Cory Weeds Plays Sonny Rollins

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Cory Weeds is an expressive saxophonist with a warm and impactful sound rooted in jazz tradition. Jazz aficionados know that Cory, when playing tenor or alto sax, conveys an unerring sense of swing. Recording more than 20 albums as a leader that document his dynamic saxophone playing on both hard-swinging tunes and gentle ballads, he has shared stages and recording studios with the likes of Bill Charlap, Joey DeFrancesco, Champian Fulton, Jeff Hamilton, Harold Mabern, Roy McCurdy, Brad Turner, and many other high-level artists. He’s a fearless musician who embraces a broad range of playing situations and then delivers with performances that shine.

On this night he will be joined by pianist Sharon Minemoto, bassist David Caballero and drummer Jesse Cahill to play music from Sonny Rollins’ 1957 Riverside Records release The Sound Of Sonny. Sonny’s performances and recordings were at a peak during 1957 as Down Beat magazine proclaimed him the Critics’ Poll winner under the category of ’New Star’ of the tenor saxophone.

This performance will be part of Vancouver Celebrates Sonny, a multi-venue celebration in honour of the great Sonny Rollins’ birthday.

About Sonny Rollins: Saxophone Colossus (Robert Mugge, 1986, 101 min, Ira Gitler, Gary Giddins, Francis Davis)

“In addition to capturing Rollins in prime form, wielding his tenor in ways that have elicited hosannas from fans and critics alike for decades on end, [the film] examines the saxophonist’s methodical approach to performing and improvising. Practice alone may take some musicians to Carnegie Hall, but as Rollins tells Mugge at one point, meditation and visualization are a big part of his pre-concert regimen. Here we also see, during an outdoors concert filmed at the Opus 40 quarry garden in upstate New York, various aspects of Rollins’ persona onstage: the full-throated improviser who seems incapable of physically exhausting himself or depleting the wealth of his ideas; the gifted dramatist, skillfully balancing emotional tension and release; the unabashed entertainer, whimsically stringing together the familiar melodies that pop into his head. (This is also the storied concert in which Rollins jumps off a six-foot stage ledge, only to end up on his back with a broken heel. The misadventure, however, doesn’t prevent him from quickly resuming the performance, albeit in a supine position.) The quintet concert footage is effectively juxtaposed with an ambitious, large-scale production: the world premiere of Rollins’ Concerto For Tenor Saxophone and Orchestra, performed in Tokyo by Rollins and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra.” Mike Joyce, Jazz Times

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Brilliantly captures on the great saxophonists in jazz — and probably its most revered living improviser — during one of his most intensely creative periods. Startling performances… His music is always revealing, so is this loving tribute.

Richard Harrington, Washington Post

Robert Mugge’s 1986 documentary chronicles two very different Rollins performances, and provides remarkable insight into the man and his methods.

Sean Chercover, Crimespree Magazine

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