Rollins in Holland captures the then 36-year-old jazz titan in full flight, in total command of his horn at the height of his great improvisational powers. He is heard fronting a trio, the same demanding instrumental format that produced some of the early triumphs of his long career.
During his brief but busy 1967 stay in the Netherlands, the saxophonist was supported by two of the nation’s top young players, bassist Ruud Jacobs and drummer Han Bennink. The pair had together supported such visiting American jazzmen as Johnny Griffin, Ben Webster, Wes Montgomery, and Clark Terry, among others. Jacobs was a celebrated straight-ahead accompanist, while Bennink had developed a reputation as an avant-garde lion, having backed Eric Dolphy on 1964’s Last Date. The pair jelled magnificently behind their celebrated leader.
Rollins in Holland brings together material drawn from three separate appearances by the trio: a freewheeling May 3 concert at the Arnhem Academy of Visual Arts, at which Rollins stretched out in expansive performances that sometimes topped the 20-minute mark; a four-song May 5 morning studio session at the VARA Studio in Hilversum, where Dolphy and Albert Ayler had also cut unforgettable dates; and two live shots captured during the band’s stand that evening on “Jazz met Jacobs,” a half-hour national NCRV TV show presented from the Go-Go Club in Loosdrecht and hosted by bassist Jacobs’s pianist brother Pim and his wife, singer Rita Reys.
