Sonny Rollins - Work Time (Original Jazz Classics Series)

Sonny Rollins came back hungry on Work Time, and this 180-gram pressing in the Original Jazz Classics Series puts his roaring tenor right in the room.

Recorded for Prestige late in 1955 and released in 1956, it marked his return after a stretch away from the New York scene, and he plays like a man making up for lost time. Ray Bryant sits at the piano, George Morrow holds down the bass, and Max Roach drives the session from behind the kit, with Rudy Van Gelder engineering.

The tune choices are cheeky. There's No Business Like Show Business turns an Irving Berlin showstopper into a hard-swinging tenor workout, while Raincheck races through Billy Strayhorn's twisting melody. Paradox, one of Rollins's own, has a sly, angular bounce, and It's All Right With Me closes the album at a blistering clip.

Roach is a force throughout, pushing and prodding with crisp, melodic drumming, and the chemistry between the two would soon produce even more celebrated records. Rollins, meanwhile, builds solos like architecture, developing a single idea until it towers.

For anyone tracing the road to Saxophone Colossus, this is an essential stop, and it swings as hard as anything from that golden run of Prestige sessions.