz and Black Music 1955-1965. Oxford University Press. p. 193. ISBN 0195358996.
  4. ^ "Sonny Rollins: 'Saxophone Colossus'". NPR.org.
  5. ^ Anon. (2007). "Sonny Rollins - Saxophone Colossus". The Mojo Collection (4th ed.). Canongate Books. p. 13. ISBN 978-1847676436. Retrieved November 15, 2015.
  6. ^ "National Recording Registry Picks Are "Over the Rainbow"". Library of Congress. March 29, 2016. Retrieved March 29, 2016.