Sonny Rollins, our man in jazz

ILLUSTRATION by LUKE MCGARRY

“Which talent would you most like to have?” is one of the Proust questions—the birthday party homework young Marcel first put his name to at 13—that Vanity Fair likes to ask various talents, and when they asked Sonny Rollins he answered (with what must have been the greatest gravity) simply, “The one I have.” Which is: Saxophone Colossus, as explained on his most famous album cover, and which jazz writer Gary Giddins explained further with a breath and a pause. “The invention,” he said in an interview remembering Rollins with a Mohawk in the ’50s, or Rollins starting his set back in the club kitchen, or Rollins trying to pull melodic response out of a shocked bongo player, “is limitless.” Between Coltrane and Rollins uncharted new constellations poured forth from the saxophone, and they pushed and parried each other until (legendarily) Giant Steps set Sonny on a famous self-imposed sabbatical that had him wandering the Williamsburg bridge so his horn could howl at the moon. He came back with a wild streak of albums, broke away again in 1969 and returned (after trips and work east) reassembled and electric, and never rested again. He’s gentler now but through wisdom, not weakness, and as a legend he conducts himself with healthy sense for the contrary. Years ago colossus spoke, at least to his biographer: “I’m never going to have everybody liking me, so the hell with them.” But there’s time still, too.

SONNY ROLLINS CERRITOS CENTER | 12700 CENTER COURT DR | CERRITOS 90703  CERRITOSCENTER.COM | SAT 8PM | $36-60 ALL AGES

Tags: cerritos center, jazz, Music, sonny rollins