Sonny Rollins died on May 25th, 2026, at age 95. I put out a quick appreciation on the passing of the saxophone colossus. You can find it here
https://mylifeinjazz.co.uk/episode/sonny-rollins-saxophone-colossus/
I now want to take the opportunity for a more reflective and considered appreciation of the greatest saxophonist who ever lived and that’s not just my view. There is not a pro saxophonist anywhere who fails to cite the influence that Sonny Rollins has had on their playing.
Sonny Rollins was the last living link with the iconic Great Day in Harlem image, Art Kane’s remarkable group photograph of an astonishing assembly of jazz musicians on a Harlem stoop at an ungodly early hour in1958. It was this image that kicked off my jazz blog back in 2020. You’ll find Sonny wearing shades standing just behind Mary Lou Williams and Marian McPartland (two of only three women included in the shot) and looking directly at the camera. He was 27 at the time, one of the younger generation featured and his reputation in the jazz hall of fame was already secured.
A Great Day in Harlem
https://mylifeinjazz.co.uk/a-great-day-in-harlem-episode-1/
In this piece I want to make what I see as the overwhelming case for the greatness and uniqueness of Sonny Rollins while also touching on some of the paradoxes of his life and career. As ever I am indebted to Aidan Levy’s monumental biography of Sonny-Saxophone Colossus which appeared in 2022 and benefitted from many hours of interviews with Rollins- although in his last long form interview Sonny claimed not to have read it!
What made Sonny Rollins so great
Sonny had a highly complex character and while I don’t doubt that he recognized his own artistic standing he remained until the end deeply humble, relentlessly self-critical and very clear about the debts he owed earlier generations of saxophonists and his near-contemporaries and New York neighbours Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk.
Sonny was bebop royalty growing up in the New York post codes where it developed. He worshipped Coleman Hawkins, who lived around the corner, and played with Bird in his late teens. He had essentially mastered the language of bebop before he was 20. He was recognized as a prodigy and an equal by the bebop masters; Miles, Bird, Monk, Bud, Dizzy and of course Max Roach with whom he had such a deep association through the 1950’s.
Another important part of Sonny’s background lay in his Caribbean heritage. Sonny’s mother, Valborg was born on the island of St Thomas where she met his father Walter who was working as a naval steward. They settled in New York in 1924.St Thomas is the title of Rollins’s most celebrated Caribbean-influenced compositions.
In common with so many young plyers of the bebop generation Sonny had to conquer a serious drug habit that led to a period of incarceration at Rikers Island. He finally recovered, relocating to Chicago, taking any non-jazz job he could find, the only time in his life here he didn’t own a horn. He lived a monastic life, began to practice relentlessly and returned to the jazz life with the Max Roach Clifford Brown quintet. What a return!
From that point on Sonny’s career as a sideman ended; he remained a band leader until his retirement from music in 2014.
And then there was Sonny’s sound. Unique and instantly recognizable. Sonorous, rich and one that plumbed the depths. And his sound altered through the decades. It developed a coarser edge from the mid-70’s onwards, but he could always return at will to his signature sound world of the 50’s and 60’s .
Added to which Sonny had a quite staggering capacity to swing, to take you (and his accompanying musicians), by surprise. He would alter keys, tempi and time feel at a moment’s notice. His exchanges with drummers-4’s, 8’s, whole choruses formed a distinctive feature of his improvisational arsenal. Sonny, with all his astonishing fluency also deeply understood the value of space, of silence.
Sonny shared many characteristics with his near contemporary John Coltrane- his ferocious practice routine, his deep spirituality, his humility, his constant search for new modes of expression. While their intense rivalry was largely the creation of contemporary jazz critics and publicists, Sonny did own up in later life to having a strong wish to outperform Trane. In later life he deeply regretted a rivalry for a man who he deeply admired both musically and spiritually.
No account of Rollins could overlook his truly unique capacity to both excavate and remake obscure and long forgotten (even best forgotten!) compositions. Who else would choose to weave such magical improvisations around I’m an Old Cowhand, or the Sunny Side of the Street, or How Are Things in Glocca Morra? or Mona Lisa than Sonny? This capacity to re-invent and remake lies at the centre of his art. While Sonny had a deep veneration for the Great American Song Book, he also bequeathed an important body of original compositions, mainly written in the first two decades of his career.
As already mentioned, Sonny was a deeply spiritual man. He was also deeply invested in the civil rights struggles and the unequal treatment of black people having much personal experience or racism and being under-estimated throughout his life. In early discussions with Aidan Levy on his planned biography Sonny insisted that his lifetime commitment to equality should for a central pillar in the narrative. This from the man who authored the long form Freedom Suite in 1958.
A final feature of Sonny’s genius was his growing interest in long form solos. Touring Europe in the 1960’s his bands-made up of high quality local musicians marvelled at Sonny’s capacity to play the same tunes across 3 sets without ever repeating himself. His live performances from the 1970’s onwards often led up to a conclusion where the band dropped out leaving Sonny to conclude effortlessly. These unaccompanied solos were often the vehicle for Rollins to drop in brief quotes from show tunes that entered his mind in real time.
