![Sonny Rollins](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w185/eha67gl1CAVfQeRmvAigg9aOmvG.jpg)
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.
Known For | Acting |
---|---|
Most Rating | 4.883 |
Birthday | 1930-09-07 |
Place of Birth | New York City, New York, USA |
Also Known As |
![The Jazz Baroness](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/lliBFpWqSlsWuX4ri2ajdkUWDkr.jpg)
2009
![The Jazz Baroness](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/lliBFpWqSlsWuX4ri2ajdkUWDkr.jpg)
The Jazz Baroness
0/0
The true story of a British heiress's love for jazz genius Thelonious Monk.
Watch Now
The Jazz Baroness
![Sonny Rollins '74: Rescued!](https://movieunlimited.net/assets/no-poster.png)
2010
![Sonny Rollins '74: Rescued!](https://movieunlimited.net/assets/no-poster.png)
Sonny Rollins '74: Rescued!
0/0
Featuring a specially-shot introduction with Jamie Cullum, Arena presents a lost treasure - Sonny Rollins performing at Ronnie Scott's in 1974. After...
Watch Now
Sonny Rollins '74: Rescued!
![Sonny Rollins: Beyond the Notes](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/8FwNjjEFlKtR7NeyJAoAeLkp0zP.jpg)
2012
![Sonny Rollins: Beyond the Notes](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/8FwNjjEFlKtR7NeyJAoAeLkp0zP.jpg)
Sonny Rollins: Beyond the Notes
0/0
Sonny Rollins: Beyond the Notes uses his 80th birthday concert to look into the man and his music.
Watch Now
Sonny Rollins: Beyond the Notes
![Who is Sonny Rollins?](https://movieunlimited.net/assets/no-poster.png)
1968
![Who is Sonny Rollins?](https://movieunlimited.net/assets/no-poster.png)
Who is Sonny Rollins?
0/0
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 Ha...
Watch Now
Who is Sonny Rollins?
![Saxophone Colossus](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/c7g5akdg009vWYtUgqqP0Sfb2jW.jpg)
1998
![Saxophone Colossus](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/c7g5akdg009vWYtUgqqP0Sfb2jW.jpg)
Saxophone Colossus
8/2
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...
Watch Now
Saxophone Colossus
![Chasing Trane](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/pb09v5koCU7GrxCJNfRnliPRIKD.jpg)
2017
![Chasing Trane](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/pb09v5koCU7GrxCJNfRnliPRIKD.jpg)
Chasing Trane
7.3/56
An account of the life of the brilliant jazz musician John Coltrane (1926-67), a gifted saxophonist, an extraordinarily talented thinker whose origina...
Watch Now
Chasing Trane
![Brownie Speaks](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/zV9ajpGoa3hqgFOQdAUZuxiiFM1.jpg)
2014
![Brownie Speaks](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/zV9ajpGoa3hqgFOQdAUZuxiiFM1.jpg)
Brownie Speaks
10/1
A native of Wilmington, Delaware, jazz trumpeter Clifford Brown made an outstanding and influential contribution to music. In an era when many musicia...
Watch Now
Brownie Speaks
![It Must Schwing: The Blue Note Story](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/x1MTHlITydRifdDHdn8yaiGCXrn.jpg)
2018
![It Must Schwing: The Blue Note Story](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/x1MTHlITydRifdDHdn8yaiGCXrn.jpg)
It Must Schwing: The Blue Note Story
8.2/10
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 Germany...
Watch Now
It Must Schwing: The Blue Note Story
![Jazz Icons: Sonny Rollins Live in '65 & '68](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/eiG2FdahxloVeo0yT6gVazcLRqu.jpg)
2008
![Jazz Icons: Sonny Rollins Live in '65 & '68](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/eiG2FdahxloVeo0yT6gVazcLRqu.jpg)
Jazz Icons: Sonny Rollins Live in '65 & '68
0/0
Jazz Icons: Sonny Rollins features two intimate concerts filmed in the '60s for Danish television at the pinnacle of one of his most creative periods....
Watch Now
Jazz Icons: Sonny Rollins Live in '65 & '68
![A Great Day in Harlem](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/606IorDjRMQZYaEdPBvjM8uI6qm.jpg)
1994
![A Great Day in Harlem](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/606IorDjRMQZYaEdPBvjM8uI6qm.jpg)
A Great Day in Harlem
6.222/9
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 ab...
Watch Now
A Great Day in Harlem
![Hargrove](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/vn4WRukOZGhtt41bMCgPKP3F9pO.jpg)
2022
![Hargrove](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/vn4WRukOZGhtt41bMCgPKP3F9pO.jpg)
Hargrove
0/0
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 follow...
Watch Now
Hargrove
![Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/uu1YA2LyTRR7SZ5DmbftUcPHvEV.jpg)
2023
![Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/uu1YA2LyTRR7SZ5DmbftUcPHvEV.jpg)
Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes
0/0
The Drum Waltzes explores the life and music of legendary drummer, activist Max Roach, his creative peaks, personal struggles and re-inventions from t...
Watch Now
Max Roach: The Drum Also Waltzes
![John Coltrane Four Tenors](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/mF6OTdnFqi2tn1Qtyep1W7lkf6z.jpg)
2002
![John Coltrane Four Tenors](http://image.tmdb.org/t/p/w154/mF6OTdnFqi2tn1Qtyep1W7lkf6z.jpg)
John Coltrane Four Tenors
6.5/1
Four giants of the tenor saxophone -- including the legendary John Coltrane -- are featured in this collection of rare performances recorded in the '6...
Watch Now