Sonny Rollins (1930-2026)
Word came through yesterday that Sonny Rollins had passed away at the age of 95 — a titan of 20th century music, a real American hero, a wonderfully strange person who shared so much with us over the course of a long life. There's so much to dig into when it comes to Sonny, whether it's his 60+ year discography, the fascinating recent biography by Aidan Levy, or his revealing notebooks, which NYRB published in 2024. Decades upon decades in search of some elusive perfection, a combination of notes and rhythm that passes beyond all understanding. A holy sound.
One of my favorite Sonny situations is a late 1960s BBC doc that you can watch on Vimeo. Entitled Who Is Sonny Rollins?, it follows Sonny from the Williamsburg Bridge to a New Jersey forest, the camerawork evocative and intimate, Rollins’ playing always imaginative and inspiring. Best of all is an extended sequence that shows Sonny showing up at a youth jazz band rehearsal in Harlem. He seems as serious playing a wild, almost atonal blues with the kids as he'd be at Lincoln Center. Who was Sonny Rollins? I don't know, but he was amazing.
Sonny Says: [I]t’s a journey because I haven’t felt comfortable to say that I’ve reached my goal. If I did, I’d be happy—maybe I wouldn’t be happy; maybe then I’d be sad because I wouldn’t have anything to strive for. But it hasn’t happened ... I still feel that I haven’t gotten to what I want to get to. I’m really hoping that I get there, but there’s no doubt in my mind that I haven’t done enough. I haven’t gotten to something that I know is there.
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