Rollins Sonny, actually Theodore Walter Rollins, *7 September 1930 New York, American tenor saxophonist and jazz composer. He grew up in a musical family (his older brother played the violin fluently). He first took piano lessons, then learned to play the alto saxophone, which he switched to tenor in 1946. He founded his first band while still in high school, and it included such famous musicians as J. McLean, K. Drew, and A. Taylor. In 1948, he practised with T. Monk for several months, and in the same year, he made his first recordings with B. Gonzales’s band for Capitol. In 1949–54, he performed and recorded with bebop musicians: J.J. Johnson, C. Parker, F. Navarro, B. Powell, M. Roach, A. Blakey, T. Monk, and the Modern Jazz Quartet. In 1949 and 1951, he collaborated with M. Davis; in 1954, he recorded three of his own compositions with his Quintet: Airegin, Doxy and Oleo. In 1956–57, he played in the band of C. Brown and M. Roach, and then again with Davis; he also led his own bands. In 1956–58, he recorded a few albums: Tenor Madness and Saxophone Colossus (both 1956), Way Out West in 1957 (trio with R. Brown and S. Manne) and The Freedom Suite (1958), which was a kind of musical manifesto against racial segregation in the United States. In 1959–61, he withdrew from active musical life to perfect his playing technique (he practised on the Williamsburg Bridge in Manhattan). After returning to the stage, he played first with J. Hall (The Bridge, What’s New from 1962), and then with free jazz musicians, including D. Cherry and B. Higgins (Our Man in Jazz from 1962); in 1966, together with the rhythm section of Coltrane’s band (J. Garrison and E. Jones), he recorded the album East Broadway Run Down. In 1965, 1966, and 1967, he performed in Europe. In 1969–71, he stopped his activity again and went to India, where he studied Eastern music and philosophy. After a break, he performed with young, lesser-known performers, introducing electronic sounds and elements of dance music into his works (Horn Culture from 1973). In 1978, together with M. Tyner, R. Carter and A. Foster, he toured the United States. In 1985, he recorded (without the rhythm section) The Solo Album at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; in 1986, his Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra premiered in Japan. In the 1990s, he performed in the United States, Europe and Japan, and recorded albums including Here’s to the People (1991), What’s New (1993), Old Flames (1994), Plus Three (1996), and Global Warming (1998). He remained active from 2000 to 2012, giving concerts and recording albums including This Is What I do (2000) and Sonny, please (2006). In 2004, he received a Grammy for Lifetime Achievement; in 2014, he retired for health reasons.
Rollins is one of the most important tenor saxophonists in jazz history and the most significant figure in the period between C. Parker and J. Coltrane. His style, derived from the music of L. Jordan and jump bands, blues, the aesthetics of C. Hawkins, L. Young, bebop (Parker, Monk) and popular music, is characterised by a specific eclecticism and stylistic heterogeneity. He freely juxtaposes elements of jazz, blues, calypso, Latin and clichés from popular music, which paradoxically works in favour of his art, making it individual and easy to recognise. He uses short motifs surrounded by pauses (they show a stronger connection with the harmonic course of the piece than with the theme itself), wide swinging phrases, and treats rhythm and harmony with freedom. He attaches great importance to the precision of formal improvisation, which he ideally blends into the narrative of the piece. A certain duality of expression is revealed in his music: on the one hand, there is emotionalism and spontaneity; on the other, irony, distance and sarcastic humour. Rollins’s style underwent a clear evolution: from bebop through hard-bop with free elements, to funk and dance music; in later recordings, the violent expression somewhat subsided, and the repertoire included ballads and songs of a more commercial nature. He made his best recordings in the mid-1950s, when he created the albums: Sonny Rollins Plus Four (with original interpretations of Pent up House and Valse Hot), Tenor Madness and Saxophone Colossus – Rollins’s improvisations in songs St. Thomas and Blue Seven are considered the peak achievements of jazz of that period.
