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Rollins, Sonny (1930- )

American composer and jazz saxophonist, one of the most formidable soloists in the history of jazz.

Born Theodore Walter Rollins in New York, Sonny’s father was a clarinettist, his brother played violin, and his sister was a pianist. In the early 1950s Rollins recorded with Bud Powell, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk, and wrote a number of jazz standards (including “Oleo”, “Doxy”, and “Airegin”). In the mid-1950s he joined Max Roach and Clifford Brown’s quintet, recording what is widely regarded as his best album, Saxophone Colossus, in 1956. This introduced another standard, the calypso “St Thomas”. Way Out West (1957) featured the Bing Crosby number “I’m an Old Cowhand”. In the late 1950s he temporarily retired, owing partly to ill health and partly to a felt need to improve his playing. He recorded with a piano-less quartet, producing The Bridge and What’s New? (both 1962), as well as his best-selling record, the soundtrack for the 1966 film Alfie. Rollins retired again in the late 1960s, and studied Eastern philosophy. He guested on the Rolling Stones album Tattoo You (1981) and composed a Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra (first performed in Japan, 1986). In 1972 Rollins received a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Rollins’s earliest influences were Coleman Hawkins and Dexter Gordon, but Charlie Parker was most significant in the formation of Rollins’s mature style. Using melody rather than chord patterns as the basis for his extended solos, Rollins moves between unrelated tunes and tempos. His style marked the transition from late 1940s bebop to the “free jazz” of the late 1960s.