Sonny Rollins | |
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 Rollins in 2011 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | Walter Theodore Rollins (1930-09-07)September 7, 1930 (age 95) New York City, U.S. |
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| Years active | 1947–2014 |
| Labels | |
| Website | sonnyrollins |
Walter Theodore "Sonny"Rollins[1][2] (born September 7, 1930)[3] is a retired Americanjazztenor saxophonist who is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians.[3][4]
In a seven-decade career, Rollins recorded more than sixty albums as a leader. A number of his compositions, including "St. Thomas", "Oleo", "Doxy", and "Airegin", have becomejazz standards. Rollins has been called "the greatest living improviser".[5] Due to health problems, Rollins has not performed publicly since 2012 and announced his retirement in 2014.
Rollins was born in New York City to parents from theVirgin Islands.[6] The youngest of three siblings, he grew up in centralHarlem and onSugar Hill,[7] receiving his first alto saxophone at the age of seven or eight.[8] He attended Edward W. Stitt Junior High School and graduated fromBenjamin Franklin High School inEast Harlem.[9] Rollins started as a pianist, then switched toalto saxophone after being inspired byLouis Jordan and finally switched totenor saxophone in 1946, influenced by his idolColeman Hawkins. During his high-school years, Rollins played in a band with other future jazz legendsJackie McLean,Kenny Drew, andArt Taylor.[citation needed]
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After graduating from high school in 1948,[10] Rollins began performing professionally; he made his first recordings in early 1949 as a sideman with the bebop singerBabs Gonzales (trombonistJ. J. Johnson was the arranger of the group). Within the next few months, he began to make a name for himself, recording with Johnson and appearing under the leadership of pianistBud Powell, alongside trumpeterFats Navarro and drummerRoy Haynes, on a seminal "hard bop" session.
In early 1950, Rollins was arrested forarmed robbery and spent ten months inRikers Island jail before being released on parole; in 1952, he was re-arrested for violating the terms of his parole by using heroin. Between 1951 and 1953, he recorded withMiles Davis, theModern Jazz Quartet,Charlie Parker, andThelonious Monk. A breakthrough arrived in 1954 when he recorded his famous compositions "Oleo", "Airegin", and "Doxy" with a quintet led by Davis that also featured pianistHorace Silver,Percy Heath, andKenny Clarke. These recordings appear on the albumMiles Davis with Sonny Rollins.
In 1955, Rollins entered theFederal Medical Center, Lexington.[11] While there, he volunteered for then-experimentalmethadone therapy and was able to break his heroin habit, after which he lived for a time inChicago, briefly rooming with the trumpeterBooker Little.[12] Rollins initially feared sobriety would impair his musicianship, but then went on to greater success.
Rollins briefly joined theMiles Davis Quintet in the summer of 1955.[13][14] Later that year, he joined theClifford Brown–Max Roach quintet; studio albumsClifford Brown and Max Roach at Basin Street andSonny Rollins Plus 4 document his time in that band. After the deaths of Brown and band pianistRichie Powell in a June 1956 automobile accident, Rollins continued playing with Roach and began releasing albums under his own name onPrestige Records,Blue Note,Riverside, and the Los Angeles labelContemporary.
His widely acclaimed albumSaxophone Colossus was recorded on June 22, 1956, atRudy Van Gelder's studio in New Jersey, withTommy Flanagan on piano, formerJazz Messengers bassistDoug Watkins, and his favorite drummer, Roach. This was Rollins's sixth recording as a leader and it included his best-known composition "St. Thomas", a Caribbeancalypso based on "Hold Him Joe" a tune sung to him by his mother in his childhood, as well as the fast bebop number "Strode Rode", and "Moritat" (theKurt Weill composition also known as "Mack the Knife").[3] A long blues solo onSaxophone Colossus, "Blue 7", was analyzed in depth by the composer and criticGunther Schuller in a 1958 article.[15]
In the solo for "St. Thomas", Rollins uses repetition of arhythmic pattern, andvariations of that pattern, covering only a few tones in a tight range, and employingstaccato and semi-detached notes. This is interrupted by a sudden flourish, utilizing a much wider range before returning to the former pattern. (Listen to the music sample.) In his bookThe Jazz Style of Sonny Rollins,David N. Baker explains that Rollins "very often uses rhythm for its own sake. He will sometimes improvise on a rhythmic pattern instead of on the melody or changes."[16]
Ever since recording "St. Thomas", Rollins's use of calypso rhythms has been one of his signature contributions to jazz; he often performs traditional Caribbean tunes such as "Hold 'Em Joe" and "Don't Stop the Carnival", and he has written many original calypso-influenced compositions, such as "Duke of Iron", "The Everywhere Calypso", and "Global Warming".[citation needed]
In 1956, he recordedTenor Madness, using Davis's group – pianistRed Garland, bassistPaul Chambers, and drummerPhilly Joe Jones. The title track is the only recording of Rollins withJohn Coltrane, who was also a member of Davis's group.[3]
At the end of the year, Rollins appeared as a sideman on Thelonious Monk's albumBrilliant Corners and also recorded his own first album forBlue Note Records, entitledSonny Rollins, Volume One, withDonald Byrd on trumpet,Wynton Kelly on piano,Gene Ramey on bass, and Roach on drums.
