January 21, 2025 • 57 mins
Coming off the loss of Quincy Jones, Benny Golson, Roy Haynes and Lou Donaldson at the end of 2024, it’s truly a treat to bring you a fresh interview with one of the last musicians of the Bebop era, the saxophone colossus himself, Sonny Rollins. Since we last spoke, a couple interesting artifacts from Rollins life have surfaced: "The Notebooks of Sonny Rollins" and "Rollins in Holland." We discuss those releases, his spirituality and the loss of some of his comrades in 2024.
You can hear a playlist of some of our favorite Sonny Rollins songs HERE.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. Twenty twenty four was a rough year for jazz.
A lot of legends were lost, from Quincy Jones to
Roy Haynes, Low Donaldson and Benny Golson. In fact, after
the passing of Benny Golson, only one person remains from
the iconic nineteen fifty eight photograph A Great Day in Harlem,
(00:36):
where dozens of jazz luminaries gathered together on a stoop
and Harlem to have a photograph taken to memorialize that era.
That person is with us today, the great Sonny Rollins.
Since I last spoke to Sonny Rollins on the program
a few years ago, a couple of interesting artifacts have surfaced.
One is the notebook that he kept while he was
(00:56):
in self imposed exile for music between nineteen fifty eight
and nineteen sixty one. Those were photocopied and made into
a wonderful book called The Notebooks of Sonny Rollins, where
you can get insight into what he was thinking about
at the time, both socially, politically and in terms of
his music. The other are some great live recordings of
Sonny in Europe. There was also a great biography published
(01:17):
about Sunny Rollins. Since we last spoke by Aidan Levy
called Saxophone Colossus The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins.
So though last year was a tough year for jazz,
I'm honored at the top of twenty twenty five to
bring you a conversation with a saxophone colossus himself, Sonny Rollins.
This is broken record liner notes for the digital age.
(01:40):
I'm justin Mitchman. We spoke a couple of years ago
and had a really nice conversation. But I guess since
that time, lots come out about you. There's been a
whole set of records that were previously just bootlegs, that
were sets of recordings from Europe in nineteen fifty nine
(02:02):
came out and those were really beautiful to listen to.
You had a biography come out, pretty substantial biography, and
a book of your notebooks curated and distilled down into
a book form.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yeah yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I thought, man, maybe maybe it'd be cool to have
another conversation and talk about some of the stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Okay, well, I'm down for it. Whatever you think might
be important for you or anybody else to know. Give
for this shot.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
First of all, you did it some pretty substantial interviews.
It appears to me from reading the book. For the book,
was that an enjoyable process to revisit the entirety of
your life the way you did well?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
You know, as a guy that's been around so long,
if I have now you know which, who knows? I
never thought i'd be when there's a large steep of spanding.
But I've done a lot of interviews. I had a
lot of different times, man, But I'm not a guy
(03:12):
that likes to look back at my interviews.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Do you listen to old recordings of yourself anymore? No?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I don't listen to my records. I never have, and
which is not always good. I don't think that's good.
When I used to work with Mile, she used to
every night that we do a concert, he'd have it
recorded and come home and listen to it and therefore
(03:47):
knowing what he needed to do or needed to delete
or anything like that. I wish I had that type
of personality, but generally I'm always feeling that I'm not.
You know, Oh God, I hate to hear that, listen
(04:08):
to that that it played, I should have played that better,
blah blah blah. That's the type of personality that I
was damned with. U disfortunately do.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
When Miles would listen back to those recordings, would you
have you and the rest of the band listen as well?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
No, he would use that, I'm sure when he was
rehearsing the band, but it wasn't listening everybody listening. I
means he didn't need that. He listened to what he
thought should be happening. And that was said.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
But having had the chance to look through some of
the pages of your notebooks that were you were keeping
from around nineteen fifty nine through the late sixties, it
does appear you were very meaningfully recording thoughts about your
plane and where you felt improvements could be made. So
(05:13):
there is a part of you that was already doing that,
it seems to me, but maybe just in a different
and a different way.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Well, I was being interviewed a lot, and I had
to make comments, but something if the record came out
and I had to talk about it. Yeah, I heard it,
whether it was on the radio or whatever, but I
(05:40):
didn't take it home myself and listen to it. That's
what I mean. But no, I'm when I said is
exactly correct. I'm not a guy that really listened. Two
things that I did more than once or twice to realize,
(06:03):
oh man, I really didn't like that.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, I want to ask about Freedom Sweet if you
don't mind, if you can recall what might have been
on your mind around nineteen fifty eight, shortly before you
take a bit of a sabbatical and you write and
record Freedom Suite. It's a stunning almost twenty minute piece.
(06:29):
That is the title song of the album as well,
and it seems like it stands out in your early
sort of catalog, just that there's nothing quite like that
in your early catalog to that date. And so I
was just curious if you can recall what was your
feeling around that time when that was composed.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Well, I have always been especially from that period, but
also from before. I was sort of very Pabeitico guy,
you know. And it's interesting out that there a lot
(07:10):
of of no young black musicians which have been out
that out that have been out you know, much more
recently than either. But when I was growing up, I
(07:32):
was born in Harlem. I used to go out when
I was I think about three years old with my grandmother.
My grandmother was an activist. She's very much interested in
traightening out the UH in a racial situation in Harlem
(07:57):
and in any place out the same exist today. I
didn't have to explain that to you, how to say
the situations. She was an activist. I think she was
a member of Marcus Garvey's group at one time.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
But anyway, she used to carry me with her watching
up and down at Lenox Favenue, for instance, and we
were complaining about one of the big department stots there
I think was called Ballooneberg's, which you know didn't allow
(08:36):
the black people to innser that the counters and other
kind of stuff. So I remember free Tom Mooney and
the Scotts Boy, the Scott'swell boys to has and you
know we're accused of rape and all that found out
(08:57):
something like the Central Park Cathy sometimes Okay, So I
was introduced to that period of activity. He had an early,
very very early age, and as I said, I was
the only one. My grandmother and myself. My mother was
(09:19):
in there, she said, in power of it. My brother
turned out to be a medical doctor, so he was busy,
although he did he was interested in music, but not
jazz music, so he ended up becoming an m day.
So he quit the music thing all together and my
(09:43):
sister just turned out to be a mother with two kids.
So what I'm saying is that my grandmother would carry me,
and that was I liked that. I made. Of course
I such a little baby, but I like that. And
then so I got to read people like W. E. B.
(10:07):
Do Boys and other people. You guys were into the
Black collaboration movement, and as I grew up and they
began I remember W. E. B. Duboys. Do you know
who he was?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, great scholar, activist, scholar of the construction.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
So w the boys just say that if you ever
and he wasn't talking to me, he was talking to
anybody black. He said, if you ever got any place
in your field, whatever it was, that you should always
mention the fact that you were aware of the situation
(10:57):
in the United Okay. So when I got to the
point that I began make you records, I always used
boat from in there and I emigrated. I can't. Oh,
(11:20):
you know, I used to be a very good speaker
like this. But what happened with some time ago, about
a year ago, I had a very serious accident, and
that it has affected my rememberance, my thought rememberance. But actually,
do forgive me sometimes but whatever segment drug, I used
(11:44):
a lot of uh nebro ballad and I put them
my jazz records. You know, the libro natural I A'm from.
I put that on my albums a long time ago. Yeah,
but uh I think Kenny Dorham was im with me
and that. But so I've I've always done that in
(12:08):
my career. Yeah. So the Freedom Street, getting back to
your question, was all coming from that place. You know,
that's sort of what the Streedom Street was about, and
things of your nature. I've just always had that political
(12:32):
direction and myself, I read a book reci and it
was mentioning all of these guys that they were you know,
they were speaking optual, gold independent, lot of these younger
magician and I was a little bit said, wait, man,
(12:54):
where's me? I was doing this a long time ago.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, anyway, that's that's all on record. So that was
the Freedom Street.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
You were mentioning a lot of the black ballads that
you would early on, including your sets. It's interesting to
me that kind of equal to those was your love
of show tunes or tunes that might have appeared I've
heard you talk about. You know, for instance, you've seen
(13:28):
the movie Swing Time when you were about six years old,
with Fredistaire and Ginger Rogers and a Fine Romance being
a song that I was stuck with you. Oh yeah,
how important were those sorts of songs to you as well?
