Remembering the remarkable life of jazz legend Sonny Rollins

Transcript

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Geoff Bennett: Finally tonight, remembering one of jazz music’s all-time greats.

Sonny Rollins died yesterday after more than five decades pushing the boundaries of the genre. One of the best jazz musicians of his time, Rollins won two Grammys and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in the early 2000s. He toured well into his 80s and died at his home in Woodstock, New York, after years of health issues.

Senior arts correspondent Jeffrey Brown has a look back at the life and impact of Sonny Rollins.

Jeffrey Brown: Sonny Rollins often said he was always a work in progress. And that work, as the world got to hear, was as prolific as it was varied.

He spent almost seven decades recording more than 60 studio and live albums, relentlessly experimenting and honing his craft. He received numerous awards in his lifetime, including a 2011 Kennedy Center Honors. And ahead of that, he talked to us about his life and work.

Sonny Rollins, Musician: So I was just immersed in it from the beginning really.

Jeffrey Brown: Rollins was born in Harlem in 1930 to a musical family. He received his first saxophone at 11 and was largely self-taught.

Sonny Rollins: When my mother let me the secondhand alto saxophone, I went into the bedroom and I just started playing. I mean, I don’t know what I was doing, but I was in a zone. I was already doing something.

Jeffrey Brown: In fact, Rollins was a sensation even as a teenager. He performed and recorded with leading players of the day. His first album as a band leader came in 1951 and many more followed.

Sonny Rollins: Playing with those great people like Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and all those giants, I wasn’t afraid, because I felt that I belonged there.

Jeffrey Brown: You felt you belonged with them?

Sonny Rollins: Yes. But I was still in awe of them. And it was — I mean, I didn’t feel I was equal to them. I’m not saying that. But I felt that — especially they accepted me. But I felt that I was where I was supposed to be at. So it was quite a wonderful experience in a way.

Jeffrey Brown: One of the things that people have long admired you for is the ability to — I always hear this phrase find fresh musical ideas.

Sonny Rollins: Wow.

Well, jazz, as you know, is an endless source of ideas, because you can use anything. You can play operatic arias. You can incorporate them into jazz. You can play gypsy music and incorporate it into jazz. You can European classical and you can incorporate it into jazz. You can use anything and jazz it up, as they used to say.

Jeffrey Brown: And where does the improvisation come in?

Sonny Rollins: Well, Jeffrey, improvisation is something which is highly misunderstood these days.

Improvisation — I think my friend Branford Marsalis, saxophonist, he explained it very good. Improvisation is really not so much remembering things. And this is what I do when I play. I forget things. When I go on the stage, I want my mind to be a blank, so that I can — things can come into me without my knowing where they came from.

Jeffrey Brown: So are you surprised by what comes out?

Sonny Rollins: Sometimes, I’m surprised by what comes out, yes.

Jeffrey Brown: At several key points in his career, Rollins simply stopped performing and recording. Most famously, he spent one of what he called his sabbaticals practicing on the Williamsburg Bridge in New York. He later released an album titled “The Bridge.”

Sonny Rollins: Jeffrey, I think the biggest thing that — in my life that I can be proud of, my epitaph is that I knew inside how I was doing, whether I was playing great or whether I wasn’t playing great. And I shut out the people that were telling me, oh, Sonny, don’t go away. You will lose your audience.

And so, I said, no, I want to practice. I want to get better. So, I feel that I have an obligation to jazz and also to myself to play as good as I can play. I haven’t reached that point yet.

Jeffrey Brown: When we spoke in 2011, Rollins had outlived many of his renowned contemporaries, including Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk, by decades.

You’re one of the last ones left from that great time, right?

Sonny Rollins: Well…

Jeffrey Brown: You must be aware of that. Does it weigh on you?

Sonny Rollins: Well, it does. All my friends are gone, Miles, Coltrane, Monk. I mean, in a sense, they’re gone, but not really.

I’m the last guy. But, in a way, I’m not, because, when I’m gone, the music — my music is going to be here. So we’re all still here. We’re all still here.

Jeffrey Brown: Sonny Rollins was 95 years old.

For the “PBS News Hour,” I’m Jeffrey Brown.