Sonny Rollins
Don't Ask (Milestone/Original Jazz Classics 915)

Okay, I won't ask what made Sonny think "Disco Monk" was a good idea. Actually, it isn't all that bad, since it's still Sonny Rollins, but any song that attempts to vacillate between (what the band thinks is) disco and Thelonious Monk-style introspection is headed for trouble. It's tough enough to pull off a tune with a switch-on-switch-off tempo change, but for god's sake, don't try it when it's 1979!

Don't Ask is a breezy, polished studio effort reminiscent of Chuck Mangione's Feels So Good. A number of the songs sound like jazz treatments of '70s TV drama themes, providing an overall vibe of happy. I guess the audience for serious jazz in 1979 was such that even Sonny Rollins would need to cater to that sort of mood. But don't get me wrong, this is not jazz-lite (neither is Feels So Good).

In many respects this is a great context to enjoy Rollins' classic melodicism and big, clear tone. Sonny Rollins may be one of the least tormented musicians in jazz history, so I hear this record as Sonny just having a good time making music. Most of the tracks employ an electric line-up and additional percussion, while two are duets with Rollins on tenor sax and Larry Coryell on acoustic guitar.

The duets are very rewarding ("The File" is even a bit funky), and the remaining tracks are uniformly excellent. "And Then My Love I Found You," which closes the album, is a celebratory tune with a lot of taste and majesty; it actually makes a good album great.

People who assume that jazz produced no records of any permanence after 1970 (or '72, '75, '80, etc.) really lay off the Penguin Guide and just listen to some of the many beautiful, joyous albums made every year. This one may be dated, wearing the CTI influence a bit heavily, but it is a rousing set. Besides, he could have done "New Wave Ellington" and where would that have gotten us?

Loud Bassoon rating scale

Review by Oofie Honchoponcho