Sonny Rollins
Walter Theodore Rollins was born in Harlem, New York on September 7, 1930, of parents native to the Virgin Islands. His older brother Valdemar and sister Gloria were also musically inclined but only Sonny veered away from classical music after his uncle, a professional saxophonist, introduced him to jazz and blues.
He gravitated to the tenor saxophone in high school, inspired in particular by Coleman Hawkins. "I always had a strong rhythmic thing," Sonny says. "That was there from the start." By the time he was out of school, Rollins was already working with big-name musicians such as Bud Powell, Fats Navarro, and Roy Haynes. In 1951 he debuted as a leader on Prestige; his affiliation with that label also produced classics such as Saxophone Colossus, Worktime, and Tenor Madness (with John Coltrane).
In early 1956, until he went out on his own permanently as a leader in the summer of 1957, Rollins played in the Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet, one of the most definitive (and tragically short-lived) hard-bop ensembles of its day. Often with his own piano-less trio, Rollins then entered a tremendously fertile period during which he recorded major works such as A Night at the Village Vanguard, Way Out West, and Freedom Suite.
In 1959, Rollins took the first of his legendary sabbaticals from music. Living on Manhattan's Lower East Side, he was often spotted on the nearby Williamsburg Bridge at night, deep in a rigorous practice regimen. "I wanted to work on my horn, I wanted to study more harmony, I wanted to better myself," he told Stanley Crouch in The New Yorker, "and I wanted to get out of the environment of all that smoke and alcohol and drugs."
When Rollins returned to performing in 1961, he recorded The Bridge with Jim Hall and Bob Cranshaw, led a quartet with trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Billy Higgins, and recorded with his idol Coleman Hawkins. He also received a Grammy nomination for his score for the popular film Alfie. At decade's end he undertook one final hiatus, studying Zen Buddhism in Japan and yoga in India. While living in an ashram, he considered leaving music permanently in order to pursue spiritual studies, but a teacher persuaded him that music was his spiritual path, and an uplifting force for good.
In 1972, with the encouragement and support of his wife Lucille, who had become his business manager, Rollins returned to performing and recording, signing with Milestone and releasing Next Album. (Working at first with Orrin Keepnews, Sonny was by the early '80s producing his own Milestone sessions with Lucille.) His lengthy association with the Berkeley-based label produced two dozen albums in various settings - from his working groups to all-star ensembles (Tommy Flanagan, Jack DeJohnette, Stanley Clarke, Tony Williams); from a solo recital to tour recordings with the Milestone Jazzstars (Ron Carter, McCoy Tyner); in the studio and on the concert stage (Montreux, San Francisco, New York, Boston). Sonny was also the subject of a mid-'80s documentary by Robert Mugge entitled Saxophone Colossus; part of its soundtrack is available as G-Man.
He won his first performance Grammy for This Is What I Do (2000), and his second for 2004's Without a Song (The 9/11 Concert), in the Best Jazz Instrumental Solo category (for "Why Was I Born"). In addition, Sonny received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 2004. In June 2006 Rollins was inducted into the Academy of Achievement - and gave a solo performance - at the International Achievement Summit in Los Angeles. The event was hosted by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and attended by world leaders as well as distinguished figures in the arts and sciences.
"I am convinced that all art has the desire to leave the ordinary," Rollins said in a recent interview for the Catalan magazine Jaç, "and to say it one way, at a spiritual level, a state of the exaltation at existence. All art has this in common. But jazz, the world of improvisation, is perhaps the highest, because we do not have the opportunity to make changes. It's as if we were painting before the public, and the following morning we cannot go back and correct that blue color or change that red. We have to have the blues and reds very well placed before going out to play. So for me, jazz is probably the most demanding art. “
And Sonny Rollins - seeker and past master – remains one of jazz's most exacting, exhilarating, and inspiring practitioners.
ALBUM
Una raccolta completa degli album di Sonny Rollins, dalle prime produzioni ai successi più recenti.
Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, Sonny Rollins
Sonny Side Up
Verve Vault
Sonny Rollins
Volume 1
Blue Note ClassicSonny Rollins
Go West!: The Contemporary Records Albums
Box SetSonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins - On Impulse!
