LPCDreissues: Looking forward to the past

This album covers roughly two years in Rollins's career when he was beginning to emerge as an important force in contemporary jazz. "I Know" was his first track as a leader, taped at the end of a January 1951 Miles Davis date at Davis's insistence. (Miles even played piano for him.) Sonny's first date as a leader took place on a snowy December night at the end of that year. The meeting with the Modern Jazz Quartet, in October 1953, showed a new maturity, especially in the rendition of Ellington's "In a Sentimental Mood."
Track listing: The Stopper, Almost Like Being in Love, No Moe, In a Sentimental Mood, Scoops, With a Song in My Heart, Newk's Fadeaway, Time on My Hands, This Love of Mine, Shadrack, On a Slow Boat to China, Mambo Bounce, I Know