Saxophone Colossus: An Interview with Sonny Rollins

Abstract

Saxophone ColossusAn Interview with Sonny Rollins John A. McCluskey Jr. (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Sonny Rollins playing at Voll-Damm Barcelona Jazz Festival in Palau de la Musica Catalana on November 20, 2012 in Barcelona, Spain. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock. [End Page 14] Sonny Rollins was one of the most relentless and fearless improvisers, tireless performers, and imaginative composers of his generation. Though no longer performing, he was the leader of his own jazz groups for some sixty years. He commands the deep respect of his peers and sidemen as well as the enduring admiration of audiences around the world. His awards have been many, among them ten honorary degrees from American colleges and universities, a Guggenheim Fellowship for composition (1972), a Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement (2004), and a National Medal of Arts (2010) conferred by President Barack Obama. Journey to his music to dance ("St. Thomas," "Valse Hot," "Brownskin Girl"), to applaud ("Autumn Nocturne," any version of "Without a Song"), to smile "Alfie's Theme," "I'm an Old Cowhand"), to brood ("Why was I Born?"). It's all there, as the music has always been there to pull you through challenging times. Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins was born September 7, 1930 in New York City. He makes his home in Woodstock, New York. The phone interview that follows took place in early November, 2018. Drawing upon the film "Sonny Rollins: Beyond the Notes," my initial question was to Mr. Rollins' formal experience as a teacher and mentor. An early technical glitch in the sound quality was addressed, then resolved. JMc: Okay, I'm back now and again want to say thank you for letting me have a little bit of your time this afternoon, and I'm going back to the question of teaching and mentoring. Specifically: have you been in that situation before where you're actually working with young people, teaching them, mentoring them, encouraging them? SR: Well I never taught, per se … as it goes. But I've had some—I did another film about some young students playing. But I'm not very good at teaching. I had a student one time—a guy that was studying with me. He wasn't a youngster, he was a little older. But I realized I got more involved in the teaching than he was in the learning. And it was very disconcerting to me, because I was really trying to get myself together to show him something … but it was disconcerting. So I realized that was not my forté. So I'm not involved in really teaching. If some listener over the years learned something from the myriad records I have made, then that's the way I have taught. But I've never really had too much engagement with students. [End Page 15] JMc: Okay, along that line, I saw something about the Oberlin College fellowships that you established. I think they were called The Sonny Fellows program.1 What went into that? How did that idea evolve? SR: Well, the way it evolved was that I wanted to leave my archives to a school. And there were many schools here that I had gotten degrees from: Julliard; I had gotten a degree from New England Conservatory, and from the Berklee School of Music. So before I did anything, somebody brought up to me that Oberlin might be a good place because Oberlin had such a long history, a long social history in the United States. JMc: Oh, yes. SR: As you know, going back to the Underground Railroad. John Brown. Everything that had to do with it. It was the first school to have a black matriculate, and the first school to have a woman matriculate. It happened at Oberlin. It's a great school. There is no school that has better credentials. So there's some great music people like Will Marion Cook who was a teacher of Duke Ellington. And so, Oberlin, I realized: that was where I wanted to … not place my archives, but establish a teaching … something that people might be able to learn from. I would have a place to have myself associated...