In 1957, he married his first wife, actress and model Dawn Finney.[7]
That year, Rollins pioneered the use of bass and drums, without piano, as accompaniment for his saxophone solos,[17] a texture that came to be known as "strolling". Two early tenor/bass/drums trio recordings areWay Out West andA Night at the Village Vanguard, both recorded in 1957.Way Out West was so named because it was recorded for California-based Contemporary Records (with Los Angeles drummerShelly Manne), and because it includedcountry and western songs such as "Wagon Wheels" and "I'm an Old Cowhand".[18] The Village Vanguard album consists of two sets, a matinee with bassist Donald Bailey and drummerPete LaRoca and an evening set with bassistWilbur Ware and drummerElvin Jones. Rollins used the trio format intermittently throughout his career, sometimes taking the unusual step of using his sax as arhythm section instrument during bass and drum solos.Lew Tabackin cited Rollins's pianoless trio as an inspiration to lead his own.[17]Joe Henderson,David S. Ware,Joe Lovano,Branford Marsalis, andJoshua Redman led pianoless sax trios.[17]
While inLos Angeles in 1957, Rollins met alto saxophonistOrnette Coleman and the two of them practiced together.[19] Coleman, a pioneer offree jazz, stopped using a pianist in his own band two years later. By this time, Rollins had become well-known for improvising based on relatively banal or unconventional songs (such as "There's No Business Like Show Business" onWork Time, "Toot, Toot, Tootsie" onThe Sound of Sonny, and later "Sweet Leilani" on theGrammy-winning albumThis Is What I Do).
Rollins acquired the nickname "Newk" because of his facial resemblance toBrooklyn Dodgers star pitcherDon Newcombe.[20]
In 1957, Rollins made hisCarnegie Hall debut,[21] and recorded again for Blue Note with J. J. Johnson on trombone,Horace Silver or Monk on piano and drummerArt Blakey (released asSonny Rollins, Volume Two). That December, Rollins and fellow tenor saxophonistSonny Stitt were featured together onDizzy Gillespie's albumSonny Side Up. In 1958, Rollins appeared inArt Kane'sA Great Day in Harlem photograph of jazz musicians in New York;[22] he is the last surviving musician from the photo.
