Sonny Rollins
Theodore Walter (Sonny) Rollins (born September 7, 1930 in New York City) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Rollins is considered to be an incomparable master of improvisation, and some contend him to be the most influential tenor saxophonist that jazz has ever seen. Sonny Rollins has had a long, productive career in jazz, beginning his career at the age of 11 and he played with Thelonious Monk before he was 20. Rollins is still touring and recording today, having outlived several of his jazz contemporaries such as John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Art Blakey, all of whom he has recorded with.
He started as a pianist, then switched to alto saxophone, finally switching to tenor in 1946. He was first recorded in 1949 with Babs Gonzalez; in the same year he recorded with J. J. Johnson and Bud Powell. Rollins recorded with Miles Davis in 1951 and Thelonious Monk in 1953.
Rollins joined the Clifford Brown - Max Roach quintet in 1955, and after Brown's death in 1957 worked as a leader.
Sonny's most widely acclaimed album Saxophone Colossus was recorded on June 22, 1956, featuring Tommy Flanagan on piano, former Jazz Messengers bassist Doug Watkins and his favoured drummer Max Roach. This was only Sonny's third outing as a leader in the recording studio, but it was a date on which he recorded perhaps his best-known composition "St Thomas", a Caribbean calypso based on a tune sung to him by his mother in his childhood: "St Thomas is a song my mother used to sing, it is a traditional tune". Throughout the '50s Rollins was a leading force in the development of what came to be known as hard bop. In 1957 he also pioneered the use of just bass and drums as accompaniment for his saxophone solos; two early recordings in this format are Way Out West (Contemporary, 1957) and A Night at the Village Vanguard (Blue Note, 1957).
In 1959, Rollins, frustrated with what he perceived as his own musical limitations, took the second -- and most famous -- of his musical sabbaticals. To spare a neighboring expectant mother the sound of his practice routine, Rollins ventured to the Williamsburg Bridge to practice. Upon his return to the jazz scene he named his "comeback" album The Bridge. Throughout the '60s Rollins remained one of the most adventurous musicians around. Each album he recorded differed radically from the previous one. Exploring latin rhythms on What's New, tackling the avant garde on Our Man in Jazz, and re-examining standards on Now's the Time. He also provided the soundtrack to the original Alfie.
Frustated once again, Rollins took his last (so far) sabbatical using the "time off" to study yoga, meditation, and Eastern philosophies. When he returned in 1972, it was clear that he had become enamored with R&B, pop, and funk rhythms. His bands throughout the '70s and '80s featured electric guitar, electric bass, and usually more pop or funk oriented drummers. It was during this period that Rollins notoriety for unaccompanied saxophone solos came to the forefront. In 1985 he released his Solo Album.
Although his recordings in the '70s, '80s, and '90s were not as critically acclaimed as his earlier recordings, he continues to be known for his powerful live performances. Critics such as Gary Giddins and Stanley Crouch have noted the disparity between Sonny Rollins, the recording artist and Sonny Rollins, the concert artist. In a May 2005 New 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' talent and the undimmed power and lore of his jazz ancestors."
Rollins is well-known for taking relatively banal, insubstantial or unconventional material (e.g. "There's No Business Like Show Business" on Work Time, "I'm an Old Cowhand" on Way Out West, and "Sweet Leilani" on This Is What I Do) and turning it into a vehicle for improvisation. Though he is not well-known as a composer, several of his tunes (including "St. Thomas", "Oleo", "Alfie's Theme", and "Airegin") have become standards.
Rollins remains a major figure to this day. He was presented with a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in 2004.
Samples
- Download sample of "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" from The Sound of Sonny