The earliest music here is a straight reissue, down to the sleeve typo, of the 1959 set reviewed favourably in Jazzwise 162, and now elevated to an Essential Jazz Classic – variable sound apart, it’s hard to disagree. These trio performances from just before Rollins’s second retirement find him at the top of his game, and include both shortish tracks done for radio and a CD of stretching-out on just three jazz standards. What’s New?, his response to the arrival of bossa-nova, doesn’t hang together so well but has some fine playing – on two long tracks with the Hall quartet, two spacey trios with conguero Candido as the only percussion, and two calypsos (plus vocal-group!) including Sonny’s first recording of ‘Don’t Stop The Carnival’. Most interest will undoubtedly surround the latest release in his Road Shows archive series, 73 minutes of material running from 1979 to shortly before his most recent retirement. As in previous volumes, the tunes are not organised chronologically but to create a well-paced programme, with four ballads of which one (the unlikely Dinah Washington song ‘Mixed Emotions’) runs less than two minutes. The faster-paced items include originals dedicated to Thelonious and Horace (the previously recorded ‘Disco Monk’ and ‘H.S.’) and to saxist Paul Jeffrey, as well as a version of ‘Don’t Stop’ done at Berklee four days after Rollins was caught up in the 9/11 incident. Though there are brief solos by pianists Soskin and Scott and various guitarists, these mostly provide light relief, while the lion’s share of the space goes to the leader. And, while his sound varies from one venue to the next, Sonny does not disappoint.