Back in 2011, when Sonny Rollins finally received his long-overdue recognition from the Kennedy Center Honors, I wrote the follow words on Jazz Collector, expressing what I felt should have been expressed at the tribute:
“Jazz is a unique art form in that it enables – in fact, it requires – the artist to perform on the fly, as part of a unit of other musicians and without a safety net, and it demands not only immense technical skill, but a mind that can constantly plumb the depths of creativity to avoid cliché and deliver something new, exciting, clever, unique and, at times, innovative. In the mid-1940s there was a revolution in jazz that came to be known as bebop, led by musicians such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk. Sonny Rollins came along as a teenager at the tail end of the bebop revolution and he was able to fuse the concepts of this new generation with the ideas and masters of the previous generation, such as Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, to bring the art of jazz improvisation to levels that the music has rarely seen, before or since. If you listen to some of the masterful Sonny Rollins albums of the 1950s, such as Worktime or Saxophone Colossus, you will hear an artist who was able to set new standards of improvisation – in creativity, in humor, in conception, in technique – that truly changed the course of jazz history and influenced every single jazz musician who came afterwards. With one or two exceptions, Sonny Rollins was without peer as an improviser, as a genius in creating music that was fresh, bursting with energy and ideas, and always inspiring.
“But Sonny was never content to rest on his laurels and, in fact, was never satisfied with his own work, even though his colleagues and peers came to respect, admire and laud him as one of the true masters of modern jazz. One of the things that makes Sonny Rollins so special among jazz artists has been his true humility and belief that he can always improve, always learn more. This quest led him famously to the Williamsburg Bridge, where he spent two years in self-imposed retirement to practice and improve his skills. This quest to be innovative, to improve, to experiment, to pioneer, has also led Sonny in many other directions, and continues to lead him to this day. Not many people realize it, but one of the the first record albums in the United States to use the words “Bossa Nova” was the Sonny Rollins album “What’s New?” Not many people realize that it was Sonny Rollins who composed and performed the music to the original movie Alfie. Not many people realize it, but it is Sonny Rollins who is regarded all around the world – in France and England, in Japan and Russia, in South America – almost everywhere – as one of the true treasures of American jazz and one of the great musicians the world has produced in the past century. It is wonderful, exciting and long overdue that Sonny Rollins is finally receiving this same recognition in the United States.”
Last night I went to bed with tears in my eyes seeing the news that Sonny had died at age 95. This morning I woke up, pulled out a dozen of my favorite Sonny records, and headed to the radio studio in Pittsfield to record a tribute to Sonny. On the way I called my friend Dan Axelrod to reminisce and share stories:
The rainy night in 1972 that Sonny returned to the Village Vanguard for the first time in years and we were able to hear him live for the first time. Bliss!
The night at the Half Note in the middle of the week, last set, there were eight of us in the audience: Danny and me and a table of three dressed-to-the-nines couples from Sugar Hill in Harlem, who said they hadn’t been out to see live jazz in years, and Sonny put on a show for them that might have been the most inspired tenor playing I ever heard in my life.
The time we were shut out of the Museum of Modern Art when Sonny was giving a free solo show and, without hesitation, I went up to the press gate and confidently said I was Bob Porter representing Downbeat Magazine. I was 5’5” and about 150 pounds; Bob Porter was about 6’2” and 230 pounds. No matter. They let us in and we just blended into the crowd. What happened to Porter? Don’t know and don’t care. Danny and I saw Sonny.
This morning I told these and other stories on the radio and played many of my favorite Sonny Rollins records. To be honest, most were from the 1950s. Not that his later material wasn’t worthy, just that this was the Sonny Rollins music I first heard and first fell in love with. And still love and will always love.
Once the show airs, I’ll post it here at Jazz Collector. I hope you enjoy it. I know that the regular crowd isn’t here as frequently as in the past, but if you do happen to stop by looking for words about one of our true heroes, and if you happen to have anything to share about Mr. Rollins, this would be as good a place as any.
It is the end of an era, isn’t it?
One of the giants.