Sonny Rollings

The year is 1955. The place is Chicago, Illinois.  A young jazz musician, only 25 as a matter of fact, has moved to town from New York.  He has already established a name for himself by playing and recording with Bud Powell (piano), Fats Navarro (trumpet), and Miles Davis (trumpet).

But he has also acquired a serious drug addiction.

To try and break the habit, he decides to take a day job and avoid the nightclub drug scene.

Staying at the YMCA, he goes to work as a janitor in a factory and practices in his room evenings and weekends.  One day on his way to his cleaning job, he looks in the window of a record shop, and there on the cover of an album done with pianist Thelonious Monk he sees himself.  However, he continues on his way to work and puts in a full and hard day mopping, scrubbing etc.

His comment: “In doing manual labor I found there was something good about working with my hands.  There's a wonderful release and a spiritual feeling when you really do something.”

The work helps him tremendously to get back clean.  The person is Sonny Rollins.

Fast forward to 2001.  On the morning of September 11th, a musician is in his Manhattan pied-a-terre (compact apartment) and is preparing to run a few errands when he hears a plane pass directly over his roof.  (His house with his wife is elsewhere in town.)  He then hears a loud “POW.”  Thinking that a small plane has crashed along the waterfront of the Hudson River, he turns on his television just in time to see another flight slam into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.

He goes downstairs. The streets are in bedlam with people running about and screaming, and a tremendous amount of toxic dust is filling the air.  He decides to go back upstairs, call his wife and then start practicing on his tenor saxophone.  The power goes off shortly afterward, and the 71 year old musician is stranded inside his apartment, but figures that the government will handle the situation.

The next day national guardsmen climb up to the 39th floor and order him and three other residents there to evacuate.  He gathers what he can carry including his tenor sax and a flashlight and descends the narrow staircase.  A CNN cameraman catches him, gear in hand, walking to a bus which takes him to Washington Irving High School.  He then calls his driver who picks him up to take him home.

The thing is he has a pending concert in Boston and does not want to go.  His knees are  wobbly, and he is mentally disjointed and still feeling the shock.  However his wife (also his business manager) insists.  So he honors the contract and proceeds on September 15th to play an award-winning set called “Without A Song  -  The 9/11 Concert.”  His comment:  “Everyone seemed more contemplative and thoughtful than usual.  The fact that they all knew I was in the middle of it might have contributed.”  The person is Sonny Rollins.

(Theodore) Sonny Rollins was born in New York on September 7th, 1930.  His parents were from the Virgin Islands, and his brothers and sisters were students of classical music.  A saxophone- playing uncle who liked the blues diverted him to jazz, and he quickly absorbed the styles of saxophone idols Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Dexter Gordon and (more recently in the late 1940's and 1950's) Charlie Parker.

He gigged (play in jazz clubs) and recorded for the first time at age eighteen, then went on in the early 1950's to play alongside Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and others.  In 1955, after his Chicago job, he joined trumpeter Clifford Brown and drummer Max Roach.  After a two year sabbatical in '59 and '60, he formed Sonny Rollins and Co. featuring  guitarist Jim Hall.

In the sixties he played extensively and toured in Europe, and he has continued his career in the seventies right through to the nineties and the 21st century with brief sabbaticals in between, and his now preference for concert halls as opposed to smaller jazz clubs.

The distinguishing factor in talking of Sonny is his peerless improvisational skills.  Loren Schoenberg describes Sonny this way:  “Besides being a primary influence on Jazz tenor saxophonists for half a century, Rollins is also one of the most brilliant improvisers in the music's history, regardless of instrument.” 

John Fordham's opinion is that:  “Sonny Rollins has been applying the intuition that virtually expels cliche from improvisation to a mixture of popular and quirkily personal materials for forty years.”  Fordham recalls Sonny's date at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in London in which as a finale he went on for an hour playing a medley of tunes all of which had the word “goodnight” in the title.

Ken Burns, the expert Documentary producer also tells of Sonny playing in a club around midnight one December 31st, when at the stroke of midnight in mid-flight of an improvisation he went right into the tune of “Auld Lang Syne,” before going back to his improvisation and the melody of the song he was playing.

