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
'St. Thomas' is actually an island melody, sort of a traditional island melody, so all I did was sort of make my arrangement on it.
The whole creation of jazz is sort of leading toward the ultimate. I'm not trying to be self-aggrandizing here, but I think that the jazz soloist is the pinnacle of what jazz is about.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Many jazz artists go to L.A. seeking a more comfortable life and then they really stop playing.
I feel that L.A. has not always been my strongest base for support. That can be for various reasons.
We were right on the margins of society. Who really cared about jazz?
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.
It was a distinct honor because of the people inducted. Some were such giants of the music. I didn't really feel worthy to be included with Fats Waller.
A lot of guys died very early. Very few guys, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, very few of those guys reached my age of 67, which I am at the present.
So the people over there have a very advanced appreciation of music and they recognize the power and the beauty and the wonderfulness of jazz.
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.