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 sevendecade career he has recorded over sixty albums as a leader A number of his compositions including St Thomas Oleo Doxy PentUp 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 rearrested 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 US for drug addicts While there he volunteered for thenexperimental 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 BrownMax 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 bands 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 CCBYSA 30