Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins (born September 7, 1930) is a retired American jazz tenor saxophonist who is highly respected as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians.

Over a career that lasted more than 70 years, Rollins led the recording of more than 60 albums. Several of his songs, including "St. Thomas," "Oleo," "Doxy," and "Airegin," are now considered jazz standards. Rollins has been called "the greatest living improviser." Because of health issues, Rollins has not performed publicly since 2012 and officially retired in 2014.

Early life

Rollins was born in New York City to parents from the Virgin Islands. He was the youngest of three children and lived in central Harlem and Sugar Hill. He received his first alto saxophone when he was seven or eight years old. He attended Edward W. Stitt Junior High School and graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School in East Harlem. Rollins began playing the piano, then switched to the alto saxophone after being inspired by Louis Jordan. He later changed to the tenor saxophone in 1946, influenced by his idol, Coleman Hawkins. During his high school years, Rollins played in a band with other future jazz musicians, including Jackie McLean, Kenny Drew, and Art Taylor.

Later life and career

After graduating from high school in 1948, Rollins began performing professionally. He made his first recordings in early 1949 as a sideman with the bebop singer Babs Gonzales. Trombonist J. J. Johnson arranged the group. Within a few months, Rollins started gaining recognition. He recorded with Johnson and performed with pianist Bud Powell, trumpeter Fats Navarro, and drummer Roy Haynes on a key "hard bop" session.

In early 1950, Rollins was arrested for armed robbery. He spent ten months in Rikers Island jail before being released on parole. In 1952, he was re-arrested for breaking his parole by using heroin. Between 1951 and 1953, he recorded with Miles Davis, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk. A major success came in 1954 when Rollins recorded his famous compositions "Oleo," "Airegin," and "Doxy" with a group led by Davis. The group included pianist Horace Silver, Percy Heath, and Kenny Clarke. These recordings are on the album Miles Davis with Sonny Rollins.

In 1955, Rollins entered the Federal Medical Center in Lexington. He volunteered for experimental methadone therapy and successfully stopped using heroin. After leaving the facility, he lived in Chicago for a time and briefly stayed with trumpeter Booker Little. Rollins was worried that sobriety might hurt his music, but he later achieved even greater success.

Rollins briefly joined the Miles Davis Quintet in the summer of 1955. Later that year, he joined the Clifford Brown–Max Roach quintet. Studio albums Clifford Brown and Max Roach at Basin Street and Sonny Rollins Plus 4 document his time in that band. After the deaths of Brown and pianist Richie Powell in a car accident in June 1956, Rollins continued working with Roach. He began releasing albums under his own name on labels like Prestige Records, Blue Note, Riverside, and Contemporary.

His widely praised album Saxophone Colossus was recorded on June 22, 1956, at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in New Jersey. The group included pianist Tommy Flanagan, bassist Doug Watkins, and drummer Max Roach. This was Rollins’s sixth album as a leader. It features his most famous song, "St. Thomas," a Caribbean calypso based on a tune his mother sang to him as a child. Other tracks include "Strode Rode" and "Moritat" (also known as "Mack the Knife"). A long blues solo on Saxophone Colossus, "Blue 7," was studied in detail by composer and critic Gunther Schuller in a 1958 article.

In the solo for "St. Thomas," Rollins repeats a rhythmic pattern and makes small changes to it. He uses short, separated notes and plays within a narrow range. This is interrupted by a sudden burst of notes covering a wider range before returning to the original pattern. In his book The Jazz Style of Sonny Rollins, David N. Baker explains that Rollins often uses rhythm as a main focus, sometimes improvising on rhythm instead of melody or chord changes.

Since recording "St. Thomas," Rollins has used calypso rhythms as a key part of his style. He often performs traditional Caribbean songs like "Hold 'Em Joe" and "Don't Stop the Carnival." He has also written many original calypso-influenced pieces, such as "Duke of Iron," "The Everywhere Calypso," and "Global Warming."

In 1956, Rollins recorded Tenor Madness with Davis’s group, including pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, and drummer Philly Joe Jones. The title track is the only recording of Rollins with John Coltrane, who was also part of Davis’s group.