The same year, Rollins recorded another landmark piece for saxophone, bass and drums trio:Freedom Suite. His original sleeve notes said: "How ironic that the Negro, who more than any other people can claim America's culture as his own, is being persecuted and repressed; that the Negro, who has exemplified the humanities in his very existence, is being rewarded with inhumanity."[23] The title track is a nineteen-minute improvised bluesy suite; the other side of the album featureshard bop workouts of popular show tunes.Oscar Pettiford andMax Roach provided bass and drums, respectively. The LP was available only briefly in its original form, before the record company repackaged it asShadow Waltz, the title of another piece on the record.[citation needed]
FollowingSonny Rollins and the Big Brass (Sonny Rollins Brass/Sonny Rollins Trio), Rollins made one more studio album in 1958,Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders, before taking a three-year break from recording. This was a session for Contemporary Records and saw Rollins recording an esoteric mixture of tunes including "Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody" with a West Coast group made up of pianistHampton Hawes, guitaristBarney Kessel, bassistLeroy Vinnegar and drummer Shelly Manne.[citation needed]
In 1959, Rollins toured Europe for the first time, performing in Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and France.[24]
By 1959, Rollins had become frustrated with what he perceived as his own musical limitations and took the first – and most famous – of his musicalsabbaticals.[25] While living on theLower East Side of Manhattan, he ventured to the pedestrian walkway of theWilliamsburg Bridge to practice, in order to avoid disturbing a neighboring expectant mother.[26] Today, a fifteen-story apartment building named "The Rollins"[27] stands on theGrand Street site where he lived.[28] Almost every day from the summer of 1959 through the end of 1961, Rollins practiced on the bridge, next to the subway tracks.[29] Rollins admitted that he would often practice for 15 or 16 hours a day, no matter what season.[30] In the summer of 1961, the journalist Ralph Berton happened to pass by the saxophonist on the bridge one day and published an article inMetronome magazine about the occurrence.[31] During this period, Rollins became a dedicated practitioner ofyoga.[32]
Rollins ended his sabbatical in November 1961. He later said: "I could have probably spent the rest of my life just going up on the bridge. I realized, no, I have to get back into the real world."[33] In 2016, a campaign was initiated that seeks to have the bridge renamed in Rollins's honor.[29]
In November 1961, Rollins returned to the jazz scene with a residency at the Jazz Gallery inGreenwich Village; in March, 1962, he appeared onRalph Gleason's television seriesJazz Casual.[34] During the 1960s, Rollins lived on Willoughby Street inBrooklyn, New York.[35]
He named his 1962 "comeback" albumThe Bridge at the start of a contract withRCA Victor. Produced byGeorge Avakian, the disc was recorded with a quartet featuring guitaristJim Hall,Ben Riley on drums, and bassistBob Cranshaw.[36] This became one of Rollins's best-selling records; in 2015, it was inducted into theGrammy Hall of Fame.[37]
Rollins's contract with RCA Victor lasted through 1964. Each album he recorded differed radically from the previous one. The 1962 discWhat's New? explored Latin rhythms. On the albumOur Man in Jazz, recorded live atThe Village Gate, he explored avant-garde playing with a quartet that featured Cranshaw on bass,Billy Higgins on drums andDon Cherry on cornet. He also played with a tenor saxophone hero,Coleman Hawkins, and free jazz pianistPaul Bley onSonny Meets Hawk!, and he re-examined jazz standards andGreat American Songbook melodies onNow's the Time andThe Standard Sonny Rollins (which featured pianistHerbie Hancock).
In 1963, Rollins made the first of many tours of Japan.[38]
In 1965, he married Lucille Pearson, born on July 25, 1928, inKansas City, Missouri. She eventually became his very effective manager/producer. They moved (partially, then completely) from New York City to Germantown, New York, where she died on November 27, 2004.[39]
In 2007, recordings from a 1965 residency atRonnie Scott's Jazz Club were released by the Harkit label asLive in London; they offer a very different picture of Rollins's playing from the studio albums of the period.[40] (These are unauthorized releases, and Rollins has responded by "bootlegging" them himself and releasing them on his website.)
Upon signing withImpulse! Records, he recorded a soundtrack to the 1966 filmAlfie, as well as the live albumThere Will Never Be Another You andSonny Rollins on Impulse! (1965). AfterEast Broadway Run Down (1966), which featured trumpeterFreddie Hubbard, bassistJimmy Garrison, and drummerElvin Jones, Rollins did not release another studio album for six years.
In 1968, he was the subject of a television documentary entitledWho is Sonny Rollins? (in the seriesCreative Persons), directed byDick Fontaine.[41]
In 1969, Rollins took another two-year sabbatical from public performance. During this hiatus period, he visitedJamaica for the first time and spent several months studyingyoga,meditation, andEastern philosophies at anashram inPowai, India, a district ofMumbai.[42]
He returned from his second sabbatical with a performance inKongsberg, Norway, in 1971.[43] Reviewing a March 1972 performance at New York'sVillage Vanguard night club,The New Yorker criticWhitney Balliett wrote that Rollins "had changed again. He had become a whirlwind. His runs roared, and there were jarring staccato passages and furious double-time spurts. He seemed to be shouting and gesticulating on his horn, as if he were waving his audience into battle."[44] The same year, he releasedNext Album and moved toGermantown, New York.[45] Also in 1972, he was awarded aGuggenheim Fellowship in composition.[46]
During the 1970s and 1980s, he also became drawn to R&B, pop, andfunk rhythms. Some of his bands during this period featured electric guitar, electric bass, and usually more pop- or funk-oriented drummers.
