Featured In
ALBUMI Want to Be Happy (Live in Laren, Holland, March 7, 1959) - SingleSonny Rollins
Albums by Sonny Rollins
ALBUMRollins in Holland: The 1967 Studio & Live Recordings (feat. Han Bennink & Ruud Jacobs)Sonny Rollins
ALBUMThelonious Monk & Sonny Rollins (Remastered)Thelonious Monk & Sonny Rollins
ALBUMThis Is What I DoSonny Rollins
ALBUMGlobal WarmingSonny Rollins
ALBUMSonny Rollins + 3Sonny Rollins
ALBUMOld FlamesSonny Rollins
ALBUMHere's to the PeopleSonny Rollins
ALBUMFalling In Love with JazzSonny Rollins
ALBUMDancing In the DarkSonny Rollins
ALBUMThe Essential Sonny Rollins On RiversideSonny Rollins
Artist Playlists
Sonny Rollins Essentials
From hard bop to jazz fusion, “Newk” has stayed funky for 70 years.
Sonny Rollins: The Session Musicians
Working bop wonders with Miles and playing next to Abbey Lincoln.
Sonny Rollins: Deep Cuts
Modernist playing, barreling live takes, and subtle covers.
Artist Biography
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
Genre
Jazz