Living Jazz, Fridays at Noon.
This week’s “Living Jazz” will celebrate the birthday of Sonny Rollins, who turned 92 on Wednesday. We’ll check out 1950s recordings featuring Rollins playing with some of the all-time jazz greats: The Modern Jazz Quartet, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, Max Roach and Art Blakey. We’ll also hear him as leader on great albums such as “The Bridge,” “Way Out West” and “A Night at the Village Vanguard.” We’ll finish off with “Sonny Rollins in Holland,” a recording of a 1967 tour that was rediscovered and issued as a wonderful two-CD set in 2020.
Miles Davis 1955 quintet with Sonny Rollins on sax probably would have been known as Miles’ “First Great Quintet” had Rollins not become addicted to heroin and dropped out of the band. In the second hour of this week’s show, we’ll check out what has become known as Miles’ “First Great Quintet,,” featuring John Coltrane on sax. We’ll finish off with a mini-tribute to Wayne Shorter, who recently turned 89 and played sax in Miles’ “Second Great Quintet.”
“Living Jazz” airs Fridays from noon to 2 p.m. on WJFF, 90.5 F.M., and streams online at wjffradio.org