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Well? I don't know. I guess if you looked back,
you might say, real, see, how did you like that?
And still wanter change you with it? Sire. Tune was
sewed up, but didn't in those days. Our television was
the movie every week, so I had a chance to
(14:09):
ye a lot of Hollywood movie There was nothing in
jail with me. For instance. My favorite composer, and I
had many of them, but my favorite guy was Jerome
curR oh Man. Jerome Kerr is still my favorite of
(14:32):
those Hollywood composers, although I have many of them that
I admire, deegally, but Jerome Kern was a man by
the way. He did do the picture with Fred Mister
and Ginger Rogers.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Swing Time that was that was his tune of Fine
Romance and all those other songs.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah yeah, all that stuff, all that and so many
of his helf so but there was never any things
that made those unaccessible in my I loved string Time
and such film as much as I hated the fact
(15:20):
that I couldn't go into Bloomberg SIT's with the big
department store on one hundred and twenty first Street, and
they were buying a soda or something at the bar.
You know, my musical and my sensitivity being moved by
(15:42):
these single's all the frame. Yeah, but I think different,
not to them, to somebody that might write there, I
make fall. They don't. They don't like jad. I've heard that.
I've heard the guy that prayed with Johnny Green, who
wrote A Body and Soul, I heard him tell me that, oh, well,
(16:07):
Johnny Green didn't like I jazzed Beopole, we'll playing its music,
you know, which to me, I wonder if that was
really true, because when Johnny Green was in college, he
had a group called the Hot Jazz. I mean, so
(16:30):
you know a lot of these guys who gave that
impression of, oh, our music is better than your music,
you know, that kind of stuff, which might dad have
really been true.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
And then again, if Johnny Green didn't like you guys
playing his tunes, oh well, you know, maybe in a
sense all the better that you guys were doing it.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Then well I think it did. But whether he liked
it or not, nobody could play body and so like
Coleman Alkins, yeah that that was his uh masterpiece. Yeah,
but it really uh was perfect for jazz, like so
(17:18):
many of those films are anyway. I like everything that
makes uh beautiful musical sounds and uh beautiful musical people
and so it's all the same to me. I never
had a problem whenever personally to uh some of those
(17:40):
early movies. Bright the way when Lewis Armstrong did a
single in the movie. Now, evidently there's a lot of
people that they don't want that America. They want America
which is propagated, and that's that's okay. I mean, it's
(18:01):
not okay with me, but I uh, I had to
accept what they think because that's the way it has
turned out. But growing up, I appreciate you that Paul
Robeston and all that my really idols and I wanted
(18:25):
to be a red like human being without having to
be a black human being. It's so in itself for
so it all made sense to me. It still does.
I'm muddy enough to realize that there's history to always
(18:47):
people fighting each other. The stoop is fighting that they're fighting,
that they're fighting that and we haven't gotten to that
point yet, or I don't think we may ever get
to that point in this world, or I've made my
life for what it did. So I like Horded movies,
(19:10):
co music, and I love jazz, and uh really nothing
strange to my bad combination.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
To me, did movies continue throughout your career to be
a source of inspiration to you?
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Yes, up until the point that I stopped going to movies.
But yeah, I would say, I mean the American dream
was always in lil and racist and all of this
stuff somehow had never stopped me from liking, uh, finding
(19:53):
more fashion.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
We'll be right back with more of a conversation with
Sonny Rollins after the break. You just said that the
American dream is always in you. What does that mean
to you?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Well, it means that there's a couder and there's a
natural good, like Duke Kellington settling. They asked Duke Kellington, Well, gee,
do what he thinks about this kind of music in
that and Douke was known to say there's only two
(20:34):
kinds of music, good music and bad music, and that
told it all.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, nothing else on that note. Would you mind if
I read to you an excerpt of something you wrote
in your journals from around nineteen fifty nine.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Okay, surprised me because I haven't read my journals or
my bigger book, so but go ahead.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, okay, great, Well, I'm sorry for this. Sets you
all let me know, but I think it's really beautiful.
You say, even if there are more brilliant quote unquote
jazz in the modern interpretations of the word, more brilliant
jazz artists and innovators among the quote unquote Negro race,
(21:27):
this in no way contradicts the quasi racial nature of jazz.
And mustn't we start speaking of music all caps and
not jazz? Cannot this be the same principle by which
people are deluded into divisions, divisions which are treacherously misleading
(21:48):
by their external manifestations. Who can deny that the greatest
of any music is of a oneness which transcends period, style, country,
et cetera. It is the same line of reasoning which
separates people on the basis of their physical impressions. To
(22:09):
be absorbed here is that any definition which seeks to
separate Bach from Miles Davis is defeating its own purpose
of clarification. Thus we shall now hereafter and henceforth integrate,
if you will, the word jazz into the word music.
The musings of Miles is then the bouncing of Bach,
both played against each other.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Oh well, okay, but you know, BET's exactly how I feel.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah, it seems to be a core part of you
that believe because because just as you said now, you
wrote back in nineteen fifty nine, and the same in
the same way, that it's all one, not to be
discerned by period or style or country or race.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Oh no, I think so. But Bet may be a
little bit too, I don't know, heavenly or trum like that.
I mean, maybe the world is just not meant to
be like that. Maybe the world is meant to be
fighting and fighting all the time. But that's okay, that's
(23:20):
that I didn't make the world. I'm not God. So
if the world is the world is like this, be
it must be some reason that I I'm not attuned to.
I don't know everything, but the world has produced and
(23:43):
and jazz and the whole thing. If she wanted to
go further than talk about America, okay, I think that's
for America too. But evidently America is not all everybody
that should think like that, Richard. It's sad, but it's
(24:06):
it's bad like that's I have to disaccept it. And
I've seen people get along that's wintering. I've got a
lot of white friends. So that's what I think. For me,
with the great environment, my life was went playing music
(24:30):
and trying to get better. It wasn't I could have
been better, but I always loved it and I still
love it. Yeah, still love Coleman Hawkins and body and Soul,
and I still love Jerome Kern. I still love Nat
King Cold and the Trail Can Cold till.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah. It was real base and right. So I mean
it's all good manterccy. At this point in my life
when and the last one standing, I want that to
be my epitheph. I love it all. I love it all.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
You just referenced me the last man's standing as we're speaking.
You know, Benny Golson just passed away, right, and that
really does make you the last of that fine day
and Harlem photo. Yeah, which is astonishing.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
It's trying to change. It's a good word. It is astonishing.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
What came up in you when you when you heard
Benny Golson had left the planet.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Well, when it came down to Benny and myself at
that point, you know, I had thought it for me,
what isnt what? It didn't mean, It couldn't mean all that,
and one of us had to go. It's okay. I mean,
(26:08):
you know, my time is probably quite soon now, I guess.
But you know, I feel okay about it. I haven't
done everything I wanted to do, but I guess the
fact that you're interviewing me here, and so I guess
(26:32):
I've done some things. I've got some things right. That
everything right, I've got some things right that I can
be grateful for. I do have a very strong situal
connection in my life now, and as you know, I've
(26:52):
been into Eastern religion for a long time now, so
you know that makes things really okay. You know, so
whatever comes paid, it's okay.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Do you have a daily spiritual practice these days?
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Well, yes, I do, but it's it's not like a
prayer or something like that. I do say prayers, but
not a specific prayer. You know. I went to India
back in the sixties and I got some information there
from some people that had something to say that interested me.
