Sonny Rollins

Sonny Rollins

Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins (born September 7, 1930) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist who is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. In a seven-decade career, he has recorded over sixty albums as a leader. A number of his compositions, including "St. Thomas", "Oleo", "Doxy", "Pent-Up House", and "Airegin", have become jazz standards. Rollins has been called "the greatest living improviser" and the "Saxophone Colossus". Rollins was born in New York City to parents from the United States Virgin Islands. The youngest of three siblings, he grew up in central Harlem and on Sugar Hill, receiving his first alto saxophone at the age of seven or eight. He attended Edward W. Stitt Junior High School and graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School in East Harlem. Rollins started as a pianist, changed to alto saxophone, and finally switched to tenor in 1946. During his high school years, he played in a band with other future jazz legends Jackie McLean, Kenny Drew, and Art Taylor. After graduating from high school in 1948, Rollins began performing professionally; he made his first recordings in early 1949 as a sideman with the bebop singer Babs Gonzales (trombonist J. J. Johnson was the arranger of the group). Within the next few months, he began to make a name for himself, recording with Johnson and appearing under the leadership of pianist Bud Powell, alongside trumpeter Fats Navarro and drummer Roy Haynes, on a seminal "hard bop" session. In early 1950, Rollins was arrested for armed robbery and spent ten months in Rikers Island jail before being released on parole; in 1952, he was re-arrested for violating the terms of his parole by using heroin. Between 1951 and 1953, he recorded with Miles Davis, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Charlie Parker, and Thelonious Monk. A breakthrough arrived in 1954 when he recorded his famous compositions "Oleo", "Airegin", and "Doxy" with a quintet led by Davis that also featured pianist Horace Silver, these recordings appearing on the album Bags' Groove. In 1955, Rollins entered the Federal Medical Center, Lexington, at the time the only assistance in the U.S. for drug addicts. While there, he volunteered for then-experimental methadone therapy and was able to break his heroin habit, after which he lived for a time in Chicago, briefly rooming with the trumpeter Booker Little. Rollins initially feared sobriety would impair his musicianship, but then went on to greater success. Rollins briefly joined the Miles Davis Quintet in the summer of 1955. Later that year, he joined the Clifford Brown–Max Roach quintet; studio albums documenting his time in the band are Clifford Brown and Max Roach at Basin Street and Sonny Rollins Plus 4. After the deaths of Brown and the band's pianist, Richie Powell, in a June 1956 automobile accident, Rollins continued playing with Roach and began releasing albums under his own name on Prestige Records, Blue Note, Riverside, and the Los Angeles label Contemporary. ... Source: Article "Sonny Rollins" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

  • Title: Sonny Rollins
  • Popularity: 0.601
  • Known For: Acting
  • Birthday: 1930-09-07
  • Place of Birth: New York City, New York, USA
  • Homepage:
  • Also Known As:
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Sonny Rollins Movies

  • 2023
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    Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes

    Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes

    1 2023 HD

    The Drum Waltzes explores the life and music of legendary drummer, activist Max Roach, his creative peaks, personal struggles and re-inventions from...

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  • 2009
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    The Jazz Baroness

    The Jazz Baroness

    1 2009 HD

    The true story of a British heiress's love for jazz genius Thelonious Monk.

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  • 2010
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    Sonny Rollins '74: Rescued!

    Sonny Rollins '74: Rescued!

    1 2010 HD

    Featuring a specially-shot introduction with Jamie Cullum, Arena presents a lost treasure - Sonny Rollins performing at Ronnie Scott's in 1974. After...

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  • 2002
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    John Coltrane Four Tenors

    John Coltrane Four Tenors

    6.5 2002 HD

    Four giants of the tenor saxophone -- including the legendary John Coltrane -- are featured in this collection of rare performances recorded in the...

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  • 2012
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    Sonny Rollins: Beyond the Notes

    Sonny Rollins: Beyond the Notes

    1 2012 HD

    Sonny Rollins: Beyond the Notes uses his 80th birthday concert to look into the man and his music.

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  • 2022
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    Hargrove

    Hargrove

    7 2022 HD

    Jazz trumpet legend Roy Hargrove, deemed by his peers as a musical prophet, up close and personal like you have never seen him before. The film...

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  • 1968
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    Who Is Sonny Rollins?

    Who Is Sonny Rollins?

    6 1968 HD

    Portrait of the jazz great during his self-enforced exile from his audience as protest against the war in Vietnam. Filmed playing with students in...

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  • 1970
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    Sonny Rollins Sextet 1993 Jazz Madrid

    Sonny Rollins Sextet 1993 Jazz Madrid

    1 1970 HD

    Sonny Rollins live from Madrid on October 26, 1993.

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  • 1998
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    Saxophone Colossus

    Saxophone Colossus

    8 1998 HD

    Tenor saxophone master Sonny Rollins has long been hailed as one of the most important artists in jazz history, and still, today, he is viewed as the...

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  • 2017
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    Chasing Trane

    Chasing Trane

    7.3 2017 HD

    An account of the life of the brilliant jazz musician John Coltrane (1926-67), a gifted saxophonist, an extraordinarily talented thinker whose...

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  • 2014
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    Brownie Speaks

    Brownie Speaks

    10 2014 HD

    A native of Wilmington, Delaware, jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown made an outstanding and influential contribution to music. In an era when many...

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  • 2018
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    It Must Schwing: The Blue Note Story

    It Must Schwing: The Blue Note Story

    8.2 2018 HD

    A documentary about the legendary jazz label Blue Note Records and its German founders Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff. As jews they had to flee...

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  • 2008
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    Jazz Icons: Sonny Rollins Live in '65 & '68

    Jazz Icons: Sonny Rollins Live in '65 & '68

    1 2008 HD

    Jazz Icons: Sonny Rollins features two intimate concerts filmed in the '60s for Danish television at the pinnacle of one of his most creative...

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  • 1994
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    A Great Day in Harlem

    A Great Day in Harlem

    6.2 1994 HD

    Art Kane, now deceased, coordinated a group photograph of all the top jazz musicians in NYC in the year 1958, for a piece in Esquire magazine. Just...

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  • 2012
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    Sonny Rollins: Beyond the Notes

    Sonny Rollins: Beyond the Notes

    1 2012 HD

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  • 1966
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    Alfie

    Alfie

    6.4 1966 HD

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  • 1998
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    Saxophone Colossus

    Saxophone Colossus

    8 1998 HD

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  • 1972
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    Le Grand Échiquier

    Le Grand Échiquier

    8 1972 HD

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  • 1989
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    The Simpsons

    The Simpsons

    8.016 1989 HD

    Set in Springfield, the average American town, the show focuses on the antics and everyday adventures of the Simpson family; Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa...

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