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?
I really have no idea what the value of these Kennedy Centre Honors is. Is it an esteemed award or is it a commercial thing? Where financial interests are at stake, jazz is always a bad performer.
Are these awards also given to classical performers?
Anyway; if somebody deserves honours it is Sonny, a living legend, and jazzcollector should promote his nomination.
The Kennedy Centre really dropped the ball this year… Seriously, ‘Merle Haggard’ ? You really have to wonder about the selection process over there. Oprah I can understand, I am certainly not a fan by any means, but she is retiring, she is worth billions and has ties to the president. Whereas Paul McCartney isn’t even a US citizen ! (But he too is worth billions, or at least he used to be…) The rest are just legitimate infill categories, but seriously ‘Merle Haggard’ !?!?! …Could this be a sign of the apocalypse ? Oh well, he who laughs last, last best right… Sonny will have his day I am sure.
A few notes about the Kennedy Centre Honors:
-A Kennedy Center Honoree must be alive and present at the ceremony in order to receive their award…(check!)
– Honorees are chosen by the Kennedy Center’s national arts committee and by previous honorees, but written, grass-roots nominations are welcome…
Send letters to:
The Kennedy Center Honors, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
2700 F Street NW
Washington, DC 20566.
…I also contacted Sonny’s publicist & the Kennedy Centre for comment on the oversight. I’ll keep you guys posted if anything develops.
UPDATE: I just got a response from Sonny’s publicist:
“Hi Dan,
To the best of my knowledge, Sonny has never been approached by the Kennedy Center about an honor, so there’s been nothing to decline.
I’m aware that many people have been dismayed by this lack of recognition, but the Kennedy Center makes its choices as it sees fit.”
…Now it’s up to the Kennedy Center’s national arts committee to respond. (Who knows, perhaps they will realize the oversight now, and put Sonny in the hat for next years awards.) I will keep you posted as always.
For those who worry that rhe Kennedy Center’s lack of vision may be contagious,there is this(as reported by Jazz Times)-http://jazztimes.com/articles/26450-sonny-rollins-receives-2010-edward-macdowell-med
Speaking of Sonny, if anyone is in Manhattan tonight check this out!!!
“Bob Blumenthal, John Abbott, and Sonny Rollins himself will be at the Barnes & Noble in Tribeca to give a talk and slide show about the book Saxophone Colossus: A Portrait of Sonny Rollins. Please call the store for event rules and restrictions.
Tuesday September 14, 2010 7:00 PM
Barnes & Noble – Tribeca
97 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007, 212-587-5389
Do-Lucky. Thank you for posting this information. I saw it yesterday with more than enough time to trek down to Tribeca to see Sonny in person, but, alas, I did not go and, sadly, I don’t even have a good excuse. Were any of our readers there? Any reports from the field?
I went down to Barnes and Noble last night. Very large crowd attended. Every seat taken and another 25 people were outside the roped off area. Abbott and Blumenthal both gave very interesting and concise presentations about their parts of the new book, accompanied by photos and some music. The book is organized into five chapters, each bearing the title of a track from Saxophone Colossus — starting with St. Thomas. After the presentation, there was some brief Q and A and then Sonny came out. He did not speak to the crowd formally. The crowd gave him a standing ovation and then the book signing began. Sonny was very sociable to everyone that lined up to get their books signed. I had brief dialog with him to let him know how much I enjoyed his Beacon show/80th birthday celebration this past Friday evening and he said some nice things in reply. The books looks real nice. The photos focus on the past 20 years and the text tries to capture his history, and his approach to music and life.
By the way, seeing Sonny and Ornette Coleman play together this past Friday night (apparently for the first time in any public setting) was one of the highlights of my jazz-loving life. Ornette came out and laid out his vocabulary and Sonny picked up on it and channeled it all through his own voice and went places I’ve never heard him go before. It was amazing to see Sonny, at 80, still be as powerful, meaningful and modern as ever and then watch him journey into less familiar waters and excel there too. And as they played you could see that despite their different “labels,” they really had a lot of common ground between them. Historic musical moments, in my opinion.