Cal Performances Presents About the Artist
Th ursday, April , , pm Sonny Rollins Rollins moved to Chicago for a few years to Zellerbach Hall remove himself from the surrounding elements of negativity around the jazz scene. He reemerged at Th eodore Walter Rollins was born on September , the end of as a member of the Cliff ord Brown- , in New York City. He grew up in Harlem, not Max Roach Quintet with an even more authori- Sonny Rollins far from the Savoy Ballroom, the Apollo Th eatre, tative presence. His trademarks became a caustic, and the doorstep of his idol, Coleman Hawkins. often humorous style of melodic invention, a com- After early discovery of Fats Waller and Louis mand of everything from the most arcane ballads Armstrong, he started out on alto saxophone, in- to calypsos, and an overriding logic in his play- spired by Louis Jordan. At , he switched to tenor, ing that found him hailed for models of thematic trying to emulate Hawkins. He also fell under the improvisation. spell of the musical revolution that surrounded It was during this time that Rollins acquired him, bebop. a nickname, “Newk.” As Miles Davis explains in Rollins began to follow Charlie Parker and his autobiography: “Sonny had just got back from soon came under the wing of Th elonious Monk, playing a gig out in Chicago. He knew Bird, and who became his musical mentor and guru. Living Bird really liked Sonny, or ‘Newk’ as we called in Sugar Hill, his neighborhood musical peers him, because he looked like the Brooklyn Dodgers’ included Jackie McLean, Kenny Drew and Art pitcher Don Newcombe. One day, me and Sonny Taylor, but it was young Sonny who was fi rst out were in a cab…when the white cabdriver turned of the pack, working and recording with Babs around and looked at Sonny and said, “Damn, Gonzales, J. J. Johnson, Bud Powell and Miles you’re Don Newcombe!’’ Man, the guy was totally Davis before he turned . excited. I was amazed, because I hadn’t thought “Of course, these people are there to be called about it before. We just put that cabdriver on on because I think I represent them in a way,” something terrible. Sonny started talking about Rollins said recently of his peers and mentors. what kind of pitches he was going to throw Stan “Th ey’re not here now so I feel like I’m sort of rep- Musial, the great hitter for the St. Louis Cardinals, resenting all of them, all of the guys. Remember, that evening.” I’m one of the last guys left, as I’m constantly being In , Sonny began recording the fi rst of told, so I feel a holy obligation sometimes to evoke a series of landmark recordings issued under his these people.” own name: “Valse Hot” introduced the prac- In the early s, he established a reputa- tice, now common, of playing bop in / meter; tion fi rst among musicians, then the public, as “St. Th omas” initiated his explorations of calypso the most brash and creative young tenor on the patterns; and “Blue ” was hailed by Gunther scene, through his work with Miles, Monk and the Schuller as demonstrating a new manner of “the- Modern Jazz Quartet. matic improvisation,” in which the soloist develops Miles Davis was an early Sonny Rollins fan, motifs extracted from his theme. Way Out West and in his autobiography wrote that he “began to (), Rollins’s fi rst album using a trio of saxo- Sonny Rollins tenor saxophone hang out with Sonny Rollins and his Sugar Hill phone, double-bass and drums, off ered a solution Harlem crowd…anyway, Sonny had a big repu- to his longstanding diffi culties with incompatible Clifton Anderson trombone tation among a lot of the younger musicians in pianists and exemplifi ed his witty ability to im- Bobby Broom guitar Harlem. People loved Sonny Rollins up in Harlem provise on hackneyed material (“Wagon Wheels,” and everywhere else. He was a legend, almost a god “I’m an Old Cowhand”). It Could Happen to You Bob Cranshaw bass to a lot of the younger musicians. Some thought he (also ) was the fi rst in a long series of unac- Kimati Dinizulu percussion was playing the saxophone on the level of Bird. I companied solo recordings, and Th e Freedom Suite know one thing—he was close. He was an aggres- () foreshadowed the political stances taken in Jerome Jennings drums sive, innovative player who always had fresh musi- jazz in the s. During the years to , cal ideas. I loved him back then as a player and he Rollins was widely regarded as the most talented could also write his ass off .” and innovative tenor saxophonist in jazz. Cal Performances’ – season is sponsored by Wells Fargo Bank.
