Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins
Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins is an American jazz tenor saxophonist, widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. In a seven-decade career, he has recorded at least sixty albums as leader and a number of his compositions, including "St. Thomas", "Oleo", "Doxy", "Pent-Up House", and "Airegin", have become jazz standards...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSaxophonist
Date of Birth7 September 1930
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
music spiritual ability
Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one's own.
against attacked both coming common conditions curriculum faced introduced jazz larger majority minority music popular portion social subculture topic ways
As the years went by and jazz got more popular and social conditions changed, you were able to have jazz as a topic introduced into the music curriculum in universities, ... I think that one thing that hip-hop and jazz have in common is that they are both coming out of the minority subculture and we've faced some of the same problems. They are attacked in different ways . . . but they are a minority in a majority culture, so they are unfortunately discriminated against by the larger portion of the majority community.
europe jazz true work
There are a lot of jazz musicians, however, who do have to go to Europe and most of their work is in Europe. That's not true for me.
cared margins
We were right on the margins of society. Who really cared about jazz?
above enjoy great happy horn love meditation mentally playing puts type
I am always happy to be practicing. Period, ... I enjoy just playing my horn and going into the type of meditation that playing involves. It puts me mentally in a place that is always transcendent and above real life. I love playing just for myself. It's a great experience.
life seeking stop
Many jazz artists go to L.A. seeking a more comfortable life and then they really stop playing.
brain five learn learning might months paths playing public three words
Playing in public engenders new paths in your brain that you won't get playing alone. In other words, I can learn something playing in public in five seconds. If I was learning it in private, it might take me three months to get.
strongest various
I feel that L.A. has not always been my strongest base for support. That can be for various reasons.
bit hostile people
I don't want to appear hostile, like I'm hostile to L.A. or that I feel that the people don't appreciate jazz. I don't think it's that. I think it's something more. It's something a little bit more complicated than that.
emphasize playing
I guess fortunate that I'm still around and I emphasize I guess because you never can tell what musicians would be playing had they been around as long as I have.
respected saying sort treated
What I can say is that for may years jazz musicians had to go to Europe, for instance, to be respected and to be sort of treated not in a discriminatory way. I don't think there is anything controversial about me saying that. This is just a fact.
american-musician jazz kinds varied
I don't think jazz should try to change. I think jazz is varied enough and there is so many different kinds of jazz. So jazz doesn't need to change.
ask
I look at all that from the inside, so you'd probably have to ask someone else.
brought certain demands difficult good great groove miles musicians physical point stay truth youthful
If you could do that, it's great to do it. And a lot of great musicians have done it. A lot of musicians get to a point and stay in that groove all of their career. I have just not been able to do it because I don't think I'm a good enough musician. Someone was criticizing Miles, and Miles said, 'The truth is, it's much more difficult for me to play the way I did in 1947. It's really a physical thing. Sure, I like to experiment, but it's really a physical element.' He brought up a good point. That kind of playing, you've got to be young, in a way. It demands a certain youthful vigor.