Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins (born September 7 1930 in New York City) [1] is an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians of the post-bebop era, Rollins' long, prolific career began at the age of 11, and he was playing with piano legend Thelonious Monk before reaching the age of 20. A number of his compositions, including "St. Thomas", "Oleo" and "Airegin", have become jazz standards. As of 2009, Rollins is still touring and recording, having outlived most of his contemporaries such as John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Max Roach, and Art Blakey, all performers with whom he recorded.

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Biography

Early days

While Rollins was born in New York City, his parents were born in the United States Virgin Islands. ^[2] Rollins received his first saxophone at age 13. ^{[3] [4]}

Rollins started as a pianist, changed to alto saxophone, and finally switched to tenor in 1946. During his high-school years, he played in a band with other future jazz legends Jackie McLean and Kenny Drew. He was first recorded in 1949 with Babs Gonzales – in the same year he recorded with J. J. Johnson and Bud Powell. In his recordings through 1954, he played with performers such as Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk. ^[5]

In 1950, Rollins was arrested for armed robbery and given a sentence of three years. He spent 10 months in Rikers Island jail before he was released on parole. In 1952 he was arrested for violating the terms of his parole by using heroin. Rollins was assigned to the Federal Medical Center, Lexington, at the time the only assistance in the U.S. for drug addicts. While there he was a volunteer for then-experimental Methadone therapy and was able to break his heroin habit. Rollins himself initially feared sobriety would impair his musicianship, but then went on to greater success.

As a saxophonist he had initially been attracted to the jump and R&B sounds of performers like Louis Jordan, but soon became drawn into the mainstream tenor saxophone tradition. Joachim Berendt has described this tradition as sitting between the two poles of the strong sonority of Coleman Hawkins and the light flexible phrasing of Lester Young, which did so much to inspire the fleet improvisation of be-bop in the 1950s. ^[6] Rollins drew the two threads together as a fluid post-bop improviser with a sound as strong and resonant as any since Hawkins himself.

Miles, Monk and the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet

Rollins began to make a name for himself as he recorded with the Modern Jazz Quartet and with Miles Davis in 1951, recording his composition "Oleo" among others. In 1953 and 1954 he worked with Thelonious Monk, recording Thelonius Monk and Sonny Rollins , which includes "I Want to Be Happy" and "Friday the 13th". Rollins then joined the Clifford Brown–Max Roach quintet in 1955 (recordings made by this group have been released as Sonny Rollins Plus 4 and Clifford Brown and Max Roach at Basin Street ; Rollins also plays on half of More Study in Brown ), and after Brown's death in 1956 worked mainly as a leader. By this time he had begun his career with Prestige Records, which released many of his best-known albums, although at the height of his career in the 1950s Rollins was also recording regularly for Blue Note, Riverside and the Los Angeles label Contemporary.

Saxophone Colossus

His widely acclaimed album, Saxophone Colossus , was recorded on June 22, 1956 at Rudy Van Gelder's studio in New Jersey, with Tommy Flanagan on piano, former Jazz Messengers bassist Doug Watkins and his favorite drummer Max Roach. This was Rollins' third recording as a leader and it included his best-known composition "St. Thomas", a Caribbean calypso based on a tune sung to him by his mother in his childhood, as well as the fast bebop number "Strode Rode", and "Moritat" (the Kurt Weill composition also known as "Mack the Knife").

In 1956 he also recorded Tenor Madness , using Miles Davis' group – pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones. The title track is the only recording of Rollins with John Coltrane, who was also in Davis' group.

At the end of the year Rollins recorded a set for Blue Note with Donald Byrd on trumpet, Wynton Kelly on piano, Gene Ramey on bass, and Rollins' long-term collaborator Max Roach on drums. This has been released as Sonny Rollins Volume One (the superstar session Volume Two recorded the following year has consistently outsold it).

The piano-less trio

In 1957 he pioneered the use of bass and drums (without piano) as accompaniment for his saxophone solos. This texture came to be known as "strolling". Two early tenor/bass/drums trio recordings are Way Out West (Contemporary, 1957) and A Night at the Village Vanguard (Blue Note, 1957). Rollins uses the trio format intermittently throughout his career, sometimes taking the unusual step of using his sax as a rhythm section instrument during bass and drum solos. Way Out West was so named because it was recorded for a California-based record label (with L.A. stalwart drummer Shelly Manne), and because the record included country and western songs such as "Wagon Wheels" and "I'm an Old Cowhand". The Village Vanguard CD consists of two sets, a matinee with bassist Donald Bailey and drummer Pete LaRoca and then the evening set with bassist Wilbur Ware and drummer Elvin Jones.

By this time, Rollins had become well-known for taking relatively banal or unconventional material (such as "There's No Business Like Show Business" on Work Time , "I'm an Old Cowhand", and later "Sweet Leilani" on the Grammy-winning CD This Is What I Do ) and turning it into a vehicle for improvisation.

