Quote

Charlie Parker stuck out in my mind.

Sonny Rollins

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Sonny Rollins
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: September 7
Bandleader
Composer
Conductor
Jazz Musician
Saxophonist
Harlem
New York
Theodore Walter Rollins
Parker
Charlie
Stuck
Mind

More quotes by Sonny Rollins

Image
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
Image
I'll know when I find the ultimate sound.
Sonny Rollins
Image
...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
Image
I am a person who thinks about the music first in trying to achieve something musically valid.
Sonny Rollins
Image
I feel that I have an obligation to jazz and also to myself to play as good as I can play.
Sonny Rollins
Image
Music represents nature. Nature represents life. Jazz represents nature. Jazz is life.
Sonny Rollins
Image
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
Image
Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one's own.
Sonny Rollins
Image
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
Image
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.
Sonny Rollins
Image
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
Image
America is deeply rooted in Negro culture: its colloquialisms its humor its music.
Sonny Rollins
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I feel that Jazz improvisation is the ultimate. You have to create on the spot, the essence of this music.
Sonny Rollins
Image
Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be jazz.
Sonny Rollins
Image
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
Image
I'm now a legend, whether I want to be or not.
Sonny Rollins