(27:39):
I wanted to know about should I be practicing and
playing and uh, you know with it. In other words,
wasn't oh okay what my life was at that time?
And they got assurance that it was okay. I needed
(28:01):
that assurance. I received it from some beautiful people on
not over there. So yes, that spirituality he had as off.
Now I'm so happy that I did begin studying Eastern religion.
(28:23):
I did that when I followed this guy powered my
Hunter Yoga Nanda Autobiography of a Yogi, which is a
very popular book. And I read that book and that
boy I got to find out about this. And I
(28:45):
had went to California wanting to meet the power Hunter
over night. He had just passed over it. But so
I didn't meet him. But I realized, well, look I'm
going to India because it's something here. And I got
(29:07):
a bag and my own and I went to India.
Wow paid off. So glad I did it and learned something.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
And you passed it to us. You know in your music,
your music always feels very spiritually elevated, you know, just
in terms of the biographical details of your life. That's
something that people are very interested in, and so it's
something that's a gift that you've given all of us.
So thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Well, there's so much for saying that I ain't loved. Man,
I'm not my biggest fan, so I'm not a guy
that think that, Oh I'm strunning. Wrong, we get out
of here. I'm not my biggest friend at all. That's
how we started the conversation about listening to my own
(30:00):
music and all that. Yeah, but I didn't get it
at all. But I made an impression, and I think
I've learned something. I'm glad that some people have appreciated
some of my work. Yeah, but I'm very happy by
(30:21):
be but not that I appreciated it, but that I
enabled them to get it, which validated me. Because you know,
I'm not my biggest fan. Yeah, if you come to
my house, you won't find a portrait of me all
(30:42):
over the walls.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Okay, yeah, I get that sense. You do not appear
to be that person.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Oh god, okay, I'm try from that kid.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Last time I spoke, I neglected to ask you about
Rufus Harley bagpipe player. Right, what are you remembering of him?
And he's playing.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I always loved Ruverson playing. When I heard him playing,
I know he played saxophone before Yeah, he got into
the backpacks. But anyway, he was a great magician. I
think I had a great concert in New York, got
(31:32):
at Town Hall with Dissy Gelesbie, Charlie Mingers, Rulfa Sorry,
and myself. I forgot so that. That was my wife,
my their departed wife, Lucil, who convinced all of those
(31:56):
sep up to make that concert because one of the
people had dropped out and that was a important concert
just for my reputation, all that kind of stuff. And
she got Mingus. She was a good friends with Mngus's
(32:17):
wife for Shu, and so she got Mingus, which is
not easy to get Mngus to do something he doesn't
want to do. And then she got Dizzy come and
make that show that night.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
And of course you and Dizzy were great friends. Did
you and Mingus get along?
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Oh yeah, I mean as much as as one would
get along with Mingus. We had a little trouble in
the beginning because Mingus didn't know me and I was
playing in one of the clubs and he was playing
at And you know, there's something that Max Roach and
(33:04):
Mingus is to I guess other guys that I didn't
know because I was a young guy coming on to
the seat. If there were two people on the bill
and Mingus would get on the stage, they'd play the
whole night, the whole night. Max would do that too.
(33:25):
I've seen Max do that due to guys. So it's
kind of but you know, you have to accept it.
I did, but i'd got back at Mingus one time
at the Village Vanguard, who and Mingus didn't play? And
(33:45):
Max god and call me up and I said sure,
and I came up and that sort of whut a
little ref between Mingus and I. Let's see who was
this guy? Uh through a baraka? Oh yeah, do you
(34:06):
know him?
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah? Yeah, I'm married yea the critic writer, critic.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Right, he was in the club, and they all thought
that I would sort of use surping, you know, Mingus,
him and everything to play that gig, which would have
been his gig. But it gave me a change to
(34:32):
get back at Mingus. And after that, Mingus and I
became close friends.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Were you around his drummer, Danny Richmond Munch? I always
found it interesting that he really never played with many
other drum I mean, I think I can think of
Max roachs a bit, but I always thought that was
such a funny parent great pairing though musically, But no.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
I never got a change to pray with Danny Richmond.
Danny Richmond was always with Mingers, fevered, and I never
got a chance to hardly No, Dad Richard, but no,
unfortunately we never played together. Okay, I'm sure it would
(35:23):
have been very rockad, but I never did get a
chance of private.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yeah that it would have been interesting to hear you
past together, for sure. Yeah, unique player, he was, as
are you.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah, oh yeah, No, No, I enjoyed his work, but
I only heard him with Mingers. You know.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yeah, you wound up doing a couple of Stevie tunes,
but you definitely did. Isn't she lovely at a certain point? Right,
What did you make of the music of Stevie Wonder?
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Well, I think Stevie Wonder is great. I mean, Stevie
Wonder had that come and touch, if I can put
it that way. So he certainly was the person that
appealed to the I want to use another term now,
(36:24):
which you understand that he appealed to the hip hop generation.
But he was also a really great, profound musician who
was there for everybody. He was just extremely talented that
(36:48):
he had those kind of chops. Yeah, I don't know
anything I was going one day. Gear. I wouldn't have
he ever played with Miles.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
That's a good question. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yeah, I don't think so. And what they would think
of each other, that would be what I would would wonder.
Would they appreciate each other?
Speaker 1 (37:18):
You know, there was now that you mentioned it isn't
going to say about Stevie wasn't so nice, but yeah,
he said, Stevie wondered, Now, now there's a sad motherfucker.
He thinks I stole Michael Henderson from him, which I
guess was just a player, you know, was a player, No, my.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Complete character from age to say.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Yeah, yeah, When I was reading through your Saxophone Colossus
biography and it got to the section where you played
a few songs on the Rolling Stones album, and that
chapter sort of talked a bit about how that happened
and sort of your thoughts about it and the thoughts
of others about it. And the response is interesting because
(38:12):
I think some people really enjoy that work. Other people
may be viewed it as an inauthentic move. I was
just wondering the idea of authenticity in jazz music through
the sixties and seventies and eighties. Was that something that
you spent a lot of time thinking about.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Well, I did, and actually my wife convinced me to
make that album. They finally had a way that that
jazz musicians from the States could play in England. They
(38:56):
had a band for some unions all right. Anyway, finally
they began playing and using British traditions, playing with people
getting up, following over there and everything like that. Somehow
I found out that men Jagon wanted me to play
(39:20):
in one of their records. So my reaction was that
I thought that that would be a come down for
me to do that, and I really had to argue
with my wife about that, so she convinced me to
(39:45):
do it. But to me, it was a come down
to do that.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Is that because it felt inauthentic to you or for
some other reason.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Well, it didn't. Jeet was of a higher level than
the blues that they were playing. Yeah, that's all. I mean,
there wasn't anything except that.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Now, I mean, come on, you, what do you want
you want to hit Charlie Parker or would you want
to hear uh into those guys understand.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Yes, so that's the way I was putting out completely.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Yeah, but then the the Beatles and Stevie Wonder as
popular musicians felt much more on a similar plane, at
least to you.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Yes, and in the terms of uh, the Beatles that
have a more rounded repertoire and sewing than the Romans showings. Yeah, okay,
the Roman Stones did ask me to do the tour
(41:03):
of that record that they had put out that I
would throwing tattoo.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Yeah, that's it. After this last break, we'll be back
with the rest of my conversation with Sonny Robins. Would
you say, in a sense the different classes of saxophone
players from alto soprano, alto tenor baritone, I mean, were
those almost like weight classes in boxing in a sense.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Well, tenor saxophone took the prime feet because at one
time we had some beautiful Of course, we had the
great Charlie Parker, the Beaba Up Originator, and that really
(41:56):
shook everything up for a while. But then came the
tender Place, whole Train, Pitture, Gordon and what l Gray,
all these people, this guy's Funny Rowins, all these guys
(42:17):
so the Tender became the folkrom.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
I would say, it's almost as if because Charlie Parker
on Alto was just so groundbreaking and just so revered
that it almost in hindsight appears that everyone just kind
of took a different path after this, like maybe we
need to steer clear of the Alto And could that
have been what sort of made so many great players
(42:44):
coalesce around tenor.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
We also had the great Coleman Hawkins, a great Lester Young,
the great Ben Webster. Yeah, they're great, Showberry. These are
some great, great players. Now this led Charlie Parker have
(43:08):
it because Charlie Parker did what he did, which was
beyond instrumentation, So he was always Charlie Parker or Altough,
but Tender began to take pretty dominant position. We all
know we couldn't beat Charlie Parker, but we could be
(43:33):
less to Young h the great, great great rest to Young. Yeah,
so they each had their own place out though. Of
course we had Johnny Hodges, the great great auto player
from Duke Elgin's cooop, and we had Benny Carter, another
(43:58):
great great Alto player. If you played altough great like
these guys said, well, you would set nobody is going
to mess with Benny Carter. They could admit and my
him admit that he was first christ right. And when
(44:20):
it came to ten and wall I February had a
lot of feeble. My favorite the great Coleman Hawkins, but
also my other favorite was the great Less to Him,
both extremely different than this style for fill so so great.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
I just had a point of clarification. I read one place,
but I haven't been able to find it anywhere else
that you did play in Lionelhampton's band in the early fifties.
