The American tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins died on May 25 in Woodstock, New York, at the age of 95. A central figure in jazz, who discovered his calling at the age of five, he leaves behind a monumental body of work and several albums that have become absolute benchmarks in the genre.
“From the age of five, I knew which musician I would become. I had known it for all eternity,” Sonny Rollins recalled in a 2012 interview with Le Monde. Born in Harlem in 1930, Sonny Rollins discovered jazz early on through records by Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker before making his professional debut in the late 1940s. After playing with Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and John Coltrane, he rose to prominence with Tenor Madness (1956) recorded with Coltrane, Saxophone Colossus (1957), which contains the famous St. Thomas, then Way Out West (1957) and A Night at the Village Vanguard (1958). His powerful playing, sense of rhythm, and love of improvisation quickly established him as one of the most distinctive voices in jazz.
Struggling with breathing problems, Sonny Rollins gave his last concert in 2012 and had not played the saxophone for several years. His final studio album, Sonny, Please, was released in 2006, before the release of several live archive recordings, including Road Shows, Vol. 4: Holding the Stage in 2016. Based in Woodstock, he spent the end of his life on yoga, meditation, and a spiritual reflection that he considered inseparable from his music.