In 1974, Rollins added jazz bagpiperRufus Harley to his band;[47] the group was filmed performing live atRonnie Scott's in London.[48] For most of this period Rollins was recorded by producerOrrin Keepnews forMilestone Records (the compilationSilver City: A Celebration of 25 Years on Milestone contains a selection from these years).[49] In 1978 he,McCoy Tyner,Ron Carter, andAl Foster toured together as the Milestone Jazzstars.[50] In June of that year, Rollins joined many other major jazz artists in a performance for PresidentJimmy Carter on theSouth Lawn of theWhite House.[51]
It was also during this period that Rollins's passion for unaccompanied saxophone solos came to the forefront. In 1979 he played unaccompanied onThe Tonight Show[52] and in 1985 he releasedThe Solo Album, recorded live at theMuseum of Modern Art in New York.[53] He also frequently played long, extemporaneous unaccompanied cadenzas during performances with his band; a prime example is his introduction to the tune "Autumn Nocturne" on the 1978 albumDon't Stop the Carnival.[54]
By the 1980s, Rollins had stopped playing small nightclubs and was appearing mainly in concert halls or outdoor arenas; through the late 1990s he occasionally performed at large New York rock clubs such as Tramps andThe Bottom Line. He added (uncredited) sax improvisations to three tracks bythe Rolling Stones for their 1981 albumTattoo You, including the single, "Waiting on a Friend"[55] and the long jam "Slave". That November, he led a saxophone masterclass on French television.[56] In 1983, he was honored as a "Jazz Master" by theNational Endowment for the Arts.[57]
In 1986, documentary filmmakerRobert Mugge released a film titledSaxophone Colossus.[58] It featured two Rollins performances: a quintet concert atOpus 40 in upstate New York and a performance with theYomiuri Shimbun Orchestra in Japan of hisConcerto for Saxophone and Symphony, a work composed in collaboration with the Finnish pianist and composerHeikki Sarmanto.
In 1993, the Sonny Rollins International Jazz Archives[59] opened at theUniversity of Pittsburgh.[60]
New York City Hall proclaimed November 13, 1995, to be "Sonny Rollins Day".[61] Several days later, Rollins gave a performance at New York City'sBeacon Theatre that reunited him with musicians with whom he played as a teenager, including McLean,Walter Bishop Jr.,Percy Heath, Connie Henry, andGil Coggins.[62]
In 1997, he was voted "Jazz Artist of the Year" in theDown Beat magazine critics' poll.[63] The following year, Rollins, a dedicated advocate ofenvironmentalism, released an album entitledGlobal Warming.[64]
Critics such asGary Giddins andStanley Crouch have noted the disparity between Rollins the recording artist, and Rollins the concert artist. In a May 2005New Yorker profile, Crouch wrote of Rollins the concert artist:
Over and over, decade after decade, from the late seventies through the eighties and nineties, there he is, Sonny Rollins, the saxophone colossus, playing somewhere in the world, some afternoon or some eight o'clock somewhere, pursuing the combination of emotion, memory, thought, and aesthetic design with a command that allows him to achieve spontaneous grandiloquence. With its brass body, its pearl-button keys, its mouthpiece, and its cane reed, the horn becomes the vessel for the epic of Rollins's talent and the undimmed power and lore of his jazz ancestors.
Rollins won a2001 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album forThis Is What I Do (2000).[65] On September 11, 2001, the 71-year-old Rollins, who lived several blocks away, heard theWorld Trade Center collapse, and was forced to evacuate hisGreenwich Street apartment,[66] with only his saxophone in hand. Although he was shaken, he traveled toBoston five days later to play a concert at theBerklee School of Music. The live recording of that performance was released on CD in 2005 asWithout a Song: The 9/11 Concert, from which Rollins's performance of "Why Was I Born?" won the2006 Grammy Award for Jazz Instrumental Solo.[65]
Rollins was presented with aGrammy Award for lifetime achievement in 2004;[65] that year also saw the death of his wife, Lucille.[67]
In 2006, Rollins went on to complete aDown Beat Readers Poll triple win for: "Jazzman of the Year", "No. 1 Tenor Sax Player", and "Recording of the Year" for the CDWithout a Song: The 9/11 Concert. The band that year featured his nephew, trombonistClifton Anderson, and included bassist Cranshaw, pianistStephen Scott, percussionistKimati Dinizulu, and drummer Perry Wilson.
