The long-awaited first full biography of legendary jazz saxophonist and composer Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins has long been considered an enigma. Known as the
“Saxophone Colossus,” he is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest
jazz improvisers of all time, winning Grammys, the Austrian Cross of
Honor, Sweden’s Polar Music Prize and a National Medal of Arts. A bridge
from bebop to the avant-garde, he is a lasting link to the golden age
of jazz, pictured in the iconic “Great Day in Harlem” portrait. His
seven-decade career has been well documented, but the backstage life of
the man once called “the only jazz recluse” has gone largely
untold—until now.
Based on more than 200 interviews with
Rollins himself, family members, friends, and collaborators, as well as
Rollins’ extensive personal archive, Saxophone Colossus is the
comprehensive portrait of this legendary saxophonist and composer, civil
rights activist and environmentalist. A child of the Harlem
Renaissance, Rollins’ precocious talent landed him on the bandstand and
in the recording studio with Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Charlie
Parker, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, or playing opposite Billie
Holiday. An icon in his own right, he recorded Tenor Madness, featuring
John Coltrane; Way Out West; Freedom Suite, the first civil
rights-themed album of the hard bop era; A Night at the Village
Vanguard; and the 1956 classic Saxophone Colossus.
Yet his
meteoric rise to fame was not without its challenges. He served two
sentences on Rikers Island and won his battle with heroin addiction. In
1959, Rollins took a two-year sabbatical from recording and performing,
practicing up to 16 hours a day on the Williamsburg Bridge. In 1968, he
left again to study at an ashram in India. He returned to performing
from 1971 until his retirement in 2012.
The story of Sonny
Rollins—innovative, unpredictable, larger than life—is the story of jazz
itself, and Sonny’s own narrative is as timeless and timely as the art
form he represents. Part jazz oral history told in the musicians’ own
words, part chronicle of one man’s quest for social justice and
spiritual enlightenment, this is the definitive biography of one of the
most enduring and influential artists in jazz and American history.
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