Did you ever play in Hampton's band when Quincy Jones
was in the band? No, no, okay.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
I didn't have a lot of big band experience because
just as I getting to be extremely famous, I started
playing with Small Ghost and so the big brands. In
a way, I am missed opportunity, but time just brought
(45:28):
me to be the one I never pardon with these guys.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Yeah, what did you make of Quincy Jones? Because he's
someone who started in jazz and it never seemed to
leave him. It seemed like he always had a deep
love of jazz throughout his life, but would often go
out into other areas of music.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
Well, Quincy had a very wide relationship for jazz. I
remember when I first met Clint. We was playing in
Philadelphia and we were trying to get the last tray
coming to New York and get that last strain after
(46:12):
the last show his Philadelphia. Wow. Well boy, then you
rushed down to the station and to get that chrain.
Sometimes you caught it, sometimes you didn't. I remember with
Quincher he didn't catch it one night, a real uh
pain in the neck productive at the strain belly, Oh
(46:37):
at night. Good boy. He had a lot of composition
and winch He definitely made an impression.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
It seemed at first he really did want to be
an ace trumpet player, but at some point realized, well
I have all these other things that I like and
can do composing and arranging. And he did manage to
find his place, you know, even if it wasn't the
initial thing he set out for.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Yeah, I think that he wouldn't be filled that player.
I'm not certain, but she was. When I first got
involved with the Quince, he was playing trumpet in Diysy
Chalstree's orchestra. No I've never heard of him played trump
(47:27):
and half the best. I guess he began composer and
pay that took over.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah, he's a terrific a musician to listen musician.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
Did you guys keep in touch over the years.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Yeah, meet Quincey a lot of times at the White
House and places like that when he both be selected
at being extraordinary musician.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
So yeah, you guys received the Presidential Medal of Freedom
from Barack Obama.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
Yeah, and Quincey was probably the day. Yeah, I uh
remember one time I stay at the Fourth Seasons in
New York and he came Quincy. This was the time
of nine and eleven. Quincy came in with some other
(48:28):
people and the head on this in head the workers June.
So I gets through the writing something that had to
do with ninety eleven or something. But he wrote some
kind of music, probably commemorate. Yes, had a terrible incident
(48:51):
that happened to it.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Now, what about lou Donaldson?
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Did you cross past Lord Donaldson? Lord Donaldson was one
of my best saxophone this He was just a wonderful
a person, you know, as well as great The months
of days i't talking about had great, great talent, but
(49:19):
they were all twelve wonderful people that thought so great
about Chads. All of these guys were wonderful people. Loud Donaldson,
I wrote something I loved thing after he passed because
I felt so close to low But I never got
(49:41):
a change to see him in later years. But I
felt so close to because they were good friends in
the early years when he first came on the scene.
And uh, we knew each other the way back when
we used to follow a New York child had the
(50:04):
polo ground to New York. Wow, privilege drive into known,
Lord donalds mm hmm. While we're here, you better try
to be ready to be judged by something some way,
(50:28):
who knows where. But you let me judge. You met
me a good guy. I've seen guys that were not
so good, and I've seen some good guys anyway, Lord
Donald's ape us. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
After Quincy passed away, there was a quote circulating where
he said that early on he learned that your music
can ever be more or less than who you are
as a human being. And your comment that so many
of these jazz guys and guys were beautiful human beings,
I mean, the reason that I feel it seems it
(51:10):
must be the reason it's been able to last as
long as it has is because of the spirit that's
imbued in it from it's practitioners. It's really you guys
are really trying to relate to the human condition as
closely as you possibly could, you know, And it feels
that way still.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
Yeah, I don't know how it happened, but I mean,
I guess that's how it happened. We were so close
to the human condition through music is pretty great thing.
All of the guys I know who had a well
known musician were very nice people, very nice people. But
(51:55):
wasn't all of this stuff for gree Suddenly now you're
competing with this guy or in all this that was
not on. Once we played together, they realize, Man, this
guy must have really studied. He had a great natural
(52:17):
ability that only God give us. And yet there were
beautiful people. I wish there was something else besides that.
There's hull of fame to under these people from what
they are, from what they had to go through. They
were accepted in America. It took a while before everybody realized, wow,
(52:45):
we get that artistry. And now you know who was there.
Lou Donaldson's on Oh man, well it's stunistain. You know,
it's life. I don't control life. I just try to
live it right.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Well, we don't control we just experienced it. But it
does feel you know. Yeah, I mean since we spoke,
we lost those people and and and and also including
Roy Haynes.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
You know Roy Haynes, the guy that I never thought
would not be here. Yeah, well at least I thought
tithing out of Hanley, for he would.
Speaker 4 (53:29):
It's all they played with different order, first chairs honors
and uh he handswered the wonderful person out and and
uh through the great honor.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
No. Roy had to play with them on many occasions,
the uh great much of my music that I played,
I remember I did some nation of things and Roy
was there right on it and then help. I want
(54:05):
to thank Roy. Yes in faith I've been doing before,
I wouldn't do it now, man, thanks joys to being
being a great guy. Life is really I had to
go one dementia. We don't know much about it.
Speaker 1 (54:27):
Do you feel as time goes on you get more
comfortable with it not knowing?
Speaker 2 (54:31):
Oh? Yes I do. I do. Because I tried to
get more like a spiritual understanding of life. I have
learned a lot and it's comforted me through my uh
(54:52):
period of light. I'm just sorry I couldn't hang I
was telling my friends. But by being a musician, I've
reached a lot of people which I couldn't reach other
other than the your music. Yeah, and they hearing my music.
(55:13):
So I'm grateful, absolutely grateful, And whatever it is I'll
say soon I can send there for whole good. Whatever
happened to me in my life, with what has happened
(55:33):
to me and what's going to happen to me, it's
all good. Boy, have I have I been but enormous by.
Speaker 1 (55:46):
Well, thank you so much. I mean again, I would,
you know, love to give you a ring another time
and maybe were gonna have another conversation. He's a really
enlightening so thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (55:56):
Well, remember though I'm one of the last guys standing, well,
I am the last guy say so. It's a cop,
you know. Don't wait too long.
Speaker 1 (56:10):
All right, Thank you so much, sir.
Speaker 2 (56:13):
Okay man, God bless, I'll talk to you later.
Speaker 1 (56:18):
Thanks so much for Sunny Rollins, for getting on the
phone with me and reflecting back about some of his
colleagues and about his life and art. I'm so grateful
that we still have him here at the age of
ninety four. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at
the Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter
at broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by
Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan.
(56:41):
Our engineer is Ben Tolladay. Broken Record is a production
of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others
from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is
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on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show,
(57:04):
please remember to share, rate, and review us on your
podcast aff Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.
