I'd put it between the V.V. and W.O.W. although I love both of those.
I really love Oscar Pettiford's bass playing on this one.

Funny you chose this one, I had been on a Sonny kick over the weekend, primarily '60-'65 Sonny.
In the Counterpunch interview by Ishmael Reed, Rollins says he paid for the Freedom Suite with physical assaults when touring behind it in the dear old south.
I love his sound as much as any tenor player living or gone beyond.

That’s where it fits for me too, Damon. There’s something about the jocularity of Way Out West that gives it a leg up, not to mention that it’s a sustained treat to hear Sonny interact w/ the leonine rhythms of Shelly and Ray. A Night at the V.V. is nonpareil, IMO.

Hadn’t heard about those specific travails, Jesse, but I believe it. Keepnews’ notes confer a special commendation for his own open-thinking in the category of race relations. Here’s what he writes:

“I wrote the original album notes early in 1958, which must be considered a very long time ago in the history of race relations and civil liberties in this country. I remain extremely pleased by with what I had to say back then. Original notes, when they do accompany a jazz reissue, are usually included as an oddity, a period piece. So I want to make a spacial request: current readers really should pay full attention to those old but far from outdated remarks. I also was th author (in consultation with Sonny) of the brief statement signed by him that also appeared on the back sleeve of the LP – although in this case it is probably necessary to remind everyone that a half-century ago the word “Negro” was a fully acceptable descriptive term; neither black nor African-American had yet come into use.”

Pish posh.

I always thought the first theme to Freedom Suite was too light and insouciant to match the topic. But the entire conception is a brave first step towards Sonny's eventual breakout phase when Cherry and Grimes joined his band.

Saxophone Colossus has no equal in Sonny's catalog or anybody else's. The Vanguard sessions are marred by a substandard engineering job. I find them difficult to listen to. Long, boring drum solos, too.

Across the board disagreement from this corner, 'cept for the concession toward courage in your second graph.

The only Elvin solo on the VV set that even starts to wear out its welcome is the one on "What is This Thing Called Love". Besides, where else can you find better Wilbur Ware than there?

Derek -- you forgot to scold me for my egregious redundancy in the phrase, "long, boring drum solos." :D

So -- you're saying you disagree with my opinion that the Vanguard sessions are poorly recorded? Hmph.

So now it’s drums AND vibes that are on your “Instruments to Avoid” list? ;-)

The VV set isn’t one of Rudy’s better efforts, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “poorly recorded”. Ware’s bass solo on the originally released “Softly, As in a Morning Sunrise” is perhaps the best sounding example of the instrument that I’ve ever heard (though a large part of that appraisal is also due to Wilbur’s genius during that two-minute stretch). Overall, I’d agree that the set is a rough-around-the-edges audio experience, but the RVG version has scrubbed things up pretty clean & I hear tell that the Japanese version is even better.

Let’s get back to that “Saxophone Colossus has no equal in Sonny's catalog or anybody else's”… now who’s ogling with rose-tinted ear goggles affixed?

As people at JC know, I'm as far from a blind Rollins shill as you can get; but I've never complained about the sound quality on VV. Oh and Our Man in Jazz, the culmination of his breakout phase, is his best recording.

Fans of OMIJ should go on over to the "comments" thread on "Call It Anything." There you will find, about seventy or a hundred entries down, a post of a January 1963 Paris concert with Rollins, Cherry, Grimes and Higgins. Pretty damn great, I would say without equal among Rollins-live posts from January 1963.

Derek: One good ogle deserves another..

Let's face it, the V.V. trio is all about Wilbur Ware. He is just on fire on that one.
Maybe that is why Rollins played with Cranshaw for the next few decades....

damon, et.al. -
Yeah, it does seem that in later years Rollins chose unchallenging musicians for his bands. One wonders why. It would be weird to think it was out of fear of being upstaged, but who knows?

My faves are definitely the piano-less groups (VV, W.O.W., F.S., Our Man in Jazz, The Bridge, East Broadway Rundown), but of the piano ones Collosus, Worktime, and Sonny's Time Now (espec for Philly Joe on that one) are great. Clearly the pianoless trios are one of his great contributions to the idiom.

But boy have things been lukewarm for a looong time now. At least recently he did that concert with Haynes + Christian McBride, maybe that had some of the old spark back.

P.S. =
Wrong title on one of those - i meant "Newk's Time." "Sonny's Time Now" is with Haynes, not Philly Joe...

I saw Rollins in the worst setting ever, with a trio of kids on guitar, electric bass and drums at a Tri-C jazz fest in the 80s iirc. I thought I was watching the jazz equivalent of Chuck Berry touring on the cheap and refusing to pay a decent band. After that total waste of time I've refused to take anything he's subsequently done seriously. I figured if he comes up with anything worth my while, I'll hear about it. So far, nada.

At least recently he did that concert with Haynes + Christian McBride, maybe that had some of the old spark back.

And then promptly put the kibosh on releasing it! :-( Fortunately, there’s a lot of live stuff circulating from all Rollins eras, though nearly all of it probably won’t see release through official channels anytime soon.

Tom, the amount of online ogling simply boggles, ‘tis true.