<i>Way Out West</i> at 68
The mono pages for Sonny Rollins’ Way Out West are now up on the site. Page 1 follows in healthy detail the US mono release timeline; page 2 then covers mono releases around the rest of the world. Work continues on the stereo timeline, ETA TBD.
Either by coincidence or providence, this update falls 68 years to the day after the recording itself.
Sonny, way out west. Photo by William Claxton.
It needs little introduction. Given the names Lester Koenig or Roy DuNann, most people will immediately point to this title. It’s a unique and — as described by Lester in liner notes — unusual pianoless album that stands tall in the discography of everybody involved.
It also sits separate from the deep Contemporary inventory of light west coastery. One might be forgiven for dismissing Contemporary as lacking the emotional grays of its east coast counterparts, but to pigeonhole Way Out West as yet another sunny jaunt is self-deception. This session is homage in the classic style, a translation of the western genre by a musician searching for his own freedom.
Recording times as noted in the original contract
In the view that all valuable artistic expression combines creative looseness with technical precision, Way Out West sits on a knife’s edge between the two. The somewhat stilted studio chatter (heard on the Alternate Takes disc of Craft’s 2018 Deluxe Edition release) reveals Sonny leading a date surrounded by relative strangers. Still, the ramshackle nature of the early-morning session, which corralled three players with no common history and club drinks still in their systems, precipitated a creative slack that permeates the music.
Shelly Manne and Ray Brown knew the gig was to let Sonny blow— but professional Poll Winners they were, they casually laid down the most immaculate groove in history (sorry, I love this album) and stretched their legs with ease when given the space. Koenig recounts the trio finding “total rapport” after hours sifting through the tunes, and the result leaves one wishing the trio could have gone on to cut more work together.
the cataloging process
I’m trying to nail down the format and complexity of the individual title pages on this site. On the one hand, it should be the title’s moment in the sun; every detail of its history deserves it due page space. On the other, I want the information to remain accessible and easy to navigate.
So, in general, I’m trying to make pages shorter, simpler at a glance, less crowded, and more digestible. With Way Out West that means two separate pages for mono. Three more pages are planned to cover stereo deliveries and modern reissues, but time will tell if I need to break that into even smaller chunks.
the mono release timeline
While its stereo variant lives on through reissue after reissue, the mono Way Out West graced the market for only a decade, exiting in the late 1960s as the industry (and Contemporary) elevated stereo to the default. That brief life in-print yielded five lacquer generations (two at Capitol, three at Contemporary) and four jacket designs. To date I’ve found six distinct combinations of those variables, though time may unearth more.
Transitions between these deliveries carry some intrigue for the modern forensic vinyl-gazer: there are two subtly different versions of the early red-text jacket design (with negative implications for the clumsy eBay seller’s use of “original”) and two non-equivalent Capitol lacquer sets (D1/D1 and D2/D2) swirling around the original year of release. We find otherwise-identical deliveries marked with different promo stamp styles.
How to make sense of what came first and what changed when? It requires some approximation but I do my best with the evidence on hand, and there’s plenty of it.
the (mono) foreign exchange
Outside the US, Way Out West was a common mono title. Vogue (both French and UK versions of the name) covered several territories, but one-off partners in Japan, Canada, and Argentina carried the title in mono as well.
I can’t say I’ve had the pleasure of every foreign release — some of the pictures and info are just stolen from Discogs — but for the ones I have in-hand, the commensurate scan-and-photo job has been done.
what about STEREO?
Yes, the better and better-known of the two mixes, the two-track stereo version of Way Out West. What of it? I’m actively working on its pages and, with this being the most popular CR album over the past 50 years, they’ll be kind of long. Which means they take a while to design and CSS and all that.
There were nearly 20 different stereo deliveries in the US — and that’s just up to 1984. Add in Fantasy, OJC, Analogue Productions, and Craft releases… it’s a lot to cover. But Way Out West is the frickin’ best and I’m excited to get over that hill.
Until we meet again— happy Way Out West day. Venture through its mono timeline here.
