Sonny Rollins returns

In the midst of a spate of honors, including a Grammy win for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo, as well as top awards (Artist of the Year and Tenor Saxophonist) from the Jazz Journalists Association and in the Down Beat Critics Poll, Rollins has just released his first new studio recording in five years on his own Doxy label.

The new CD, Sonny, Please, captures his working band "at a good pitch," as Rollins puts it, shortly after they returned from a sold-out Japanese tour in November 2005. "Any time you do a string of performances, it tightens up the ensemble, and the band was playing well - very high-powered, if I may use that expression. Toward the end of the tour, the group really began to come together, and as a result I began to be able to play much more fluently. My mind was getting clear, and the whole thing was beginning to happen."