Sonny Rollins, the towering tenor saxophonist known as “the Saxophone Colossus,” whose improvisations helped shape modern jazz across a career that spanned more than seven decades, died Monday, May 25, at his home in Woodstock. He was 95.
Rollins, a Harlem-born musician who worked with Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and the Rolling Stones, was remembered by friends and former collaborators in the Hudson Valley as a generous and searching person whose conversation often turned less to music than to how to live well.
“It is with deep sorrow and profound love that we announce the passing of Sonny Rollins,” a statement released by his representatives said.
The statement identified Rollins by his longtime nickname, “the Saxophone Colossus,” also the title of his landmark 1956 album. It also included a 2009 reflection by Rollins.
“I think when the creative person ends, he continues in the next existence. I’m a person who believes this life isn’t the be-all and end-all of everything. A spiritual person doesn’t feel like that.”
Rollins’ local connections ran deep.
Woodstock dentist Bruce Milner treated Rollins for nearly a decade, and the two became friends. Milner, also a musician, said Rollins rarely talked about music or his career.
“He talked about the importance of being a good individual, a good person,” said Milner, 83. “Even at age 92, he was talking about being a better person. It was always what he talked about.”
Before moving to Woodstock in 2013, Rollins lived for years in Germantown, in Columbia County.
On Aug. 16, 1986, he performed at Opus 40 in Saugerties, a concert later released as the live album “G-Man” in 1987. The performance was also featured in “Saxophone Colossus,” a 1986 documentary by Robert Mugge.
Rollins later told JazzTimes he broke his heel after jumping off the stage during the Opus 40 performance, not realizing how far he was from the ground. Opus 40 is a bluestone sculpture park built with elevated surfaces, terraces, ramps, staircases, pools, and fitted stone walls.
“I jumped off the stage, because I didn’t realize how deep it was,” Rollins said in the interview. “Now, I didn’t realize how high up we were at this—Opus 40 was the place. So that’s why I jumped off. It wasn’t that I thought I was Superman or something like that. I thought that I would just land on the ground and keep playing. Well, I did land on the ground and keep playing, but I didn’t realize it would be under duress.
“I broke my heel, and see, I kept playing because, you know, the show must go on. I don’t want to stop the show because I jumped off the stand. That had nothing to do with the show. So anyway, I kept playing as long as I could. I don’t know how long it went on, because I was in excruciating pain. If you ever break your heel, you’ll know what I mean. Try to avoid it.”
The film is scheduled to return to Opus 40 on June 5 for a 40th anniversary screening presented by Opus 40 and Upstate Films. The program includes a discussion with Mugge; Aidan Levy, Rollins’ biographer; and Tad Richards, a former Opus 40 artistic director.
Danny Melnick of Saugerties served as Rollins’ booking agent for two years in the mid-1990s and presented Rollins’ 80th birthday concert at Symphony Hall in Boston in 2010.
“Sonny was a very nice person, he was always conversational with people,” said Melnick, 58, co-founder of The Local, a music venue in Saugerties, and producer of the Saratoga Jazz Festival. “He was always happy to talk to the fans, always happy to meet people after the show. He would always hang and talk to people. He was the real deal. He was just a lovely guy.”
Born Walter Theodore Rollins on Sept. 7, 1930, in New York City, Rollins grew up in Harlem, near the Savoy Ballroom, the Apollo Theater, and the home of Coleman Hawkins, one of his idols. Inspired by Louis Jordan, Rollins started on alto saxophone. At 16, he switched to tenor saxophone.
He was also drawn to bebop, the musical revolution that surrounded him in Harlem, according to the biography on his website.
Lucille Rollins, his wife, had been his manager since 1971. They had been married 39 years when she died in 2004, The New York Times reported.
Rollins also played on the Rolling Stones’ 1981 album, “Tattoo You,” including the hit single “Waiting on a Friend,” The Times reported.
Rollins won two Grammy Awards and was nominated seven times.
In 2010, President Barack Obama awarded Rollins the National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to artists and arts patrons by the federal government. Rollins accepted the award “on behalf of the gods of our music,” according to his website.
Rollins received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2011.
“I am deeply appreciative of this great honor,” Rollins said at the time, according to his website. “In honoring me, the Kennedy Center honors jazz, America’s classical music. For that, I am very grateful.”
John W. Barry is a reporter for The Overlook. Reach him at john@theoverlooknews.com.