Pushkin. Twenty twenty four was a rough year for jazz.
A lot of legends were lost, from Quincy Jones to
Roy Haynes, Low Donaldson and Benny Golson. In fact, after
the passing of Benny Golson, only one person remains from
the iconic nineteen fifty eight photograph A Great Day in Harlem,
(00:36):
where dozens of jazz luminaries gathered together on a stoop
and Harlem to have a photograph taken to memorialize that era.
That person is with us today, the great Sonny Rollins.
Since I last spoke to Sonny Rollins on the program
a few years ago, a couple of interesting artifacts have surfaced.
One is the notebook that he kept while he was
(00:56):
in self imposed exile for music between nineteen fifty eight
and nineteen sixty one. Those were photocopied and made into
a wonderful book called The Notebooks of Sonny Rollins, where
you can get insight into what he was thinking about
at the time, both socially, politically and in terms of
his music. The other are some great live recordings of
Sonny in Europe. There was also a great biography published
(01:17):
about Sunny Rollins. Since we last spoke by Aidan Levy
called Saxophone Colossus The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins.
So though last year was a tough year for jazz,
I'm honored at the top of twenty twenty five to
bring you a conversation with a saxophone colossus himself, Sonny Rollins.
This is broken record liner notes for the digital age.
(01:40):
I'm justin Mitchman. We spoke a couple of years ago
and had a really nice conversation. But I guess since
that time, lots come out about you. There's been a
whole set of records that were previously just bootlegs, that
were sets of recordings from Europe in nineteen fifty nine
(02:02):
came out and those were really beautiful to listen to.
You had a biography come out, pretty substantial biography, and
a book of your notebooks curated and distilled down into
a book form.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Yeah yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I thought, man, maybe maybe it'd be cool to have
another conversation and talk about some of the stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Okay, well, I'm down for it. Whatever you think might
be important for you or anybody else to know. Give
for this shot.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
First of all, you did it some pretty substantial interviews.
It appears to me from reading the book. For the book,
was that an enjoyable process to revisit the entirety of
your life the way you did well?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
You know, as a guy that's been around so long,
if I have now you know which, who knows? I
never thought i'd be when there's a large steep of spanding.
But I've done a lot of interviews. I had a
lot of different times, man, But I'm not a guy
(03:12):
that likes to look back at my interviews.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Do you listen to old recordings of yourself anymore? No?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I don't listen to my records. I never have, and
which is not always good. I don't think that's good.
When I used to work with Mile, she used to
every night that we do a concert, he'd have it
recorded and come home and listen to it and therefore
(03:47):
knowing what he needed to do or needed to delete
or anything like that. I wish I had that type
of personality, but generally I'm always feeling that I'm not.
You know, Oh God, I hate to hear that, listen
(04:08):
to that that it played, I should have played that better,
blah blah blah. That's the type of personality that I
was damned with. U disfortunately do.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
When Miles would listen back to those recordings, would you
have you and the rest of the band listen as well?
Speaker 2 (04:30):
No, he would use that, I'm sure when he was
rehearsing the band, but it wasn't listening everybody listening. I
means he didn't need that. He listened to what he
thought should be happening. And that was said.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
But having had the chance to look through some of
the pages of your notebooks that were you were keeping
from around nineteen fifty nine through the late sixties, it
does appear you were very meaningfully recording thoughts about your
plane and where you felt improvements could be made. So
(05:13):
there is a part of you that was already doing that,
it seems to me, but maybe just in a different
and a different way.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Well, I was being interviewed a lot, and I had
to make comments, but something if the record came out
and I had to talk about it. Yeah, I heard it,
whether it was on the radio or whatever, but I
(05:40):
didn't take it home myself and listen to it. That's
what I mean. But no, I'm when I said is
exactly correct. I'm not a guy that really listened. Two
things that I did more than once or twice to realize,
(06:03):
oh man, I really didn't like that.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, I want to ask about Freedom Sweet if you
don't mind, if you can recall what might have been
on your mind around nineteen fifty eight, shortly before you
take a bit of a sabbatical and you write and
record Freedom Suite. It's a stunning almost twenty minute piece.
(06:29):
That is the title song of the album as well,
and it seems like it stands out in your early
sort of catalog, just that there's nothing quite like that
in your early catalog to that date. And so I
was just curious if you can recall what was your
feeling around that time when that was composed.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Well, I have always been especially from that period, but
also from before. I was sort of very Pabeitico guy,
you know. And it's interesting out that there a lot
(07:10):
of of no young black musicians which have been out
that out that have been out you know, much more
recently than either. But when I was growing up, I
(07:32):
was born in Harlem. I used to go out when
I was I think about three years old with my grandmother.
My grandmother was an activist. She's very much interested in
traightening out the UH in a racial situation in Harlem
(07:57):
and in any place out the same exist today. I
didn't have to explain that to you, how to say
the situations. She was an activist. I think she was
a member of Marcus Garvey's group at one time.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
But anyway, she used to carry me with her watching
up and down at Lenox Favenue, for instance, and we
were complaining about one of the big department stots there
I think was called Ballooneberg's, which you know didn't allow
(08:36):
the black people to innser that the counters and other
kind of stuff. So I remember free Tom Mooney and
the Scotts Boy, the Scott'swell boys to has and you
know we're accused of rape and all that found out
(08:57):
something like the Central Park Cathy sometimes Okay, So I
was introduced to that period of activity. He had an early,
very very early age, and as I said, I was
the only one. My grandmother and myself. My mother was
(09:19):
in there, she said, in power of it. My brother
turned out to be a medical doctor, so he was busy,
although he did he was interested in music, but not
jazz music, so he ended up becoming an m day.
So he quit the music thing all together and my
(09:43):
sister just turned out to be a mother with two kids.
So what I'm saying is that my grandmother would carry me,
and that was I liked that. I made. Of course
I such a little baby, but I like that. And
then so I got to read people like W. E. B.
(10:07):
Do Boys and other people. You guys were into the
Black collaboration movement, and as I grew up and they
began I remember W. E. B. Duboys. Do you know
who he was?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Yeah, great scholar, activist, scholar of the construction.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
So w the boys just say that if you ever
and he wasn't talking to me, he was talking to
anybody black. He said, if you ever got any place
in your field, whatever it was, that you should always
mention the fact that you were aware of the situation
(10:57):
in the United Okay. So when I got to the
point that I began make you records, I always used
boat from in there and I emigrated. I can't. Oh,
(11:20):
you know, I used to be a very good speaker
like this. But what happened with some time ago, about
a year ago, I had a very serious accident, and
that it has affected my rememberance, my thought rememberance. But actually,
do forgive me sometimes but whatever segment drug, I used
(11:44):
a lot of uh nebro ballad and I put them
my jazz records. You know, the libro natural I A'm from.
I put that on my albums a long time ago. Yeah,
but uh I think Kenny Dorham was im with me
and that. But so I've I've always done that in
(12:08):
my career. Yeah. So the Freedom Street, getting back to
your question, was all coming from that place. You know,
that's sort of what the Streedom Street was about, and
things of your nature. I've just always had that political
(12:32):
direction and myself, I read a book reci and it
was mentioning all of these guys that they were you know,
they were speaking optual, gold independent, lot of these younger
magician and I was a little bit said, wait, man,
(12:54):
where's me? I was doing this a long time ago.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, anyway, that's that's all on record. So that was
the Freedom Street.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
You were mentioning a lot of the black ballads that
you would early on, including your sets. It's interesting to
me that kind of equal to those was your love
of show tunes or tunes that might have appeared I've
heard you talk about. You know, for instance, you've seen
(13:28):
the movie Swing Time when you were about six years old,
with Fredistaire and Ginger Rogers and a Fine Romance being
a song that I was stuck with you. Oh yeah,
how important were those sorts of songs to you as well?
