Sonny Rollins interview on Open Source - April 5, 2007

[CTC Command]

"Sonny Rollins, the saxophone colossus, 50 years later, and still blowing us away: not only with his music but with the amazing way he has modeled a humble life of self-improvement and learning.

Sonny Rollins blew us away as jazz-eared tykes with his Saxophone Colossus album in 1956: it introduced the big virile Coleman Hawkins sound of his horn, also his story-telling authenticity with a marvelous Caribbean folk tune like “St. Thomas” (which he was said to have learned on his mother’s knee), and the fine-tuned intimacy of his duets with other colossi — in this case Max Roach on drums and Tommy Flanagan on piano.

To this day, a half century later, Sonny Rollins keeps blowing us away not only with his records but with the amazing way he has modeled a humble life of self-improvement. Almost as famous as Rollins himself is his long spell of self-exile from 1959 to 1962 on New York City’s Williamsburg Bridge, where he played his way into new understanding and mastery of his music, and conceived among many other things The Bridge.

“To me it’s always been a learning thing,” Sonny Rollins still says. Though he made mature recordings, like Time on My Hands in his early twenties, Sonny Rollins has long thought of himself as one whose dedication to music came a little late, not least because he’d so enjoyed himself as a cartoonist and painter in high school. Exposed early to the genius generation of Thelonius Monk and Bud Powell, he has said: “I didn’t have a lot of confidence that I was good enough to make it.”

And here he is in his mid-Seventies, exceeding his studio performances with unbearably exciting live performances on tour (stopping at Boston’s Symphony Hall on Friday), and deigning to be interviewed, live, Thursday afternoon on Open Source..."

Listen to it live April 5, 2007 at 7 PM EDST (like beginning 3 minutes ago) here, or anytime with this permanent link here