This amazing album collects some of the best sessions from the height of the European 'season of jazz' when many of the best American jazzmen sought and found refuge and comfort in the smoky dark venues of existentialist Mitteleuropa, away from the high tension of the violent civil rights battles raging back home. Recorded between 1963 and 1966, these live gigs - performed by the Sonny Rollins/Don Cherry Quartet (Paris, January 1963); the Sonny Rollins quintet with members of the Modern Jazz Quartet (Berlin, October 1965); and the Sonny Rollins trio (Graz, Austria, November 1966)- showcase the magnificent sounds that made Rollins one of the top horn players of his day and one of the most interesting, prolific and long-lasting jazz icons.