22 CAL PERFORMANCES CAL PERFORMANCES 23 About the Artist
Rollins’ fi rst examples of the unaccompanied manager, Rollins returned to performing and re- solo playing that would become a specialty also ap- cording, signing with Milestone and releasing Next peared in this period; yet the perpetually dissatis- Album. (Working at fi rst with Orrin Keepnews, fi ed saxophonist questioned the acclaim his music Sonny was by the early s producing his own was attracting, and from to late he with- Milestone sessions with Lucille.) His lengthy as- drew from public performance. sociation with the Berkeley-based label produced Rollins remembers that he took his leave of ab- two dozen albums in various settings—from his sence from the scene because “I was getting very fa- working groups to all-star ensembles (Tommy mous at the time, and I felt I needed to brush up on Flanagan, Jack DeJohnette, Stanley Clarke, Tony various aspects of my craft. I felt I was getting too Williams); from a solo recital to tour recordings much, too soon, so I said, wait a minute, I’m going with the Milestone Jazzstars (Ron Carter, McCoy to do it my way. I wasn’t going to let people push Tyner); in the studio and on the concert stage me out there, so I could fall down. I wanted to get (Montreux, San Francisco, New York, Boston). myself together, on my own. I used to practice on Rollins was also the subject of a documentary the bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge, because I was by Robert Mugge entitled Saxophone Colossus; part living on the Lower East Side at the time.” of its soundtrack is available as G-Man. When he returned to action in early , He won his fi rst performance Grammy Award his fi rst recording was appropriately titled Th e for Th is Is What I Do (), and his second for Bridge. By the mid-s, his live sets became ’s Without a Song (Th e / Concert), in the grand, marathon stream-of-consciousness solos Best Jazz Instrumental Solo category (for “Why in which he would call forth melodies from his Was I Born?”). In addition, Rollins received a encyclopedic knowledge of popular songs, includ- Lifetime Achievement Award from the National ing startling segues—sometimes barely visiting Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in . one theme before surging into dazzling variations In June , Rollins was inducted into the upon the next. Rollins was brilliant, yet restless. Academy of Achievement at the International Th e period between and saw him re- Achievement Summit in Los Angeles, where he turning to action and striking productive relation- gave a solo performance. Th e event was hosted by ships with Jim Hall, Don Cherry, Paul Bley and George Lucas and Steven Spielberg and attended his idol, Hawkins, yet he grew dissatisfi ed with the by world leaders and distinguished fi gures in the music business once again and started yet another arts and sciences. sabbatical in . “I was getting into eastern re- “I am convinced that all art has the desire to ligions,” he remembers. “I’ve always been my own leave the ordinary,” Rollins said in a recent inter- man. I’ve always done, tried to do, what I wanted view for the Catalan magazine Jaç, “and to say it to do for myself. So these are things I wanted to do. one way, at a spiritual level, a state of the exaltation I wanted to go on the bridge. I wanted to get into at existence. All art has this in common. But jazz, religion. But also, the jazz music business is always the world of improvisation, is perhaps the highest, bad. It’s never good. So that led me to stop play- because we do not have the opportunity to make ing in public for a while, again. During the sec- changes. It’s as if we were painting before the pub- ond sabbatical, I worked in Japan a little bit, and lic, and the following morning we cannot go back went to India after that and spent a lot of time in a and correct that blue color or change that red. We monastery. I resurfaced in the early ’s, and made have to have the blues and reds very well placed my fi rst record in ’. I took some time off to get before going out to play. So for me, jazz is probably myself together, and I think it’s a good thing for the most demanding art.” anybody to do.” And Sonny Rollins—seeker and grand mas- In , with the encouragement and support ter—remains the most exacting, exhilarating and of his wife Lucille, who had become his business inspiring practitioner of jazz.
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