Walter Theodore “Sonny” Rollins was born Sept. 7, 1930, in New York City, the youngest of three children of parents from the U.S. Virgin Islands, starting his musical journey on piano before moving to the tenor saxophone. Over his seven-decade career he’s recorded over 60 albums as a leader with several of his compositions becoming jazz standards.
Rollins’ first professional recordings were with the bebop vocalist Babs Gonzalez in 1949.
Rollins quickly made a name for himself, going on to record classic sessions with the Modern Jazz Quartet, the Clifford Brown/Max Roach Quintet, Miles Davis and more.
It was with Miles that Sonny Rollins recorded his early classic tunes “Airegin”, “Oleo” and “Doxy.”
The 1956 album Saxophone Colossus featured his calypso-tinged “St. Thomas”, based on a Bahamian song his mother sang to him as a child. It was the beginning of a busy period as Rollins recorded a dozen more albums in the next three years.
In the summer of 1959, Rollins took a famous two-year sabbatical to focus on his playing – which he did for up to 16 hours a day on the Williamsburg Bridge, connecting Manhattan with Brooklyn. He also took up yoga and exercise at this time, emerging with the appropriately titled comeback album, The Bridge.
After a series of successful albums and world tours, Rollins took a second two-year break from music to visit Jamaica and continue his pursuit of yoga, meditation and Eastern philosophy. By the 1980s, Sonny Rollins was mostly headlining concert halls and theaters, performing solo saxophone concerts and even joining the Rolling Stones for three songs on their album Tattoo You.
Accolades and honors came to Rollins in the '80s and' 90s, and he won a Grammy in 2001 for his album This Is What I Do. Later that year, just a few days after his 71st birthday, Rollins had to evacuate his Manhattan apartment after the collapse of the World Trade Center. A concert in Boston five days later was eventually released as Without A Song: the 9/11 concert, winning Rollins another Grammy for his solo on “Why Was I Born.”
Rollins retired from playing in 2014, and recently donated his personal archive to the New York Public Library.
Sonny Rollins, the saxophone colossus, has been a major influence on musicians for decades. In Seattle, saxophonist Jackson Cotugno – recipient of the Earshot Jazz 2022 Golden Ear Emerging Artist award – explains what an impact Sonny Rollins has had on his playing:
“I have learned valuable lessons from his music and he remains an inspiration to me every day,” said Cotugno. “He could do anything he wanted. It was effortless! It wasn’t until college, though, that I dug deeper into his discography, and I think it was a good thing I waited. Because at that point I was at a place where I could really appreciate Sonny’s story, his integrity and his limitless imagination.”
Through his long life, Sonny Rollins relentlessly pursued greatness – as a musician, and as a person. Rollins has made a huge impact on jazz—as a humble giant, forever striving to be better.
