This is the news that I have been dreading-the death of Sonny Rollins at 95 at his home in upstate New York on May 25th.
To my mind Sonny was the greatest musician ever to pick up a saxophone and one of the foremost improvisers in the history of jazz. His sound, the enormous and unmatched depths of his improvisational creativity, his lifelong search for musical improvement right up until his retirement in 2014, his stage presence, his trademark long form solos, the tunes that he bequeathed us and the tunes that he resurrected and made his own.
Sonny earned the title of “saxophone colossus” as early as the mid 1950’s, but this was a guy who was profoundly modest and eschewed such descriptors. Throughout his life he paid tribute to the earlier generations of jazz musicians on whose shoulders he stood, principally Coleman Hawkins his Harlem neighbour, led a deeply spiritual life and spent countless hours in his practice room, and famously on the Williamsburg Bridge in a continuing search for self-improvement. Taking three sabbaticals at the very apex of his musical career.
Sonny first entered the studio at age 18 and continued to record and perform intensively for a further seven decades. He was the last living link with the founding fathers of bebop-he played and recorded with all of them as a teenager- and the last living image from that fabled Great Day In Harlem picture-that’s Sonny in the shades in the third row- which kicked off my mylifeinjazz production.
I’ll end with a couple of personal memories. A hot night at Ronnie Scott’s in 1973 with the band laying down a Swing Low Sweet Chariot groove featuring Rufus Harley on bag pipes and in full highland regalia. Sonny at mid-career, enters playing his saxophone from Frith Street, both bringing the house down and setting the standard from that moment on. Scroll ahead to the late 2000’s and one of Sonny’s last London visits to the cavernous Barbican Hall. The performance was less memorable than some with the band, although not Sonny going through the motions. I got backstage and was able to meet Sonny who was gracious and friendly. I remember telling him about the baby saxophone we had just given our granddaughter as a birthday present. He was delighted. I was tongue tied.
Farewell maestro. Rest in peace
“Charlie Parker was our god – he was our prophet”
“You have to have a reason for your music. Jazz has to mean something”
“Exercises are no different than playing at Carnegie Hall. It’s all the same”
“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
I will return to a more considered appreciations of Sonny’s life, work and legacy for now I want the playlist to do the talking along with three quintessential Sonny Rollins quotes and a beauty from jazz critic Stanley Crouch.
The Playlist
A necessarily brief assembly of Sonny Rollins recordings. Sadly, some of his very last recordings are not available on Spotify. Do seek them out-particularly the monumental Without A Song solo concert which Sonny performed live at The Museum of Modern Art a few weeks after 9/11.
“I never want not to be practicing. I want to be there when the angel comes & gives me the message.”
And to those of you haven’t read it I strongly recommend Aidan Levy’s monumental 20022 biography of Sonny, aptly titled Saxophone Colossus.
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