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Well? I don't know. I guess if you looked back,
you might say, real, see, how did you like that?
And still wanter change you with it? Sire. Tune was
sewed up, but didn't in those days. Our television was
the movie every week, so I had a chance to
(14:09):
ye a lot of Hollywood movie There was nothing in
jail with me. For instance. My favorite composer, and I
had many of them, but my favorite guy was Jerome
curR oh Man. Jerome Kerr is still my favorite of
(14:32):
those Hollywood composers, although I have many of them that
I admire, deegally, but Jerome Kern was a man by
the way. He did do the picture with Fred Mister
and Ginger Rogers.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Swing Time that was that was his tune of Fine
Romance and all those other songs.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Yeah yeah, all that stuff, all that and so many
of his helf so but there was never any things
that made those unaccessible in my I loved string Time
and such film as much as I hated the fact
(15:20):
that I couldn't go into Bloomberg SIT's with the big
department store on one hundred and twenty first Street, and
they were buying a soda or something at the bar.
You know, my musical and my sensitivity being moved by
(15:42):
these single's all the frame. Yeah, but I think different,
not to them, to somebody that might write there, I
make fall. They don't. They don't like jad. I've heard that.
I've heard the guy that prayed with Johnny Green, who
wrote A Body and Soul, I heard him tell me that, oh, well,
(16:07):
Johnny Green didn't like I jazzed Beopole, we'll playing its music,
you know, which to me, I wonder if that was
really true, because when Johnny Green was in college, he
had a group called the Hot Jazz. I mean, so
(16:30):
you know a lot of these guys who gave that
impression of, oh, our music is better than your music,
you know, that kind of stuff, which might dad have
really been true.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
And then again, if Johnny Green didn't like you guys
playing his tunes, oh well, you know, maybe in a
sense all the better that you guys were doing it.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Then well I think it did. But whether he liked
it or not, nobody could play body and so like
Coleman Alkins, yeah that that was his uh masterpiece. Yeah,
but it really uh was perfect for jazz, like so
(17:18):
many of those films are anyway. I like everything that
makes uh beautiful musical sounds and uh beautiful musical people
and so it's all the same to me. I never
had a problem whenever personally to uh some of those
(17:40):
early movies. Bright the way when Lewis Armstrong did a
single in the movie. Now, evidently there's a lot of
people that they don't want that America. They want America
which is propagated, and that's that's okay. I mean, it's
(18:01):
not okay with me, but I uh, I had to
accept what they think because that's the way it has
turned out. But growing up, I appreciate you that Paul
Robeston and all that my really idols and I wanted
(18:25):
to be a red like human being without having to
be a black human being. It's so in itself for
so it all made sense to me. It still does.
I'm muddy enough to realize that there's history to always
(18:47):
people fighting each other. The stoop is fighting that they're fighting,
that they're fighting that and we haven't gotten to that
point yet, or I don't think we may ever get
to that point in this world, or I've made my
life for what it did. So I like Horded movies,
(19:10):
co music, and I love jazz, and uh really nothing
strange to my bad combination.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
To me, did movies continue throughout your career to be
a source of inspiration to you?
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Yes, up until the point that I stopped going to movies.
But yeah, I would say, I mean the American dream
was always in lil and racist and all of this
stuff somehow had never stopped me from liking, uh, finding
(19:53):
more fashion.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
We'll be right back with more of a conversation with
Sonny Rollins after the break. You just said that the
American dream is always in you. What does that mean
to you?
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Well, it means that there's a couder and there's a
natural good, like Duke Kellington settling. They asked Duke Kellington, Well, gee,
do what he thinks about this kind of music in
that and Douke was known to say there's only two
(20:34):
kinds of music, good music and bad music, and that
told it all.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, nothing else on that note. Would you mind if
I read to you an excerpt of something you wrote
in your journals from around nineteen fifty nine.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Okay, surprised me because I haven't read my journals or
my bigger book, so but go ahead.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, okay, great, Well, I'm sorry for this. Sets you
all let me know, but I think it's really beautiful.
You say, even if there are more brilliant quote unquote
jazz in the modern interpretations of the word, more brilliant
jazz artists and innovators among the quote unquote Negro race,
(21:27):
this in no way contradicts the quasi racial nature of jazz.
And mustn't we start speaking of music all caps and
not jazz? Cannot this be the same principle by which
people are deluded into divisions, divisions which are treacherously misleading
(21:48):
by their external manifestations. Who can deny that the greatest
of any music is of a oneness which transcends period, style, country,
et cetera. It is the same line of reasoning which
separates people on the basis of their physical impressions. To
(22:09):
be absorbed here is that any definition which seeks to
separate Bach from Miles Davis is defeating its own purpose
of clarification. Thus we shall now hereafter and henceforth integrate,
if you will, the word jazz into the word music.
The musings of Miles is then the bouncing of Bach,
both played against each other.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
Oh well, okay, but you know, BET's exactly how I feel.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah, it seems to be a core part of you
that believe because because just as you said now, you
wrote back in nineteen fifty nine, and the same in
the same way, that it's all one, not to be
discerned by period or style or country or race.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Oh no, I think so. But Bet may be a
little bit too, I don't know, heavenly or trum like that.
I mean, maybe the world is just not meant to
be like that. Maybe the world is meant to be
fighting and fighting all the time. But that's okay, that's
(23:20):
that I didn't make the world. I'm not God. So
if the world is the world is like this, be
it must be some reason that I I'm not attuned to.
I don't know everything, but the world has produced and
(23:43):
and jazz and the whole thing. If she wanted to
go further than talk about America, okay, I think that's
for America too. But evidently America is not all everybody
that should think like that, Richard. It's sad, but it's
(24:06):
it's bad like that's I have to disaccept it. And
I've seen people get along that's wintering. I've got a
lot of white friends. So that's what I think. For me,
with the great environment, my life was went playing music
(24:30):
and trying to get better. It wasn't I could have
been better, but I always loved it and I still
love it. Yeah, still love Coleman Hawkins and body and Soul,
and I still love Jerome Kern. I still love Nat
King Cold and the Trail Can Cold till.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah. It was real base and right. So I mean
it's all good manterccy. At this point in my life
when and the last one standing, I want that to
be my epitheph. I love it all. I love it all.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
You just referenced me the last man's standing as we're speaking.
You know, Benny Golson just passed away, right, and that
really does make you the last of that fine day
and Harlem photo. Yeah, which is astonishing.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
It's trying to change. It's a good word. It is astonishing.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
What came up in you when you when you heard
Benny Golson had left the planet.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Well, when it came down to Benny and myself at
that point, you know, I had thought it for me,
what isnt what? It didn't mean, It couldn't mean all that,
and one of us had to go. It's okay. I mean,
(26:08):
you know, my time is probably quite soon now, I guess.
But you know, I feel okay about it. I haven't
done everything I wanted to do, but I guess the
fact that you're interviewing me here, and so I guess
(26:32):
I've done some things. I've got some things right. That
everything right, I've got some things right that I can
be grateful for. I do have a very strong situal
connection in my life now, and as you know, I've
(26:52):
been into Eastern religion for a long time now, so
you know that makes things really okay. You know, so
whatever comes paid, it's okay.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Do you have a daily spiritual practice these days?
Speaker 2 (27:13):
Well, yes, I do, but it's it's not like a
prayer or something like that. I do say prayers, but
not a specific prayer. You know. I went to India
back in the sixties and I got some information there
from some people that had something to say that interested me.
(27:39):
I wanted to know about should I be practicing and
playing and uh, you know with it. In other words,
wasn't oh okay what my life was at that time?
And they got assurance that it was okay. I needed
(28:01):
that assurance. I received it from some beautiful people on
not over there. So yes, that spirituality he had as off.
Now I'm so happy that I did begin studying Eastern religion.
