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Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins (September 7, 1930 – May 25, 2026)

Born in 1930 in New York to parents from the Virgin Islands, Rollins began playing alto saxophone around age eight. He also played piano, and at age 16, picked up the tenor saxophone after being inspired by Coleman Hawkins. He began performing professionally after graduating from high school in 1948, playing with the likes of Bud Powell and Roy Haynes.

In the 1950s, he began releasing albums at a steady clip, first as a sideman to Miles Davis before delivering a series of records as a bandleader, including Work Time, Tenor Madness and his celebrated 1956 album Saxophone Colossus. He took hiatuses from music in 1959 and 1966, but always eventually came back to making music. His last album was 2006’s Sonny, Please.

He received a Lifetime Achievement Award Grammy in 2004, and is a National Medal of Arts honoree and a Kennedy Center Honoree, in addition to having received honorary doctorates from six universities, including Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music.

Mr. Rollins retired from performing in 2014 due to respiratory issues from pulmonary fibrosis, and in 2017, he donated his archives to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

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