Sonny Rollins
Some paradoxes
All of the above together add up to Sonny Rollns’s status as a true maestro. However, I do need to mention some paradoxes
In the 1950’s and 60’s Sonny had a fearsome reputation within the jazz world for the very high standards he set his accompanying musicians and his capacity to hire and fire from day-to-day-even on occasion between sets! To quote Sonny directly from Levy’s biography
I used to be pretty ruthless. I didn’t spare anyone’s feelings. I used to hire and fire with regularity-that was my trait. It was like” OK Good. Next!”. I was constantly auditioning guys. I’m not proud of that period. I might have been able to handle it better but at the time I was really intense about things coming out right”
P 272 Saxophone Colossus
To quote the legendary drummer Roy Haynes who was one of the many musicians who didn’t make it to the Live at the Village Vanguard recordings,
“When we got to the Vanguard, we didn’t play anything he’s rehearsed. He fired everybody”
So, it is a puzzle to consider that from the mid 1970’s onwards when he performed uniquely in large auditoria his bands were, with the exception of long time bassist Bob Cranshaw made up of journeyman musicians. This certainly applied to his cousin Clifton Robinson a fairly rudimentary trombonist whose main role seemed to be to provide background harmonies to the heads. Clifton Robinson was a mainstay in Sonny’s bands over his last 30 years as performer. Was this a recognition of a lasting regret for his earlier hard driving reputation or had his bands simply become a reliable vehicle for Sonny to express his genius? Or both? Once Sonny moved decisively away from small club performances and embarked on a touring schedule exclusively in large auditoria did a core group of less starry musicians suit his purposes?
Sonny Rollins
While Sonny Rollins appeared to move on from his role as a hard driving band leader, particularly following his second two year sabbatical starting in 1970 in India, he never lost his intensity or his competitive edge. In a Downbeat interview Terence Blanchard one of our foremost contemporary trumpeters and composers (including film scores and opera) recalls getting a call from Sonny very early in his career,
“I remember I told Branford Marsalis about the call from Sonny and he said, “Get your ass kicked like everyone else!” Sonny just kept going and going. I was like calling for my momma on stage. That was embarrassing!!”
Brandford tells a very similar story.
For all his immense gifts I don’t think that Sonny Rollins was a transformative figure within the history of jazz in the same way as was true of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and John Coltrane. These were all maestri who moved the music on to new levels, sometimes in the case of both Miles and Trane more than once.
While Sonny remains hugely influential there is no “school of Sonny Rollins”, nor would he have wished that.
His true greatness lies in his monumental gift for improvisation, his capacity to constantly surprise and his total dedication to his craft and his horn.
I’ll conclude with some quotes
From musicians and commentators,
“He’s history in person. The whole history of the music” Roy Hargrove, trumpeter
“Sonny Rollins told stories through his horn. His “telling” no matter how intricate or elaborate was always pure, honest and vulnerable, while the storyteller himself remained elusive and intangible! Robin D.G. Kelley, author
“At once the towering omnipotent immortal Colossus and the humble, gentle, questioning human. Sonny Rollins has always been the master storyteller of the jazz idiom” Joshua Redman, saxophonist
“Rollins played with a vivacity and amplitude so far beyond the ken of most musicians that it might shame many into another line of work “Gary Giddins, author
“He was as impassive and assured as a statue of Buddha. Around the room the whisper ran, Sonny Knows”- Richard Barker, drummer
“Sonny is Fidel and Coltrane was Che Guevara” David Murray, saxophonist
“This cat got up and started playing a tune-I don’t think Beethoven would have been able to figure out the changes” James Brown
“I’ve never seen a man that determined He’s still experimenting doesn’t know what he wants to do yet. But he’ll do it or die trying” Art Blakey, drummer
“What he can’t do with the horn we haven’t heard, what he doesn’t know no one knows, and what he provides in saxophone force has no rivals” Stanley Crouch, writer
And from Sonny himself
“I never want not to be practicing. I want to be there when the angel comes & gives me the message “
“Jazz transcends life as we know it on this planet”
“Jazz life is shown through music. Jazz is life in musical form. Jazz is the musical expression of life. We all know life changes every second. Each snowflake that falls is different. Every sunset is different. Every surprise is different. The clouds in the sky are never the same, always changing, Jazz mimics life”
“Jazz is a music of freedom, because we had to create. We had to fight. We had to struggle. We had to break down the barriers…. That entailed freedom, to even attempt to do what the jazz people were doing”
The Playlist
My playlist kicks with a rare historical recording placing Sonny, just out of his teens in the studio with Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. The remain tracks are split between a selection of his original compositions, mainly from the 1950’s and early 60’s and examples of Rollins’s incomparable way with jazz standards (and not so standards!). I can’t think of another jazz musician who would have taken the theme from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony Pathetique as a vehicle for improvisation.
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