(28:23):
I did that when I followed this guy powered my
Hunter Yoga Nanda Autobiography of a Yogi, which is a
very popular book. And I read that book and that
boy I got to find out about this. And I
(28:45):
had went to California wanting to meet the power Hunter
over night. He had just passed over it. But so
I didn't meet him. But I realized, well, look I'm
going to India because it's something here. And I got
(29:07):
a bag and my own and I went to India.
Wow paid off. So glad I did it and learned something.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
And you passed it to us. You know in your music,
your music always feels very spiritually elevated, you know, just
in terms of the biographical details of your life. That's
something that people are very interested in, and so it's
something that's a gift that you've given all of us.
So thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Well, there's so much for saying that I ain't loved. Man,
I'm not my biggest fan, so I'm not a guy
that think that, Oh I'm strunning. Wrong, we get out
of here. I'm not my biggest friend at all. That's
how we started the conversation about listening to my own
(30:00):
music and all that. Yeah, but I didn't get it
at all. But I made an impression, and I think
I've learned something. I'm glad that some people have appreciated
some of my work. Yeah, but I'm very happy by
(30:21):
be but not that I appreciated it, but that I
enabled them to get it, which validated me. Because you know,
I'm not my biggest fan. Yeah, if you come to
my house, you won't find a portrait of me all
(30:42):
over the walls.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Okay, yeah, I get that sense. You do not appear
to be that person.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Oh god, okay, I'm try from that kid.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Last time I spoke, I neglected to ask you about
Rufus Harley bagpipe player. Right, what are you remembering of him?
And he's playing.
Speaker 2 (31:12):
I always loved Ruverson playing. When I heard him playing,
I know he played saxophone before Yeah, he got into
the backpacks. But anyway, he was a great magician. I
think I had a great concert in New York, got
(31:32):
at Town Hall with Dissy Gelesbie, Charlie Mingers, Rulfa Sorry,
and myself. I forgot so that. That was my wife,
my their departed wife, Lucil, who convinced all of those
(31:56):
sep up to make that concert because one of the
people had dropped out and that was a important concert
just for my reputation, all that kind of stuff. And
she got Mingus. She was a good friends with Mngus's
(32:17):
wife for Shu, and so she got Mingus, which is
not easy to get Mngus to do something he doesn't
want to do. And then she got Dizzy come and
make that show that night.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
And of course you and Dizzy were great friends. Did
you and Mingus get along?
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Oh yeah, I mean as much as as one would
get along with Mingus. We had a little trouble in
the beginning because Mingus didn't know me and I was
playing in one of the clubs and he was playing
at And you know, there's something that Max Roach and
(33:04):
Mingus is to I guess other guys that I didn't
know because I was a young guy coming on to
the seat. If there were two people on the bill
and Mingus would get on the stage, they'd play the
whole night, the whole night. Max would do that too.
(33:25):
I've seen Max do that due to guys. So it's
kind of but you know, you have to accept it.
I did, but i'd got back at Mingus one time
at the Village Vanguard, who and Mingus didn't play? And
(33:45):
Max god and call me up and I said sure,
and I came up and that sort of whut a
little ref between Mingus and I. Let's see who was
this guy? Uh through a baraka? Oh yeah, do you
(34:06):
know him?
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah? Yeah, I'm married yea the critic writer, critic.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Right, he was in the club, and they all thought
that I would sort of use surping, you know, Mingus,
him and everything to play that gig, which would have
been his gig. But it gave me a change to
(34:32):
get back at Mingus. And after that, Mingus and I
became close friends.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Were you around his drummer, Danny Richmond Munch? I always
found it interesting that he really never played with many
other drum I mean, I think I can think of
Max roachs a bit, but I always thought that was
such a funny parent great pairing though musically, But no.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
I never got a change to pray with Danny Richmond.
Danny Richmond was always with Mingers, fevered, and I never
got a chance to hardly No, Dad Richard, but no,
unfortunately we never played together. Okay, I'm sure it would
(35:23):
have been very rockad, but I never did get a
chance of private.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yeah that it would have been interesting to hear you
past together, for sure. Yeah, unique player, he was, as
are you.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah, oh yeah, No, No, I enjoyed his work, but
I only heard him with Mingers. You know.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yeah, you wound up doing a couple of Stevie tunes,
but you definitely did. Isn't she lovely at a certain point? Right,
What did you make of the music of Stevie Wonder?
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Well, I think Stevie Wonder is great. I mean, Stevie
Wonder had that come and touch, if I can put
it that way. So he certainly was the person that
appealed to the I want to use another term now,
(36:24):
which you understand that he appealed to the hip hop generation.
But he was also a really great, profound musician who
was there for everybody. He was just extremely talented that
(36:48):
he had those kind of chops. Yeah, I don't know
anything I was going one day. Gear. I wouldn't have
he ever played with Miles.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
That's a good question. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Yeah, I don't think so. And what they would think
of each other, that would be what I would would wonder.
Would they appreciate each other?
Speaker 1 (37:18):
You know, there was now that you mentioned it isn't
going to say about Stevie wasn't so nice, but yeah,
he said, Stevie wondered, Now, now there's a sad motherfucker.
He thinks I stole Michael Henderson from him, which I
guess was just a player, you know, was a player, No, my.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
Complete character from age to say.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
Yeah, yeah, When I was reading through your Saxophone Colossus
biography and it got to the section where you played
a few songs on the Rolling Stones album, and that
chapter sort of talked a bit about how that happened
and sort of your thoughts about it and the thoughts
of others about it. And the response is interesting because
(38:12):
I think some people really enjoy that work. Other people
may be viewed it as an inauthentic move. I was
just wondering the idea of authenticity in jazz music through
the sixties and seventies and eighties. Was that something that
you spent a lot of time thinking about.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Well, I did, and actually my wife convinced me to
make that album. They finally had a way that that
jazz musicians from the States could play in England. They
(38:56):
had a band for some unions all right. Anyway, finally
they began playing and using British traditions, playing with people
getting up, following over there and everything like that. Somehow
I found out that men Jagon wanted me to play
(39:20):
in one of their records. So my reaction was that
I thought that that would be a come down for
me to do that, and I really had to argue
with my wife about that, so she convinced me to
(39:45):
do it. But to me, it was a come down
to do that.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Is that because it felt inauthentic to you or for
some other reason.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Well, it didn't. Jeet was of a higher level than
the blues that they were playing. Yeah, that's all. I mean,
there wasn't anything except that.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Now, I mean, come on, you, what do you want
you want to hit Charlie Parker or would you want
to hear uh into those guys understand.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Yes, so that's the way I was putting out completely.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
Yeah, but then the the Beatles and Stevie Wonder as
popular musicians felt much more on a similar plane, at
least to you.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
Yes, and in the terms of uh, the Beatles that
have a more rounded repertoire and sewing than the Romans showings. Yeah, okay,
the Roman Stones did ask me to do the tour
(41:03):
of that record that they had put out that I
would throwing tattoo.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
Yeah, that's it. After this last break, we'll be back
with the rest of my conversation with Sonny Robins. Would
you say, in a sense the different classes of saxophone
players from alto soprano, alto tenor baritone, I mean, were
those almost like weight classes in boxing in a sense.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Well, tenor saxophone took the prime feet because at one
time we had some beautiful Of course, we had the
great Charlie Parker, the Beaba Up Originator, and that really
(41:56):
shook everything up for a while. But then came the
tender Place, whole Train, Pitture, Gordon and what l Gray,
all these people, this guy's Funny Rowins, all these guys
(42:17):
so the Tender became the folkrom.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
I would say, it's almost as if because Charlie Parker
on Alto was just so groundbreaking and just so revered
that it almost in hindsight appears that everyone just kind
of took a different path after this, like maybe we
need to steer clear of the Alto And could that
have been what sort of made so many great players
(42:44):
coalesce around tenor.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
We also had the great Coleman Hawkins, a great Lester Young,
the great Ben Webster. Yeah, they're great, Showberry. These are
some great, great players. Now this led Charlie Parker have
(43:08):
it because Charlie Parker did what he did, which was
beyond instrumentation, So he was always Charlie Parker or Altough,
but Tender began to take pretty dominant position. We all
know we couldn't beat Charlie Parker, but we could be
(43:33):
less to Young h the great, great great rest to Young. Yeah,
so they each had their own place out though. Of
course we had Johnny Hodges, the great great auto player
from Duke Elgin's cooop, and we had Benny Carter, another
(43:58):
great great Alto player. If you played altough great like
these guys said, well, you would set nobody is going
to mess with Benny Carter. They could admit and my
him admit that he was first christ right. And when
(44:20):
it came to ten and wall I February had a
lot of feeble. My favorite the great Coleman Hawkins, but
also my other favorite was the great Less to Him,
both extremely different than this style for fill so so great.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
I just had a point of clarification. I read one place,
but I haven't been able to find it anywhere else
that you did play in Lionelhampton's band in the early fifties.
