Jazz Articles about Sonny Rollins

Sonny Rollins: Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert

by Paul Olson
September 7, 2005

No living tenor player has added more to the jazz vocabulary than Sonny Rollins, and anyone compiling even a conservative list of essential Rollins recordings is going to have great trouble keeping it down in single digits. But as a concert performer, Rollins can be among the most frustrating of artists. Part of that is due to his stubbornly personal notion of what constitutes a good song (this obstreperousness is an inseparable part of his greatness), and part of it ...

Sonny Rollins: Worktime & The Sound of Sonny

by Javier AQ Ortiz
August 12, 2005

The following recordings represent stations in the mid-50s...-as vital a period in Sonny Rollins' career as any as much of his reputation was built upon this period. The earliest of the two finds Rollins wondering whether he could perform after kicking his heroin habit, signalling his return to the jazz scene after rehab; the latter has the saxophonist fully pursuing his musical beliefs, with his previous fears already allayed.

Sonny Rollins Worktime Fantasy ...

Sonny Rollins: A Night At The Village Vanguard

by C. Michael Bailey
August 10, 2005

Sonny Rollins A Night At The Village Vanguard Blue Note 99795 1957/1999 (Rudy Van Gelder Edition)

Located on 7th Avenue just below West 11th Street in New York City's Greenwich Village, the Village Vanguard has been the seat of live jazz since the 1940s. Ninety-one live recordings have been made at the Vanguard between 1957 and 2001, chronicling the whole of the history of jazz. What was the first live recording made ...

Sonny Rollins: Jazz Cleric

by Riel Lazarus
August 20, 2004

Sonny Rollins is his own man, plain and simple. His heart thumps to a singular beat - a tempo we all tune into occasionally with reverence and wonder. For nearly 60 years now, the tenor saxophonist has brandished a long and heavy horn - contributing to several movements in jazz; setting new standards for improvisation; relentlessly moving, evolving, eluding typecasts; never indulging in pressures to conform, streamline or sanitize his music; and always adhering to his own philosophies of life ...

Sonny Rollins: The Cutting Edge

by Kyle Simpler
June 3, 2004

Sonny Rollins, The Cutting Edge by Richard Palmer Continuum Books

Besides being one of the most influential tenor saxophone players in jazz history, Sonny Rollins also happens to be one of its most enigmatic figures as well. Given his introspective nature and penchant for withdrawal, Rollins easily comes across as somewhat of an existentialist. Now British jazz writer Richard Palmer presents a worthwhile look at the musical life of this legendary artist with Sonny ...

Open Sky: Sonny Rollins and His World of Improvisation

by Craig Jolley
March 8, 2004

Open Sky Eric Nisenson St. Martin's Press ISBN: 0312253303

Because of the time required and because of his reservations about the music establishment Sonny Rollins has been reluctant to discuss his career publicly. Lately he seems to be easing up due to the influence of his wife/business manager Lucille Rollins. Rollins, who plans to write an autobiography, allowed Eric Nisenson to interview him for Open Sky. The book is flavored with excerpts ...

The Modern Jazz Quartet: The Music Inn

by Elliott Simon
November 5, 2003

...in our desire for beauty in all things we are open, and one in our search for that little city of gold where the flute-player never wearies, and the spring never fades, and the oracle is not silent, that little city which is the house of art, and where, with all the Music of the Spheres, and the laughter of the gods, Art waits for her worshippers-Oscar Wilde In 1950, while Senator McCarthy spearheaded his anti-artistic witch hunts, ...