Sonny Rollins
Easy Living
Sonny Rollins
On Impulse!
Sonny Rollins
Alfie
MFiT / Original Music From The Score
Sonny Rollins
There Will Never Be Another You
Live At The Museum Of Modern Art, New York, 1965
Sonny Rollins
The Complete Night At The Village Vanguard
MFiTSonny Rollins
East Broadway Run Down
Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins And The Big Brass
Expanded Edition
Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins's Finest Hour
Reissue
Sonny Rollins
Milestone Profiles: Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt, Dizzy Gillespie
Sonny Side Up
Reissue
Sonny Rollins
Ken Burns Jazz: Definitive Sonny Rollins
ReissueSonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins On Impulse!
96kHz/24-bit
Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt, Dizzy Gillespie
Duets
Sonny Rollins, Barney Kessel, Hampton Hawes
Sonny Rollins And The Contemporary Leaders
Optimized for Digital
Sonny Rollins, Kenny Dorham, Thelonious Monk
Moving Out
Hi Res [192/24]
Sonny Rollins
Tour De Force
Optimized for DigitalSonny Rollins
The Sound Of Sonny
Hi Res [192/24]Sonny Rollins
Sonny Boy
Hi Res [192/24]Sonny Rollins, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Art Blakey
Sonny Rollins With The Modern Jazz Quartet
Hi Res [192/24]Sonny Rollins
The Complete Prestige Recordings
Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins
Dig
Optimized for Digital
Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Milt Jackson
Bags' Groove
Hi Res [192/24]Sonny Rollins
Newk's Time
Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Ernie Henry
Brilliant Corners
Keepnews Collection
Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins
Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins
Rudy Van Gelder Remaster / Optimized for Digital
Sonny Rollins, Tommy Flanagan, Doug Watkins
Saxophone Colossus
Rudy Van Gelder Remaster / Optimized for Digital
Sonny Rollins
The Complete Night At The "Village Vanguard"
192kHz/24bit
Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins, Vol. 2
Optimized For Digital![Bags' Groove [Rudy Van Gelder Remaster] - Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Milt Jackson](../../../dbcommon/file/cover/30976038736.jpg)
Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Milt Jackson
Bags' Groove [Rudy Van Gelder Remaster]
Optimized for Digital![Plus Four [Rudy Van Gelder Remaster] - Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown, Max Roach](../../../dbcommon/file/cover/30962400654.jpg)
Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown, Max Roach
Plus Four [Rudy Van Gelder Remaster]
Optimized for Digital
Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins
192kHz/24bit
Sonny Rollins
A Night At The Village Vanguard
Sonny Rollins
Rollin' With Rollins (Jazz Club)
Sonny Rollins
On Impulse! / There Will Never Be Another You
Sonny Rollins
The Definitive Sonny Rollins On Prestige, Riverside, And Contemporary
Sonny Rollins
The Mellow Sound Of Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins
Reel Life
Digital eBooklet VersionSonny Rollins
The Freelance Years
CD 5Sonny Rollins
No Problem
Sonny Rollins
Brass/Trio
Sonny Rollins
Old Flames
Sonny Rollins
Sunny Days, Starry Nights
Sonny Rollins
Here's To The People
Sonny Rollins
Milestone Profiles
Sonny Rollins, The Modern Jazz Quartet, Sonny Rollins Quartet
Sonny Rollins With The Modern Jazz Quartet
RemasteredSonny Rollins
Worktime
Sonny Rollins
Love At First Sight
Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins And The Contemporary Leaders
Sonny Rollins
Jazz Showcase
Sonny Rollins, Kenny Dorham, Max Roach
Rollins Plays For Byrd
Sonny Rollins
The Essential Sonny Rollins On Riverside
Sonny Rollins
The Impulse Story
Sonny Rollins
Way Out West
Sonny Rollins
Prestige Profiles: Sonny Rollins
With Collector's Edition Bonus Disc
Sonny Rollins
Prestige Profiles
Sonny Rollins
Saxophone Colossus
Remastered
Sonny Rollins
Plus Four
Sonny Rollins
The Very Best
Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins: Ken Burns's Jazz
Sonny Rollins
Essential
Sonny Rollins
Ballads
Sonny Rollins
Volume Two
Sonny Rollins
Jazz Profile: Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins
Priceless Jazz 6: Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins
The Best Of Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins
Volume One
SINGOLI
I singoli più rappresentativi di Sonny Rollins, tra successi storici e nuove uscite.