1957's Newk's Time saw him working with a piano again, in this case Wynton Kelly but one of the most highly-regarded tracks is a saxophone/drum duet ("Surrey with the Fringe on Top" with Philly Joe Jones). Also that year he recorded for Blue Note with a star-studded line-up of JJ Johnson on trombone, Horace Silver or Thelonious Monk on piano and drummer Art Blakey (released as Sonny Rollins Volume 2 ).

The Freedom Suite

In 1958 Rollins recorded another landmark piece for saxophone, bass and drums trio: The 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." ^[7]

The title track is a 19-minute improvised bluesy suite, much of it interaction between Rollins' saxophone and the drums of Max Roach, some of it very tense. However the album was not all politics – the other side featured hard bop workouts of popular show tunes. The LP was only briefly available in its original form, before the record company repackaged it as Shadow Waltz , the title of another piece on the record. The bassist was Oscar Pettiford.

Finally in 1958 Rollins made one more studio album before taking a three-year break from recording. This was another session for Los Angeles based 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 pianist Hampton Hawes, guitarist Barney Kessel, bassist Leroy Vinnegar and drummer Shelly Manne.

First sabbatical

By 1959, Rollins was frustrated with what he perceived as his own musical limitations and took the first – 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 in 1962 he named his "comeback" album The Bridge at the start of a contract with RCA Records, recorded with a quartet featuring guitarist Jim Hall and still no piano. The rhythm section was Ben Riley on drums and bassist Bob Cranshaw. This became one of Rollins' best-selling records.

The contract with RCA lasted until 1964 and saw Rollins remain one of the most adventurous musicians around. Each album he recorded differed radically from the previous one. Rollins explored Latin rhythms on What's New , tackled the avant-garde on Our Man in Jazz , and re-examined standards on Now's the Time .

He then provided the soundtrack to the 1966 version of Alfie . His 1965 residency at Ronnie Scott's legendary jazz club has recently emerged on CD as Live in London , a series of releases from the Harkit label; they offer a very different picture of his playing from the studio albums of the period. (These are unauthorized releases, and Rollins has responded by "bootlegging" them himself and releasing them on his website.)

Second sabbatical

Rollins took his most recent sabbatical 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 1970s and 1980s featured electric guitar, electric bass, and usually more pop- or funk-oriented drummers. For most of this period he recorded for Milestone Records and the compilation Silver City: A Celebration of 25 Years on Milestone contains a selection from these years. The 70s and 80s were not all disco though and it was during this period that Rollins' passion for unaccompanied saxophone solos came to the forefront. In 1985 he released his Solo Album .

In 1981, Rollins was asked to play on tracks by The Rolling Stones for their album Tattoo You , including the single, "Waiting on a Friend." ^[8] In other links to the rock world, Donald Fagen can be seen playing Rollins' 1958 LP Sonny Rollins and The Contemporary Leaders on the cover of his 1982 LP The Nightfly , while Joe Jackson replicated the cover photo for his 1984 A&M album Body and Soul as homage to the 1957 Blue Note album Sonny Rollins Vol. 2 .

In 1986 Documentary filmmaker Robert Mugge released a film titled Saxophone Colossus . It featured two Rollins performances: a quintet in upstate New York and his Concerto for Saxophone and Symphony in Japan.

2001 to present

Image:SonnyRollins.jpg|thumb |right|200px 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.

On September 11, 2001, the 71-year-old Rollins, who lived several blocks away, heard the World Trade Center collapse, and was forced to evacuate his apartment, with only his saxophone in hand. Although he was shaken, he traveled to Boston five days later to play a concert at the Berklee School of Music. The live recording of that performance was released on CD in 2005, Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert , which won the 2006 Grammy for Jazz Instrumental Solo for Sonny's solo on the song "Why Was I Born?". He won an earlier Grammy for the CD This Is What I Do .

Rollins was presented with a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in 2004, but sadly that year also saw the death of his wife Lucille.

In 2006, Rollins went on to complete a Down Beat Readers Poll triple win for: "Jazzman of the Year", "#1 Tenor Sax Player", and "Recording of the Year" for the CD Without a Song (The 9/11 Concert) . The band that year was led by his nephew, trombonist Clifton Anderson, and included bassist Bob Cranshaw, pianist Stephen Scott, percussionist Kimati Dinizulu, and drummer Perry Wilson.

After a highly successful Japanese tour Rollins returned to the recording studio for the first time in five years to record the Grammy-nominated CD Sonny, Please (2006). The CD title is derived from one of his late wife's favorite phrases. The album was released on Rollins' own label, Doxy Records, following his departure from Milestone Records after many years and was produced by Clifton Anderson. Rollins' band at this time, and on this album, included Bob Cranshaw, guitarist Bobby Broom, drummer Steve Jordan and Kimati Dinizulu.

The city of Minneapolis, Minnesota officially named October 31, 2006, after Rollins in honor of his achievements and contributions to the world of jazz. In 2007 he received the prestigious Polar Music Prize in Stockholm, Sweden, together with Steve Reich, and Colby College awarded Rollins a Doctor of Music, honoris causa , for his contributions to jazz music.

