New albums are rated on a...

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SONNY ROLLINS

“Old Flame”

Milestone

At his best, Sonny Rollins has one of the most luxurious sounds in all of jazz--a richly variegated expression that moves with astonishing fluency from intimate whisper to passionate shout. Sadly, that sound rarely makes its appearance on this new collection, in which he works with a quintet and--on two tracks--a brass choir performing Jimmy Heath arrangements.

Although Rollins sometimes reveals the extraordinary harmonic imagination that has long characterized his improvisations, more often he seems to be looking for a focus and never quite finding it. His closing cadenza on “Darn That Dream” is typical--starting off with some promising melodic variations, then losing its way into random riffing.

Solos on such ballads as “Where or When,” “My Old Flame” and “I See Your Face Before Me” (taken at a painfully slow tempo) are similarly flawed, declamatory without substance, exploratory without a destination. Nor is Rollins aided much by the faster tempos of “Delia” and “Times Slimes”--the kind of grooves that would in the past have triggered his finest playing. Here, pianist Tommy Flanagan and (occasionally) trombonist Clifton Anderson generate the few flashes of energy.

Further compounding the problem, Rollins is not well served by the rhythm team of Jack DeJohnette and Bob Cranshaw, who appear to have different perceptions of where the heart of the rhythm is beating.