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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
Thinking
Create
Lester
Like
Around
Recording
People
Young
Jazz
Great
Record
Trying
Records
Long
Inspiration
Always
Somebody
Think
Hear

More quotes by Sonny Rollins

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Charlie Parker stuck out in my mind.
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I am a person who thinks about the music first in trying to achieve something musically valid.
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I am interested in my music lasting only while I'm alive. I'm not writing for the future.
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I feel that Jazz improvisation is the ultimate. You have to create on the spot, the essence of this music.
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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.
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Music represents nature. Nature represents life. Jazz represents nature. Jazz is life.
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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.
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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.
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Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be jazz.
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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.
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There have been many great musicians that, Clifford Brown is one great example, I mean he died very early, 25.
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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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I'll know when I find the ultimate sound.
Sonny Rollins
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I'm now a legend, whether I want to be or not.
Sonny Rollins
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Jazz never ends... it just continues.
Sonny Rollins
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You had many jazz musicians who lived in the United States, who had a hard time being accepted over here and had to play in sort of these inferior type dives.
Sonny Rollins
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Jazz is an endless source of ideas, because you can use anything. You can play operatic arias. You can incorporate them into jazz. You can play gypsy music and incorporate it into jazz. You can European classical and you can incorporate it into jazz. You can use anything and jazz it up, as they used to say.
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America is deeply rooted in Negro culture: its colloquialisms its humor its music.
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'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