Did you ever play in Hampton's band when Quincy Jones
was in the band? No, no, okay.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
I didn't have a lot of big band experience because
just as I getting to be extremely famous, I started
playing with Small Ghost and so the big brands. In
a way, I am missed opportunity, but time just brought
(45:28):
me to be the one I never pardon with these guys.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
Yeah, what did you make of Quincy Jones? Because he's
someone who started in jazz and it never seemed to
leave him. It seemed like he always had a deep
love of jazz throughout his life, but would often go
out into other areas of music.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
Well, Quincy had a very wide relationship for jazz. I
remember when I first met Clint. We was playing in
Philadelphia and we were trying to get the last tray
coming to New York and get that last strain after
(46:12):
the last show his Philadelphia. Wow. Well boy, then you
rushed down to the station and to get that chrain.
Sometimes you caught it, sometimes you didn't. I remember with
Quincher he didn't catch it one night, a real uh
pain in the neck productive at the strain belly, Oh
(46:37):
at night. Good boy. He had a lot of composition
and winch He definitely made an impression.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
It seemed at first he really did want to be
an ace trumpet player, but at some point realized, well
I have all these other things that I like and
can do composing and arranging. And he did manage to
find his place, you know, even if it wasn't the
initial thing he set out for.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Yeah, I think that he wouldn't be filled that player.
I'm not certain, but she was. When I first got
involved with the Quince, he was playing trumpet in Diysy
Chalstree's orchestra. No I've never heard of him played trump
(47:27):
and half the best. I guess he began composer and
pay that took over.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah, he's a terrific a musician to listen musician.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
Did you guys keep in touch over the years.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Yeah, meet Quincey a lot of times at the White
House and places like that when he both be selected
at being extraordinary musician.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
So yeah, you guys received the Presidential Medal of Freedom
from Barack Obama.
Speaker 2 (48:06):
Yeah, and Quincey was probably the day. Yeah, I uh
remember one time I stay at the Fourth Seasons in
New York and he came Quincy. This was the time
of nine and eleven. Quincy came in with some other
(48:28):
people and the head on this in head the workers June.
So I gets through the writing something that had to
do with ninety eleven or something. But he wrote some
kind of music, probably commemorate. Yes, had a terrible incident
(48:51):
that happened to it.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Now, what about lou Donaldson?
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Did you cross past Lord Donaldson? Lord Donaldson was one
of my best saxophone this He was just a wonderful
a person, you know, as well as great The months
of days i't talking about had great, great talent, but
(49:19):
they were all twelve wonderful people that thought so great
about Chads. All of these guys were wonderful people. Loud Donaldson,
I wrote something I loved thing after he passed because
I felt so close to low But I never got
(49:41):
a change to see him in later years. But I
felt so close to because they were good friends in
the early years when he first came on the scene.
And uh, we knew each other the way back when
we used to follow a New York child had the
(50:04):
polo ground to New York. Wow, privilege drive into known,
Lord donalds mm hmm. While we're here, you better try
to be ready to be judged by something some way,
(50:28):
who knows where. But you let me judge. You met
me a good guy. I've seen guys that were not
so good, and I've seen some good guys anyway, Lord
Donald's ape us. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
After Quincy passed away, there was a quote circulating where
he said that early on he learned that your music
can ever be more or less than who you are
as a human being. And your comment that so many
of these jazz guys and guys were beautiful human beings,
I mean, the reason that I feel it seems it
(51:10):
must be the reason it's been able to last as
long as it has is because of the spirit that's
imbued in it from it's practitioners. It's really you guys
are really trying to relate to the human condition as
closely as you possibly could, you know, And it feels
that way still.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
Yeah, I don't know how it happened, but I mean,
I guess that's how it happened. We were so close
to the human condition through music is pretty great thing.
All of the guys I know who had a well
known musician were very nice people, very nice people. But
(51:55):
wasn't all of this stuff for gree Suddenly now you're
competing with this guy or in all this that was
not on. Once we played together, they realize, Man, this
guy must have really studied. He had a great natural
(52:17):
ability that only God give us. And yet there were
beautiful people. I wish there was something else besides that.
There's hull of fame to under these people from what
they are, from what they had to go through. They
were accepted in America. It took a while before everybody realized, wow,
(52:45):
we get that artistry. And now you know who was there.
Lou Donaldson's on Oh man, well it's stunistain. You know,
it's life. I don't control life. I just try to
live it right.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Well, we don't control we just experienced it. But it
does feel you know. Yeah, I mean since we spoke,
we lost those people and and and and also including
Roy Haynes.
Speaker 2 (53:13):
You know Roy Haynes, the guy that I never thought
would not be here. Yeah, well at least I thought
tithing out of Hanley, for he would.
Speaker 4 (53:29):
It's all they played with different order, first chairs honors
and uh he handswered the wonderful person out and and
uh through the great honor.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
No. Roy had to play with them on many occasions,
the uh great much of my music that I played,
I remember I did some nation of things and Roy
was there right on it and then help. I want
(54:05):
to thank Roy. Yes in faith I've been doing before,
I wouldn't do it now, man, thanks joys to being
being a great guy. Life is really I had to
go one dementia. We don't know much about it.
Speaker 1 (54:27):
Do you feel as time goes on you get more
comfortable with it not knowing?
Speaker 2 (54:31):
Oh? Yes I do. I do. Because I tried to
get more like a spiritual understanding of life. I have
learned a lot and it's comforted me through my uh
(54:52):
period of light. I'm just sorry I couldn't hang I
was telling my friends. But by being a musician, I've
reached a lot of people which I couldn't reach other
other than the your music. Yeah, and they hearing my music.
(55:13):
So I'm grateful, absolutely grateful, And whatever it is I'll
say soon I can send there for whole good. Whatever
happened to me in my life, with what has happened
(55:33):
to me and what's going to happen to me, it's
all good. Boy, have I have I been but enormous by.
Speaker 1 (55:46):
Well, thank you so much. I mean again, I would,
you know, love to give you a ring another time
and maybe were gonna have another conversation. He's a really
enlightening so thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (55:56):
Well, remember though I'm one of the last guys standing, well,
I am the last guy say so. It's a cop,
you know. Don't wait too long.
Speaker 1 (56:10):
All right, Thank you so much, sir.
Speaker 2 (56:13):
Okay man, God bless, I'll talk to you later.
Speaker 1 (56:18):
Thanks so much for Sunny Rollins, for getting on the
phone with me and reflecting back about some of his
colleagues and about his life and art. I'm so grateful
that we still have him here at the age of
ninety four. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at
the Broken Record Pod. You can follow us on Twitter
at broken Record. Broken Record is produced and edited by
Leah Rose, with marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan.
(56:41):
Our engineer is Ben Tolladay. Broken Record is a production
of Pushkin Industries. If you love this show and others
from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is
a podcast subscription that offers bonus content and athlete listening
for four ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus
on Apple podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show,
(57:04):
please remember to share, rate, and review us on your
podcast aff Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.
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