Sonny Rollins, the master tenor saxophonist and restless genius whose bold, distinctive voice and uncompromising experimentation kept him on the edge of jazz for more than 50 years, died Monday at age 95.
Associated Press spokeswoman Terri Hinte told the Associated Press that Rollins died at his home in Woodstock, NY.
From his early teenage days to his limited solo career and exploration of free jazz, Rollins was revered for his improvisational ability. He was one of the last greats of the bebop era and – along with John Coltrane and Charlie Parker – one of the most influential saxophonists of his time.
Rock fans got a dose of his music with the Rolling Stones’ 1981 album Tattoo Youfeaturing Rollins’ wistful sax solo on the ballad Waiting for a Frienddesigned after watching Mick Jagger dance.
WATCH | Sonny Rollins plays sax on a Stones ballad:
Despite his continued success, Rollins was never truly satisfied with his art, occasionally taking long breaks from acting and constantly adopting new eclectic styles.
He’s always called himself a “work in progress,” and said he’s not one of those artists who settles into one way of playing.
Although his early bebop work was popular with his fans, Rollins never looked back, saying he found it “painful” to listen to and listen to the mistakes in his older recordings.
“I don’t see myself as an artist who has learned as much as I want to learn,” he told the Associated Press in 2007.
Lasting achievements
In the 1990s and 2000s, Rollins released a series of critically acclaimed albums. He maintained a rigorous exercise regimen, and continued to tour, well into his 80s. Pulmonary fibrosis, a hardening and damaging of the lungs, would eventually force him to retire. He played his last concert in 2012 and retired completely in 2014.
While he missed the adoration of the crowds, he missed the actual performance.
“I played a couple of concerts earlier where I was out in the afternoon,” he told the New York Times in 2020. “I was able to look up at the sky, and I felt a connection; I felt like I was part of something. Not a crowd. Something bigger.”
His 2001 album This Is What I Doit earned him a Grammy Award for best jazz instrumental album. He won again in 2006 with the best jazz instrumental solo award Why was I born?
That solo was from the album Without a Song: The 9/11 Concerta live recording from a performance in Boston just four days after the attacks of September 11. Rollins, who had been evacuated from his apartment at ground zero, went ahead with the concert at the urging of his wife and manager, Lucille. He died in 2004.
Her survivors include a nephew, Clifton Anderson, and nieces Vallyn Anderson and Gabrielle DeGroat.
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Fighting heroin
Rollins got his first big break when he asked to join Thelonious Monk’s band. He was soon busy with Miles Davis and Bud Powell, who introduced him to the world of recording even before he graduated from high school.
But like many jazz musicians of the late 1940s and early 1950s, Rollins’ rising star nearly disappeared when he became addicted to heroin at age 19. As his addiction slowly grew, Rollins served two stints in prison – 10 months in 1950 and three months in 1953 – and eventually found himself living in Chicago. In 1954, Rollins entered a hospital in Lexington, Ky., for drug treatment.
He left and became spiritually awake as he kicked the drugs.
“I started to have a deep philosophy about what life was about,” he told the AP in 2007. “From that moment on is when my consciousness awakened.”
After his release, he returned to Chicago and signed as a member of the Max Roach-Clifford Brown quintet. In 1956 he recorded a solo album, The Saxophone Colossus. Its stripped-down, hard bop sound heralded him as one of jazz’s greatest sax players and remains one of his most influential works.
Over the next two years Rollins took a different approach, switching to a pianoless trio for three more landmark albums: Way Out West, A Night in the Vanguard Village again The Freedom Suite.
At the height of his fame, Rollins went into hiding, spending the next two years practicing alone in a secluded spot above the East River on the Williamsburg Bridge walkway.
“The thing I’m most proud of in my career is that I was able to see beyond the hype and all that stuff,” he told the AP in 2007, “and I did what I was told to do.”
In his absence, jazz moved from the fast, tightly woven sound of bebop to the pulsating and chaotic free jazz. When Rollins chose to return to the scene in 1961, he embraced a new sound – a move that divided his fans.
In the mid-’60s, Rollins toured extensively in Europe, switching back and forth between traditional and avant garde styles. He contributed the original music to the soundtrack of Alfiea 1966 British film that made Michael Caine a star.
It was during a trip to Japan that Rollins discovered Zen Buddhism, which led to another long sabbatical that would last into the early 1970s.
A living legend
When he chose to record again in 1972, he was now considered a legend and widely accepted. He was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship that year and was inducted into the Downbeat Hall of Fame the next. He came from Tonight Show and started playing in concert halls instead of nightclubs.
Theodore Walter Rollins was born into a musical family in Harlem on September 7, 1930. His father, a naval officer, played the clarinet, his sister played the piano, and his older brother was a violinist.
When he was eight, his parents insisted that he learn piano, but, as he recalls, “it didn’t take.” Instead, he said, he’d rather be outside playing baseball. But when he was 11 years old, Rollins fell in love with the saxophone, and begged his parents to buy him one – an alto.
He had difficulty getting lessons and was self-taught, but Rollins quickly became a star, switching to tenor sax and playing clubs at night.
He leaves many records unreleased and says he does not plan to leave instructions on what to do with them.
“After I leave this planet I won’t have anything about what’s going on, so I’m not worried about that,” he told the New York Times in 2020. “And, boy, I’m sorry for my music; I’ll never worry about it again. Thank God.”
