On Dec. 17, 1951, Sonny Rollins entered a studio for his first session as bandleader. The tenor saxophonist, then 21 years old, had already recorded with the likes of Miles Davis. Within days, and for ...

Sonny Rollins with Don Cherry and Henry Grimes at the Stockholm Concert Hall, Jan. 17, 1963. Credit: Courtesy of The Centre for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research and Inger Stjerna At the age of 92, ...

Aidan Levy’s much anticipated new book, Saxophone Colossus: The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins, a moving and meticulously researched 784-page biography seven years in the making, chronicles the ...

Aidan Levy has written a revealing, comprehensive biography of the improviser-hero Sonny Rollins. By Ben Ratliff When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate ...

Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Hill Auditorium was filled Saturday evening as the University Musical Society opened its 12th ...

Even after memorizing all of Sonny Rollins’ solos on his groundbreaking album, “Saxophone Colossus,” reading every interview and watching every documentary he could find, writer Aidan Levy was hungry ...

The following is an excerpt from Chapter 23 "The Bridge" from Aidan Levy's Saxophone Colossus: The Life And Music Of Sonny Rollins (Hachette Books, 2023). On September 7, 1960, Sonny turned thirty.

The great saxophonist Sonny Rollins has been an iconic figure in jazz for nearly sixty years but has never been the subject of a proper biography. This book does not fill that void either but is a ...

Sonny Rollins has approached his music the past 30 years or so with a safety net securely under him, playing with musicians whose No. 1 job is to make him look good. The last living tenor sax oracle ...

America didn’t invent improvisation, but it seems to have held the patent for generations. Even if, as many presume these days, the nation’s democracy is imperiled, its promise of unlimited ...

Too many people like to wordplay around with sex and sax, as in “there’s nothing like good sax,” et cetera. A deeper reason than simple homonymity exists. What Homer Simpson calls the sax-a-mo-phone ...