Rollins performed at Carnegie Hall on September 18, 2007, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of his first performance there. Appearing with him were Clifton Anderson (trombone), Bobby Broom (guitar), Bob Cranshaw (bass), Kimati Dinizulu (percussion), Roy Haynes (drums) and Christian McBride (bass). ^[9]

Discography

As leader

Date	Album	Label
1951	Sonny Rollins Quartet	Prestige Records
1951	Sonny and the Stars	Prestige Records
1951	Sonny Rollins with the Modern Jazz Quartet	Prestige Records
1951	Mambo Jazz	Prestige Records
1954	Moving Out	Prestige Records
1954	Sonny Rollins Plays Jazz Classics	Prestige Records
1954	Sonny Rollins Quintet	Prestige Records
1955	Taking Care of Business	Prestige Records
1955	Work Time	Prestige Records
1956	Saxophone Colossus	Prestige Records
1956	Sonny Rollins Plus 4	Prestige Records
1956	Three Giants	Prestige Records
1956	Tenor Madness	Prestige Records
1956	Rollins Plays for Bird	Prestige Records
1956	Sonny Boy	Prestige Records
1956	Tour de Force	Prestige Records
1956	The Sound of Sonny	Riverside Records
1956	Sonny Rollins, Vol. 1	Blue Note Records
1957	Sonny Rollins, Vol. 2	Blue Note Records
1957	Newk's Time	Blue Note Records
1957	Night at the Village Vanguard	Blue Note Records
1957	Way Out West	Contemporary Records
1957	Alternate Takes	Contemporary Records
1957	Sonny's Time	Jazzland Records
1957	Sonny Rollins Plays/Jimmy Cleveland Plays	Period Records
1957	European Concerts	Bandstand Records
1957	Sonny Side Up	Verve Records
1958	Freedom Suite	Riverside Records
1958	Shadow Waltz	Jazzland Records
1958	Sonny Rollins and the Big Brass	Verve Records
1958	Brass & Trio	Verve Records
1958	Quartet	Verve Records
1958	At Music Inn, Teddy Edward's at Falcon's Lair	Metrojazz
1958	Sonny Rollins and the Contemporary Leaders	Contemporary Records
1959	In Stockholm (1959)	Dragon Records
1959	Aix-En-Provence	Royal Jazz Records
1959	Saxes in Stereo	Riverside Records
1962	The Bridge	Bluebird Records
1962	The Quartets featuring Jim Hall	Bluebird Records
1962	What's New?	Bluebird Records
1962	Alternatives	Bluebird Records
1962	On the Outside	Bluebird Records
1962	Our Man in Jazz	RCA Victor
1963	Sonny Meets Hawk!	RCA Records
1963	All the Things You Are	Bluebird Records
1963	Stuttgart	Jazz Anthology
1963	Live In paris	Magnetic Records
1964	Now's The Time	RCA Victor
1964	Sonny Rollins & Co. 1964	Bluebird Records
1964	Three in Jazz	RCA Records
1964	The Standard Sonny Rollins	RCA Records
1966	Alfie	Impulse
1966	East Broadway Run Down	Impulse
1972	''Next Albums	Milestone
1973	Horn Culture	Milestone
1974	The Cutting Edge	Milestone
1975	Nucleus	Milestone
1976	The Way I Feel	Milestone
1977	Easy Living	Milestone
1978	Don't Stop the Carnival	Milestone
1979	''Don't Ask	Milestone
1980	Love at First Sight	Milestone
1981	No Problem	Milestone
1982	Reel Life	Milestone
1984	Sunny Days, Starry Nights	Milestone
1985	The Solo Album	Milestone
1986	G-Man	Milestone
1987	Dancing in the Dark	Blue Note Records
1989	Falling in Love with Jazz	Milestone
1991	Here's to the People	Milestone
1993	Old Flames	Milestone
1996	+3	Milestone
1998	Global Warming	Milestone
2000	This Is What I Do	Milestone
2001	Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert	Milestone
2006	Sonny, Please	Emarcy
2008	Road Shows	Emarcy

As sideman

With Miles Davis

• Dig (1951)
• Blue Period (1951)
• Bags' Groove (1954)

With Thelonious Monk

• Brilliant Corners (1957)

With Max Roach

• Max Roach Plus Four (1956)

With Bud Powell

• The Amazing Bud Powell (1951)

With J. J. Johnson

• J. J. Johnson's Jazz Quintets (1949)

References

1. allmusic Biography
2. Larry Taylor, "Sonny Rollins: Touring, Life Today and the Future," All About Jazz, March 26, 2008 http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=28819
3. Anthony, Michael, "SONNY OUTLOOK; DESPITE 50 YEARS OF JAZZ INVENTION, TENOR SAX GREAT SONNY ROLLINS WOULD RATHER LOOK AHEAD THAN BACK.(FREETIME)" ''Minneapolis Star Tribune,'' March 23, 2001 http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-72109580.html
4. Sonny Rollins - FREE Sonny Rollins Biography | Encyclopedia.com: Facts, Pictures, Information!
5. Columbia Encyclopedia http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-RollinsS.html
6. The Jazz Book
7. Freedom Suite Revisited
8. Waiting on a Friend
9. Carnegie Hall official website