Kennedy Center Honors: Still No Sonny!
I just did that post on Sonny Rollins a few moments ago and, in looking through the archives I found this piece bemoaning the fact that the Kennedy Center Honors last year once again failed to honor Sonny: Kennedy Center Honors: Where’s Sonny? So just for the hell of it, I went over to the site for the Kennedy Center Honors and it turns out they just announced this year’s recipients. And guess what? Still no Sonny. I, for one, believe this is an outrage. Sonny has not only been a leader and innovator in jazz for more than 60 years, he is a link to Bird and Dizzy and the bop era and he is still playing as well as ever. His influence is really unparalleled and he deserves the kind of broad recognition and acknowledgement that goes with this honor. The honorees this year are Paul McCartney, Oprah Winfrey, Merle Haggard, Jerry Herman and Bill T. Jones. Let’s see if we can somehow use the power of the Jazz Collector community to see if we can push for Sonny to be honored next year. I think this would be a worthy effort, don’t you?