Sonny Rollins Caricature

Sonny Rollins Caricature, illustrated here in 2010, age 80.

Walter Theodore Rollins is an American jazz tenor saxophonist who is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. In a seven-decade career, he has recorded over sixty albums as a leader. A number of his compositions, including “St. Thomas”, “Oleo”, “Doxy”, “Pent-Up House”, and “Airegin”, have become jazz standards. Rollins has been called “the greatest living improviser” and the “Saxophone Colossus”.

At age 16, Rollins started as a pianist, changed to alto saxophone, and finally switched to tenor in 1946. During his high school years, he played in a band with other future jazz legends Jackie McLean, Kenny Drew, and Art Taylor.

Between 1951 and 1953, he recorded with Miles Davis, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk. A breakthrough arrived in 1954 when he recorded his famous compositions “Oleo”, “Airegin”, and “Doxy” with a quintet led by Davis that also featured pianist Horace Silver.
In 1955 he joined the Clifford Brown–Max Roach quintet; studio albums documenting his time in the band are Clifford Brown and Max Roach at Basin Street and Sonny Rollins Plus 4.

He named his 1962 “comeback” album “The Bridge” at the start of a contract with RCA Victor. Produced by George Avakian, the disc was recorded with a quartet featuring guitarist Jim Hall, Ben Riley on drums, and bassist Bob Cranshaw. This became one of Rollins’s best-selling records; in 2015 it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

Rollins won a 2001 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album for This Is What I Do (2000).

Rollins was presented with a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in 2004.

On September 18, 2007, he performed at Carnegie Hall in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of his first performance there.

Rollins has not performed in public since 2012, due to recurring respiratory issues.