Latest Release
- 5 APR 2024
- 1 Song
- Saxophone Colossus (Reissue) · 1956
- Saxophone Colossus · 1956
- Saxophone Colossus · 1956
- The Quartets (feat. Jim Hall) · 1986
- Saxophone Colossus · 1956
- The Definitive Sonny Rollins On Prestige, Riverside, and Contemporary · 1956
- Round Midnight · 1957
- Saxophone Colossus · 1956
- Way Out West (Deluxe Edition) · 1957
- Ken Burns Jazz: The Definitive Dizzy Gillespie · 1957
Essential Albums
Artist Playlists
- Hard bop to jazz fusion—“Newk” has stayed funky for 70 years.
- Working bop wonders with Miles and playing next to Abbey Lincoln.
- Modernist playing, barrelling live takes and subtle covers.
Live Albums
Appears On
- The Modern Jazz Quartet
- A Modern Jazz Quartet
- Miles Davis
- Thelonious Monk
About Sonny Rollins
For generations, Sonny Rollins has not only set the standard on tenor saxophone—he's elevated jazz as a whole, embodying what many regard as the essence of a great improviser. Schooled on the job by Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, the NYC-born Rollins landed a key gig with the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet in 1955. But even in the midst of huge success, he strove to play better—to be truer to his creative intentions. Possessed of a monastic self-discipline, Rollins took sabbaticals for practice and introspection, most famously from 1959 to 1961, when he could be seen woodshedding on the Williamsburg Bridge in New York. He strove for a more joyously melodic approach and a big sound while showing daunting facility with the harmonic demands of bebop and post-bebop. He reconciles influences from calypso to free jazz to pop, and he can transform the simplest showtune into a thing of enduring beauty. And a half-century of yoga practice also opened doors in his work to a more authentic expression of the self: witness his endurance on the solo intro to “Autumn Nocturne”, from 1978's Don’t Stop the Carnival, for an almost meditative experience.
- HOMETOWN
- New York, NY, United States
- BORN
- 7 September 1930
- GENRE
- Jazz