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Jazz never ends... it just continues.

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
Continues
Jazz
Ends
Never

More quotes by 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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I am a person who thinks about the music first in trying to achieve something musically valid.
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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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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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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I'll know when I find the ultimate sound.
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.
Sonny Rollins
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There have been many great musicians that, Clifford Brown is one great example, I mean he died very early, 25.
Sonny Rollins
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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.
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
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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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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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Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one's own.
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 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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Music represents nature. Nature represents life. Jazz represents nature. Jazz is life.
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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Jazz is the type of music that can absorb so many things and still be jazz.
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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I feel that Jazz improvisation is the ultimate. You have to create on the spot, the essence of this music.
Sonny Rollins