Sonny has been prolific, so I feature what I know and have listened to, keeping in mind that critics say that Sonny on record is nothing like Sonny live.  I guess we'll have to make do with his recorded material, but oh! I'd give my eye-teeth to hear him live.  He's still going strong at the age of 77, though his wife Lucille died in 2004.  Again, Loren Schoenberg calls him “at any given moment one of the greatest Jazz players on the planet.”

We start with a recording that is very, very familiar to jazz fans here in Belize, and I'm thrilled to commence here - “Tenor Madness!”  Recorded May 24th, 1956 the third selection on this album is “Paul's Pal,” which has been my signature tune for my jazz program, first “Jazz Expressions” on KREM Radio and then “Jazz Time” on LOVE FM for almost fourteen years.  As you may know also, it's Red Garland on piano and Paul Chambers on bass.  Sonny composed this piece for Chambers, his bass player.  Rounding off the lineup was Philly Jo Jones on drums.  You would know, then, that this is the bebop style in its glory, with Sonny doing the honors of course.

Any discography of Sonny would have to feature as an essential his masterpiece also from               1956 (June 22nd to be exact)  “Saxophone Colossus.”  Every single selection from this record is a classic:  one of the best known standards “St. Thomas” with its Caribbean lilt, “You Don't Know What Love Is,”  Strode Rode,”  “Moritat” a.k.a. “Mack the Knife,” and last but not least “Blue Seven.  As a matter of fact the solo on  “Blue Seven” is regarded as one of the finest ever recorded jazz solos!   The lineup are famous in their own right and to boot as a result of “Saxophone Colossus” :  Tommy Flanagan (Virginia Echols' uncle) on piano, Doug Watkins on bass,  and Max Roach on drums.

Next comes “The Bridge,” a 1962 date.   In his 1960 – 1961 sabbatical Sonny used to like to practice on the catwalk of the Williamsburg Bridge in NYC.  This critically acclaimed record is by a pianoless quartet with Jim Hall on guitar, Bob Cranshaw on bass, and  Ben Riley on drums.  The interplay between Rollins and Hall in their statements of melody and then improvisations is really something to listen to.  I pick the last piece “You Do Something To Me” as my favorite.

We move forward to 1995 for the recording on the Milestone label  “Sonny +  3.”  Lovely selections here too, with “They Say It's Wonderful” and “Mona Lisa” as standouts. Tommy Flanagan, who played on “Saxophone Colossus” back in 1956 is featured here on piano with Bob Cranshaw on bass and Jack de Johnette on drums.

“Without A Song -  The 9/11 Concert” is next.  We know the circumstances of this recording  from the anecdote above.  And Lucille and Sonny Rollins produced the CD.  Sonny digs into a 16 minute 37 second version of the title song as well as five other heartfelt selections on this historic date.  A must listen.  The CD I have is courtesy of Clifton “Dor” Hall.  Thanks, Dor!!

We wrap up with the self-produced  “Sonny, Please.”  Lucille had passed away, but Sonny remembered what she used to say when she got a bit exasperated with him. He therefore titled this CD  thus!  Recorded from December 2005 to February 2006, this is another great one, with the calypso rhythm piece “Park Palace Parade” taking top honors.

Sonny still practices at least two hours a day.  And for those who don't know what he looks like, picture a Norris Hall with white, white hair and beard. (Apologies, Norris!)

I'll conclude with a quote by Sonny from his Foreword to John Fordham's book  “Jazz.”   He states:  “Make no mistake, jazz music is a tremendous force for peace and understanding between nations and peoples, and our world would be a far grimmer place without it.  I wish I could describe to you what it actually feels like to play jazz.  Suffice it to say, there is nothing like the exhilaration which the challenge of improvisation invites.” 

A  Jazz Giant is Sonny Rollins, folks.   I gratefully acknowledge Jazziz magazine for the information I gleaned for the anecdotes, and what more can I say but   FABULOUS!!

Happy listening.