At the end of 1956, Rollins appeared as a sideman on Thelonious Monk’s album Brilliant Corners. He also released his first album for Blue Note Records, Sonny Rollins, Volume One, with Donald Byrd on trumpet, Wynton Kelly on piano, Gene Ramey on bass, and Max Roach on drums.

In 1957, Rollins married his first wife, actress and model Dawn Finney. That year, he introduced the use of bass and drums, without piano, to accompany his saxophone solos. This style became known as "strolling." Early recordings in this format include Way Out West and A Night at the Village Vanguard, both from 1957. Way Out West was named for its recording with Contemporary Records in California and its inclusion of country songs like "Wagon Wheels." A Night at the Village Vanguard includes two sets: one with bassist Donald Bailey and drummer Pete LaRoca, and another with bassist Wilbur Ware and drummer Elvin Jones. Rollins occasionally used his saxophone as a rhythm instrument during bass and drum solos. Musicians like Lew Tabackin, Joe Henderson, and Branford Marsalis were inspired by Rollins’s pianoless trio format.

While in Los Angeles in 1957, Rollins met alto saxophonist Ornette Coleman. Coleman later stopped using a pianist in his band, a practice Rollins had already pioneered. Rollins became known for improvising on simple or unusual songs, such as "There's No Business Like Show Business" on Work Time and "Sweet Leilani" on his Grammy-winning album This Is What I Do.

Rollins earned the nickname "Newk" because he looked similar to Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Don Newcombe.

In 1957, Rollins made his Carnegie Hall debut and recorded again for Blue Note with J. J. Johnson on trombone, Horace Silver or Monk on piano, and drummer Art Blakey (Sonny Rollins, Volume Two). That December, Rollins and tenor saxophonist Sonny Stitt appeared together on Dizzy Gillespie’s album Sonny Side Up. In 1958, Rollins was part of Art Kane’s famous A Great Day in Harlem photograph of jazz musicians. He is the last surviving musician from the photo.

That same year, Rollins recorded Freedom Suite, a landmark piece for saxophone, bass, and drums. His sleeve notes said: "How ironic that the Negro, who more than any other people can claim America's culture as his own, is being persecuted and re

Artistry and influences

Rollins's tone has been described as "sharp and clear." As a saxophonist, he first liked the jump and R&B styles of performers like Louis Jordan, but later became interested in the mainstream tradition for tenor saxophone. The German critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt described this tradition as falling between the strong, rich sound of Coleman Hawkins and the smooth, flexible style of Lester Young, which helped inspire the fast, creative playing in bebop during the 1950s. Other tenor saxophone influences include Ben Webster and Don Byas. By the time he was in his mid-teens, Rollins was deeply influenced by alto saxophonist Charlie Parker. During his high school years, he was taught by pianist and composer Thelonious Monk, often practicing at Monk's home.

Instruments

Rollins has played different saxophones at different times, including a Selmer Mark VI tenor saxophone and a Buescher Aristocrat. During the 1970s, he recorded using a soprano saxophone on the album Easy Living. He prefers mouthpieces made by Otto Link and Berg Larsen. He uses Frederick Hemke medium reeds.

Decorations and awards

• Elected to the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame in 1973
• Received an Honorary Doctor of Arts degree from Bard College in 1992
• Received an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from Wesleyan University in 1998
• Received an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from Long Island University in 1998
• Received an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from Duke University in 1999
• Received an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from New England Conservatory of Music in 2002
• Received an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from Berklee College of Music in 2003
• Received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in 2004
• Received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement, presented by Awards Council member Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in 2006
• Minneapolis, Minnesota officially named October 31 as "Rollins Day" in 2006 to honor his achievements and contributions to jazz
• Received the Polar Music Prize for being one of the most powerful and personal voices in jazz for over 50 years in 2007
• Received an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from Colby College in 2007
• Received the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class, in 2009
• Received an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from Rutgers University in 2009
• Received the National Medal of Arts in 2010
• Received the Miles Davis Award at the Montreal Jazz Festival in 2010
• Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2010
• Received the Edward MacDowell Medal in 2010
• Received Kennedy Center Honors on his 81st birthday, September 7, 2011
• Received an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from the Juilliard School in May 2013
• Received an Honorary Doctor of Music degree from the University of Hartford in 2015