Btw, you made an interesting commnent in a recent post about how you feel drum or bass solos " interrupt the flow of the music". It is often true. Not because it's drums or bass per se, but because the players of those instruments have traditionally been almost exclusively in the role of time keeper and simply haven't developed as melodists. That has changed a lot in recent times as bass players became more facile and technically and harmonically more advanced. Remember the days when all a bass player could do was play a "walking bass" solo? Basically the same thing that they would do while keeping time for a horn norm piano player. Then they graduated to attempts at melodic solos and the results were often a lot of out of tune and even wrong notes; often painful to listen to. Btw, you made an interesting commnent in a recent post about how you feel drum or bass solos " interrupt the flow of the music". It is often true. Not because it's drums or bass per se, but because the players of those those instruments have traditionally been almost exclusively in the role of time keeper and simply haven't developed as melodists. That has changed a lot in recent times as bass players became more facile and technically and harmonically more advanced. Remember the days when all a bass player could do was play a "walking bass" solo; basically the same thing that would do while keeping time for a horn norm piano player. Then they graduated to attempts at melodic solos and the results were often a lot of out of tune and even wrong notes; often painful to listen to. Now we have virtuosic bass players who can improvise with the same technical facility as horn players. Same thing for drummers, but even more of a challenge since the drums are not a melody instrument. Btw, also why, as you pointed out, they were seldom band leaders. A band leader needs to have knowledge and command of the melody and harmony side of things and not just of rhythm in order to be effective as a leader. A restaurant which has a great chef is doomed if that chef, who can't add and subtract, tries to also be the book keeper. Some drummers (Max Roach) will actually tune their drums to specific pitches in order to bring melody to the drum solo. Speaking of musical flow, notice ,how the drum solo on your Rollins clip does not interrupt the flow; Pete La Roca was a fabulous drummer.
Some favorite Sonny:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gActLqZZX68
Check out the bass solo!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v4DTR0I7xhA
Some favorite Sonny:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gActLqZZX68
Check out the bass solo!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v4DTR0I7xhA