''The Bridge'' is a studio album by

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

saxophonist Sonny Rollins, recorded in 1962. It was Rollins' first release following a three-year sabbatical and was his first album for RCA Victor. The saxophonist was joined by the musicians with whom he recorded for the next segment of his career: Jim Hall on guitar, Bob Cranshaw on double bass and Ben Riley on drums.

History

In 1959, feeling pressured by the unexpected swiftness of his rise to fame, Rollins took a three-year hiatus to focus on perfecting his craft.Biography
Sonny Rollins official website. Accessed October 20, 2007. A resident of the Lower East Side of

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

with no private space to practice, he took his saxophone up to the

Williamsburg Bridge The Williamsburg Bridge is a suspension bridge in New York City across the East River connecting the Lower East Side of Manhattan at Delancey Street with the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn at Broadway near the Brooklyn-Queens Expressw ...

(not the brooklyn bridge as depicted on the cd reissue cover) to practice alone: "I would be up there 15 or 16 hours at a time spring, summer, fall and winter". His first recording after his return to performance took its name from those solo sessions. Critical reception to the album, which was not the revolutionary new jazz approach many expected, was mixed.Greilsamer, Marc
Sonny Rollins: The Bridge
''Inkblot Magazine''. Accessed October 20, 2007. Rollins, who had been considered groundbreaking in his thematic improvisations, was supplanted in critical buzz by the growing popularity of Ornette Coleman's

free jazz Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians duri ...

Reception

If not a tremendous departure from Rollins' earlier style, the album was nevertheless quite successful. Tagged by

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

as "a near-classic", the recording was declared by ''Inkblot Magazine'' to be "one of the greatest albums from one of jazz's greatest musicians". It is one of the albums for which the long-active and prolific Rollins receives his greatest praise. The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2015.

Re-releases

The album was re-released in 1976 in Japan and 1977 in the U.S. It was relaunched in 1992 on CD by

Bluebird The bluebirds are a North American group of medium-sized, mostly insectivorous or omnivorous birds in the order of Passerines in the genus ''Sialia'' of the thrush family (Turdidae). Bluebirds are one of the few thrush genera in the Americas. ...

/RCA/ BMG and remastered from the original master tapes for CD in 2003 for the Bluebird First Editions series. It has also been issued many times in other formats, for example as an audiophile LP with 45 rpm (Classic Records, 2000). It is also part of ''The Complete RCA Victor Recordings'' (1997).

Track listing

# "

Without a Song "Without a Song" is a popular song composed by Vincent Youmans with lyrics later added by Billy Rose and Edward Eliscu, published in 1929. It was included in the musical play, ''Great Day''. The play only ran for 36 performances but contained two ...

" ( Edward Eliscu, Billy Rose,

Vincent Youmans Vincent Millie Youmans (September 27, 1898 – April 5, 1946) was an American Broadway composer and producer. A leading Broadway composer of his day, Youmans collaborated with virtually all the greatest lyricists on Broadway: Ira Gershwin, ...

) – 7:26 # " Where Are You?" (

Harold Adamson Harold Campbell Adamson (December 10, 1906 – August 17, 1980) was an American lyricist during the 1930s and 1940s. Early life Adamson, the son of building contractor Harold Adamson and Marion "Minnie" Campbell Adamson, was born and raised in ...

Jimmy McHugh James Francis McHugh (July 10, 1894 – May 23, 1969) was an American composer. One of the most prolific songwriters from the 1920s to the 1950s, he is credited with over 500 songs. His songs were recorded by many artists, including Chet Baker, Ju ...

) – 5:10 # "John S." ( Sonny Rollins) – 7:46 # "The Bridge" (Sonny Rollins) – 5:59 # " God Bless the Child" (

Arthur Herzog Jr. Arthur Herzog Jr. (December 13, 1900 in New York City – September 1, 1983 in Detroit, Michigan) was a songwriter and composer. Career Herzog was most known for work with Billie Holiday. He co-wrote several jazz Jazz is a music genre tha ...

Billie Holiday Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Fagan; April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959) was an American jazz and swing music singer. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and music partner, Lester Young, Holiday had an innovative influence on jazz music and pop s ...

) – 7:27 # " You Do Something to Me" ( Cole Porter) – 6:51

Personnel

Performance

* Sonny Rollins –

tenor saxophone The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while ...

* Jim Hall –

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

* Bob Cranshaw – bass * Ben Riley – drums (all but track 5) * Harry "H.T." Saunders – drums (track 5 only) "God Bless the Child" recorded on January 30, 1962
"Where Are You?", "John S." and "You Do Something to Me" recorded on February 13, 1962
"Without a Song" and "The Bridge" on February 14, 1962

Production

Bob Prince Robert Ferris Prince (July 1, 1916 – June 10, 1985) was an American radio and television sportscaster and commentator, best known for his 28-year stint as the voice of the Pittsburgh Pirates Major League Baseball club, with whom he earned the ...

– original session producer * Ray Hall –

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

Chuck Stewart Charles Stewart (May 21, 1927 – January 20, 2017) was an American photographer best known for his portraits of jazz singers and musicians such as Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, and Miles Davis, as well as ar ...

– cover

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employe ...

George Avakian George Mesrop Avakian (; russian: Геворк Авакян; March 15, 1919 – November 22, 2017) was an American record producer, artist manager, writer, educator and executive. Best known for his work from 1939 to the early 1960s at Decca Re ...

–

liner notes Liner notes (also sleeve notes or album notes) are the writings found on the sleeves of LP record albums and in booklets that come inserted into the compact disc jewel case or the equivalent packaging for cassettes. Origin Liner notes are desc ...

Production of the first CD Reissue, 1992

* John Snyder – digital producer * Steve Backer – executive producer * Joe Lopes and Jay Newland – engineers *

Ira Gitler Ira Gitler (December 18, 1928 – February 23, 2019) was an American jazz historian and journalist. The co-author of ''The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz'' with Leonard Feather—the most recent edition appeared in 1999—he wrote hundreds of ...

– liner notes (in addition to the original text by Avakian)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bridge, The Sonny Rollins albums 1962 albums Bluebird Records albums RCA Records albums Albums produced by George Avakian