Sonny Rollins is the most enduring tenor saxophonist of the bebop and hard bop eras, but also one of the greatest jazz saxophonists of all time. His fluid and harmonically innovative ideas and easily accessible sound have influenced generations of players. Nicknamed "Newk," he served early apprenticeships with bop masters from
Bud Powell and
Miles Davis to
Max Roach & Clifford Brown. After 1956's classic
Saxophone Colossus was released, he was heralded as jazz's top tenorist. A year later, after
Way Out West and
A Night at the Village Vanguard (two pioneering pianoless trio dates), he entered a class of his own -- a reputation he never relinquished. Several of his own compositions, including "Oleo" and "Doxy," are jazz standards.
Rollins retired twice early on: the first time, from 1959 through 1961 (when he practiced his horn on the Williamsburg Bridge), resulted in 1962's comeback album
The Bridge. Between 1969 and 1971 he went on a spiritual sojourn to Jamaica and India. After returning, he had changed his style and, to a degree, his tone, as evidenced by 1978's
Don't Stop the Carnival. As one of jazz's elder statesmen in the '90s and early 21st centuries, he proved an unbreakable connection between the music's historical lineage and modernity. He won Grammys for 2000's
This Is What I Do and 2005's
Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert, and a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Rollins stopped performing in public in 2012 due to respiratory issues.
Born
Theodore Walter Rollins in New York City on September 7, 1930, he had an older brother who played violin. At age nine, he took up piano lessons but discontinued them, took up the alto saxophone in high school, and switched to tenor after high school, playing local engagements. In 1948 he recorded with vocalist
Babs Gonzales, then
Bud Powell and
Fats Navarro, and his first composition, "Audubon," was recorded by
J.J. Johnson. Soon thereafter,
Rollins quickly made the rounds with groups led by
Tadd Dameron, Chicago drummer Ike Day, and
Miles Davis in 1951, followed by his own recordings with
Kenny Drew,
Kenny Dorham, and
Thelonious Monk.
In 1956
Rollins made his biggest move, joining the famous ensemble of
Max Roach & Clifford Brown, then formed his own legendary pianoless trio with bassist
Wilbur Ware or
Donald Bailey and drummer
Elvin Jones or
Pete La Roca in 1957, recording sessions at the Village Vanguard. Awards came from DownBeat and Playboy magazines, and recordings were made mainly for the Prestige and Riverside labels, but also for
Verve, Blue Note,
Columbia, and Contemporary Records -- all these factors coincided with
Rollins' steadily rising star. Pivotal albums such as
Tenor Madness (with
John Coltrane),
Saxophone Colossus (with longstanding partner
Tommy Flanagan), and
Way Out West (with
Ray Brown and
Shelly Manne), and collaborations with
the Modern Jazz Quartet,
Clark Terry, and
Sonny Clark firmly established
Rollins as a bona fide superstar. He also acquired the nickname "Newk" for his facial resemblance to Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Don Newcombe.
But between 1959 and 1961 he sought a less superficial, more spiritual path to the rat race of the times, visiting Japan and India, studying yoga and Zen. He left the music business until 1962, when he returned with the groundbreaking, and in many ways revolutionary recording
The Bridge with guitarist
Jim Hall for the RCA Victor/Bluebird label.
Rollins struck up a working relationship with trumpeter
Don Cherry; recorded a handful of innovative LPs for the RCA Victor, MGM/Metro Jazz, and Impulse! labels; made a record with his hero
Coleman Hawkins, and left the scene again in 1968. By 1971, he'd come back with a renewed sense of vigor and pride and put out a string of successful records for the Milestone label that bridged the gap between the contemporary jazz and the fusion jazz of the time, the most memorable being his live date from the 1974 Montreux Jazz Festival,
The Cutting Edge. Merging jazz with calypso, light funk, and post-bop,
Rollins' career was not only revived, but thrived from then on. He was a member of the touring Milestone Jazz Stars in 1978 with
McCoy Tyner and
Ron Carter, and gained momentum as a touring headliner and festival showstopper.
His finest Milestone recordings of the second half of his career include
Easy Living,
Don't Stop the Carnival,
G-Man,
Old Flames,
Plus Three,
Global Warming,
This Is What I Do, and
Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert. He has worked extensively with road and recording bands that have included electric bass guitarist
Bob Cranshaw, trombonist
Clifton Anderson, pianists
Tommy Flanagan and
Stephen Scott, keyboardist
Mark Soskin, guitarists
Bobby Broom and
Jerome Harris, percussionist
Kimati Dinizulu, and drummers
Jack DeJohnette,
Perry Wilson,
Steve Jordan, and
Al Foster.
Rollins formed his own record label, Doxy, through which he issued Sonny, Please in 2006.
Into his eighth decade,
Rollins continued to perform, and was documented on the three-volume Road Show series, also released on Doxy and Okeh. In 2010,
Rollins was awarded the National Medal of Arts. The following year he was the subject of a documentary by Dick Fontaine, Beyond the Notes. Due to health problems,
Rollins stopped playing in public in 2012. In 2016, the album
Holding the Stage, a companion to the Roadshow series, appeared. The following year,
Rollins announced that he had been forced to stop playing altogether and expressed some disappointment that he had not achieved -- artistically -- all he wanted to. ~ Michael G. Nastos