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I think as long as people are around and can hear a record and hear people like Lester Young on a recording, there will always be a great inspiration for somebody to try to create jazz.

Sonny Rollins

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Sonny Rollins
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: September 7
Bandleader
Composer
Conductor
Jazz Musician
Saxophonist
Harlem
New York
Theodore Walter Rollins
Great
Record
Trying
Records
Long
Inspiration
Always
Somebody
Think
Hear
Thinking
Create
Lester
Like
Around
Recording
People
Young
Jazz

More quotes by Sonny Rollins

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I feel that Jazz improvisation is the ultimate. You have to create on the spot, the essence of this music.
Sonny Rollins
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America is deeply rooted in Negro culture: its colloquialisms its humor its music.
Sonny Rollins
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Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one's own.
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Music represents nature. Nature represents life. Jazz represents nature. Jazz is life.
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I enjoy playing clubs. I still enjoy the closeness of the nightclub venue. However, after a certain period of time and after playing around some of the clubs in New YorkI felt that jazz should be presented in a more prestigious atmosphere.
Sonny Rollins
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I think what we need is a more welcoming mode from the people who put on a hundred million country-western shows on television. How about a monthly jazz show?
Sonny Rollins
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...this is my dilemma. I'm a guy who makes things up as I go along, so nothing is ever finished - there are so many layers. So when you solo, yeah, you might get into one thing, but then, hey, everything has implications! You can hear the next level. And that's how I feel about improvising - there's always another level.
Sonny Rollins
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Charlie Parker stuck out in my mind.
Sonny Rollins
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I'll know when I find the ultimate sound.
Sonny Rollins
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I think we are in the midst of this period where we are committing this suicide on the planet and everybody is just using up all of our natural resources like a bunch of insane people. That's what I worry about more than I worry about jazz.
Sonny Rollins
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I feel that I have an obligation to jazz and also to myself to play as good as I can play.
Sonny Rollins
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Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be jazz.
Sonny Rollins
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I am interested in my music lasting only while I'm alive. I'm not writing for the future.
Sonny Rollins
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How ironic that the Negro, who more than any other people can claim America's culture as his own, is being persecuted and repressed that the Negro, who has exemplified the humanities in his very existence, is being rewarded with inhumanity.
Sonny Rollins
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I'm fortunate that I'm making a living at it now because I'm not equipped to do anything else.
Sonny Rollins
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I have seen great jazz musicians die obscure and drinking themselves to death and not really being able to get any work and working in small, funky jazz clubs.
Sonny Rollins
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I am a person who thinks about the music first in trying to achieve something musically valid.
Sonny Rollins
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Jazz has an audience all around the globe and has had for many decades, I think speaking of the United States, let's say that what we need is more of an official recognition.
Sonny Rollins
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I don't want to appear hostile, like I'm hostile to L.A. or that I feel that the people don't appreciate jazz. I don't think it's that. I think it's something more. It's something a little bit more complicated than that.
Sonny Rollins
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I've played with all of the heavyweights in the modern jazz, progressive jazz movement. I've been fortunate enough to play with them, a who's who. All of those guys, I've been fortunate enough to have performed with.
Sonny Rollins