Sonny Rollins Dead: Tenor Sax Jazz Legend Was 95
Sonny Rollins
Courtesy Everett Collection
-
Share on Facebook
-
Share on X
-
Google Preferred
-
Share to Flipboard
-
Show additional share options
-
Share on LinkedIn
-
Share on Pinterest
-
Share on Reddit
-
Share on Tumblr
-
Share on Whats App
-
Send an Email
-
Print the Article
-
Post a Comment
Sonny Rollins, the powerful and personal jazz tenor saxophonist whose improvisational sessions became legend and his compositions “St. Thomas,” “Oleo,” “Doxy,” “Rent-Up House” and “Airegin” standards, has died Sunday. He was 95.
Rollins died at his home in Woodstock, New York, his family announced.
Widely recognized as one of the most important and influential musicians of all time, Rollins recorded 60-plus albums during his seven-decade career.
Along the way, he received a a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1972, induction into the Downbeat Jazz Hall of Fame in 1973, a Grammy for Lifetime Achievement in 2004, a Polar Music Prize in 2007, a National Medal of Arts from President Obama in 2010, Kennedy Center Honors in 2011 and the Jazz Foundation of America’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015.
Related Stories
Music
Global Powerhouse BTS Takes Over Las Vegas With High-Energy Arirang World Tour
TV
Canada Tripling "Netflix Tax" on U.S. Streamers Draws Skepticism From Local Unions, Creatives
Rollins won two competitive Grammys, the first in 2001 for best jazz instrumental album, individual or group for This Is What I Do and the second in 2005 for best jazz instrumental solo on “Why Was I Born?,” from his live LP Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert on Milestone Records. The latter was recorded in Boston four days after the World Trade Center bombing, which Rollins witnessed from his apartment just blocks from the site of the tragedy.
Born in New York on Sept. 7, 1930, Theodore Walter Rollins grew up in Harlem, not far from the Savoy Ballroom, the Apollo Theatre and the home of his early idol, Coleman Hawkins. His parents were immigrants from the Virgin Islands.
After discovering Fats Waller and Louis Armstrong, Rollins, inspired by Louis Jordan, started on alto saxophone. But at age 16, trying to emulate Hawkins and mesmerized by bebop, he picked up the tenor sax. He began to model himself after Charlie Parker and soon came under the tutelage of Thelonious Monk.
In his Sugar Hill neighborhood, where his musical peers included Jackie McLean, Kenny Drew and Art Taylor, Rollins was the first to emerge, working and recording with the likes of Babs Gonzalez, J.J. Johnson, Bud Powell and Miles Davis before he turned 20.
In the early 1950s, Rollins reigned as the new young turk tenor on the scene, working with Miles, Monk and the Modern Jazz Quartet after serving time at Rikers Island for armed robbery and then using heroin. His artistic breakthrough came in 1954 when he recorded “Oleo,” “Airegin” (Nigeria spelled backward) and “Doxy” with a quintet led by Davis and featuring pianist Horace Silver.
He entered the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1955, volunteering for an experimental methadone therapy that would break his heroin habit, then lived for a spell in Chicago.
Also in 1955, Rollins became a member of the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet, his trademark a caustic, often playful style of melodic invention with a range of musical styles from ballads to calypso that spotlighted his gift for thematic improvisation. It was during this time that Sonny acquired the nickname “Newk,” for his resemblance to ace Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Don Newcombe.
Sonny Rollins performed at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 1977.
Chuck Fishman/Getty Images
Rollins began recording the first in a series of landmark albums under his own name in 1956. The songs “Valse Hot” introduced the now-common practice of playing bop in 3/4 time; “St. Thomas” initiated his interest in calypso; and “Blue 7” showcased his improvisatory skills.
Way Out West, from 1957, was Rollins’ first album with a trio featuring sax, double bass and drums (eliminating the piano), and it contained his inspired takes on such corny standards as “Wagon Wheels” and “I’m an Old Cowhand.”
“It Could Happen to You,” also from 1957, was the first in a series of solo recordings, while 1958’s Freedom Suite foreshadowed the political stance of jazz in the ’60s.
At the height of his fame in 1959, Rollins stepped away from performing in public for two years. “I felt I needed to brush up on various aspects of my craft,” he recalled. “I felt I was getting too much, too soon. I was going to do it my way.”
Returning to action in 1961 with The Bridge, Rollins put on live sets that showcased his marathon, epic stream-of-consciousness solos, riffing off melodies of popular songs with start