Sonny Rollins
You
Alternate TakeBIOGRAFIA
Walter Theodore Rollins was born in Harlem, New York on September 7, 1930, of parents native to the Virgin Islands. His older brother Valdemar and sister Gloria were also musically inclined but only Sonny veered away from classical music after his uncle, a professional saxophonist, introduced him to jazz and blues.
He gravitated to the tenor saxophone in high school, inspired in particular by Coleman Hawkins. "I always had a strong rhythmic thing," Sonny says. "That was there from the start." By the time he was out of school, Rollins was already working with big-name musicians such as Bud Powell, Fats Navarro, and Roy Haynes. In 1951 he debuted as a leader on Prestige; his affiliation with that label also produced classics such as Saxophone Colossus, Worktime, and Tenor Madness (with John Coltrane).
In early 1956, until he went out on his own permanently as a leader in the summer of 1957, Rollins played in the Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet, one of the most definitive (and tragically short-lived) hard-bop ensembles of its day. Often with his own piano-less trio, Rollins then entered a tremendously fertile period during which he recorded major works such as A Night at the Village Vanguard, Way Out West, and Freedom Suite.
In 1959, Rollins took the first of his legendary sabbaticals from music. Living on Manhattan's Lower East Side, he was often spotted on the nearby Williamsburg Bridge at night, deep in a rigorous practice regimen. "I wanted to work on my horn, I wanted to study more harmony, I wanted to better myself," he told Stanley Crouch in The New Yorker, "and I wanted to get out of the environment of all that smoke and alcohol and drugs."
When Rollins returned to performing in 1961, he recorded The Bridge with Jim Hall and Bob Cranshaw, led a quartet with trumpeter Don Cherry and drummer Billy Higgins, and recorded with his idol Coleman Hawkins. He also received a Grammy nomination for his score for the popular film Alfie. At decade's end he undertook one final hiatus, studying Zen Buddhism in Japan and yoga in India. While living in an ashram, he considered leaving music permanently in order to pursue spiritual studies, but a teacher persuaded him that music was his spiritual path, and an uplifting force for good.
In 1972, with the encouragement and support of his wife Lucille, who had become his business manager, Rollins returned to performing and recording, signing with Milestone and releasing Next Album. (Working at first with Orrin Keepnews, Sonny was by the early '80s producing his own Milestone sessions with Lucille.) His lengthy association with the Berkeley-based label produced two dozen albums in various settings - from his working groups to all-star ensembles (Tommy Flanagan, Jack DeJohnette, Stanley Clarke, Tony Williams); from a solo recital to tour recordings with the Milestone Jazzstars (Ron Carter, McCoy Tyner); in the studio and on the concert stage (Montreux, San Francisco, New York, Boston). Sonny was also the subject of a mid-'80s documentary by Robert Mugge entitled Saxophone Colossus; part of its soundtrack is available as G-Man.
He won his first performance Grammy for This Is What I Do (2000), and his second for 2004's Without a Song (The 9/11 Concert), in the Best Jazz Instrumental Solo category (for "Why Was I Born"). In addition, Sonny received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 2004. In June 2006 Rollins was inducted into the Academy of Achievement - and gave a solo performance - at the International Achievement Summit in Los Angeles. The event was hosted by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and attended by world leaders as well as distinguished figures in the arts and sciences.
"I am convinced that all art has the desire to leave the ordinary," Rollins said in a recent interview for the Catalan magazine Jaç, "and to say it one way, at a spiritual level, a state of the exaltation at existence. All art has this in common. But jazz, the world of improvisation, is perhaps the highest, because we do not have the opportunity to make changes. It's as if we were painting before the public, and the following morning we cannot go back and correct that blue color or change that red. We have to have the blues and reds very well placed before going out to play. So for me, jazz is probably the most demanding art. “
And Sonny Rollins - seeker and past master – remains one of jazz's most exacting, exhilarating, and inspiring practitioners.
