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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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Sonny Rollins
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: September 7
Bandleader
Composer
Conductor
Jazz Musician
Saxophonist
Harlem
New York
Theodore Walter Rollins
Work
Musician
Really
Seen
Small
Funky
Dies
Obscure
Working
Musicians
Death
Clubs
Able
Drinking
Great
Jazz

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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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It's all about creation and surprise. It just needs to be appreciated and watered like flowers. You have to water flowers. These peaks will come again.
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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?
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There was a period which I refer to as the 'Golden Age of Jazz,' which sort of encompasses the middle Thirties through the Sixties, we had a lot of great innovators, all creating things which will last the world for a long, long time.
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America is deeply rooted in Negro culture: its colloquialisms its humor its music.
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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.
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Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one's own.
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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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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.
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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'm now a legend, whether I want to be or not.
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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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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Music represents nature. Nature represents life. Jazz represents nature. Jazz is life.
Sonny Rollins
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I'll know when I find the ultimate sound.
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 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.
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Jazz never ends... it just continues.
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I think music should be judged on what it is. It should be very high and above everything else. It is a beautiful way of bringing people together, a little bit of an oasis in this messed-up world.
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I miss playing with Miles. I did play with him a little while before he left the planet, but even at that time I longed to maybe do some things together.
Sonny Rollins