At age 80, Sonny Rollins is indisputably the greatest living jazz tenor saxophonist, proved last night throughout a 2-hour set at New York’s sold-out Beacon Theater in which harmolodic sage Ornette Coleman sat in, backed by drummer Roy Haynes and bassist Christian McBride, on “Tenor Madness.” “Sonnymoon For Two”. Rollins was hunched and hobbled when he came onstage, but once he started blowing he stood upright and blasted his big bold sound with energy that brooked no diminishment of strength or inspiration, bending only to fire another fussilade of freshly wrought invention as if from his guts.
Guest brassman Roy Hargrove paced Rollins melodically on “I Can’t Get Started” and one of Sonny’s vamp-based songs; Jim Hall had to tune up his guitar while starting to interact with Sonny on “In A Sentimental Mood,” but found his place, and Sonny’s standing band w/ guitarist Russell Malone, elec. bassist Bob Cranshaw, drummer Kobie Watkins and conga-player Sammy Figueroa was better than solid — but it was the Old Man himself who kept raising the stakes with gruff, hearty, spirited, virtuosic roars and runs.