After a successful Japanese tour, Rollins returned to the recording studio for the first time in five years to record the Grammy-nominated CDSonny, Please (2006). The CD's title is derived from one of his wife's favorite phrases. The album was released on Rollins's own label, Doxy Records, following his departure from Milestone Records after many years and was produced by Anderson. Rollins's band at this time, and on this album, included Cranshaw, guitaristBobby Broom, drummerSteve Jordan and Dinizulu.
During these years, Rollins regularly toured worldwide, playing major venues throughout Europe, South America, the Far East, and Australasia; he is estimated to have sometimes earned as much as $100,000 per performance.[68] On September 18, 2007, he performed atCarnegie Hall in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of his first performance there. Appearing with him were Anderson (trombone),Bobby Broom (guitar), Cranshaw (bass), Dinizulu (percussion),Roy Haynes (drums) andChristian McBride (bass).[69]
Around 2000, Rollins began recording many of his live performances; since then, he has archived recordings of more than two hundred and fifty concerts.[70] To date, four albums have been released from these archives on Doxy Records andOkeh Records:Road Shows, Vol. 1;Road Shows, Vol. 2 (with four tracks documenting his 80th birthday concert, which included Rollins's first ever recorded appearance withOrnette Coleman on the twenty-minute "Sonnymoon for Two");Road Shows, Vol. 3; andHolding the Stage, Road Shows, Vol. 4, released in April 2016.[71]
In 2010 Rollins was awarded theNational Medal of Arts[72] and theEdward MacDowell Medal;[73] in the fall of the same year he celebrated his 80th birthday with a concert at New York's Beacon Theatre that included a guest appearance by Ornette Coleman.[74] The following year he was the subject of another documentary by Dick Fontaine, entitledBeyond the Notes.[75]
Rollins has not performed in public since 2012,[76] and retired in 2014,[77] due to recurring respiratory issues caused bypulmonary fibrosis.[78][77][79]
In 2013, Rollins moved toWoodstock, New York.[80] That spring, he made a guest television appearance onThe Simpsons in "Whiskey Business"[81] and received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from theJuilliard School in New York City.[82]
In 2014, he was the subject of a Dutch television documentary entitledSonny Rollins-Morgen Speel Ik Beter (transl:Tomorrow I'll Play Better).[83] He made a public appearance in June of that year introducing saxophonist Ornette Coleman at an all-star tribute performance to Coleman in Brooklyn, NY.[84] In October 2015, he received theJazz Foundation of America's lifetime achievement award.[71]
In the spring of 2017, Rollins donated his personal archive to theSchomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, one of the research centers ofNew York Public Library.[85][86][87] Later that year, he endowed the "Sonny Rollins Jazz Ensemble Fund" atOberlin College, in "recognition of the institution's long legacy of access and social justice advocacy."[88][89]
In February 2023, Rollins sold his music catalogue toReservoir Media.[90] In April 2024,The Notebooks of Sonny Rollins was published, derived from notebooks he maintained from 1959 onwards.[91]
Rollins's tone has been described as "biting and clear".[92] As a saxophonist, he had initially been attracted to thejump andR&B sounds of performers such asLouis Jordan, but soon became drawn into the mainstream tenor saxophone tradition. The German criticJoachim-Ernst Berendt described this tradition as sitting between the two poles of the strong sonority ofColeman Hawkins and the light flexible phrasing ofLester Young, which did so much to inspire the fleet improvisation ofbebop in the 1950s.[93] Other tenor saxophone influences includeBen Webster andDon Byas. By his mid-teens, Rollins became heavily influenced by alto saxophonistCharlie Parker.[94] During his high school years, he was mentored by the pianist and composerThelonious Monk, often rehearsing at Monk's apartment.[95]
Rollins has played, at various times, aSelmer Mark VI[96] tenor saxophone and aBuescher Aristocrat.[97] During the 1970s, he recorded on soprano saxophone for the albumEasy Living. His preferred mouthpieces are made by Otto Link and Berg Larsen.[98] He usesFrederick Hemke medium reeds.[96]
Saxophone colossus and 2006 Academy guest of honor Sonny Rollins performs at the 20th Century Fox Studio.
