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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.

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
World
Together
Oasis
People
Littles
Messed
Music
Judged
Little
Bringing
Everything
Bits
Way
High
Think
Else
Thinking
Beautiful

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 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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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 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
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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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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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America is deeply rooted in Negro culture: its colloquialisms its humor its music.
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 never ends... it just continues.
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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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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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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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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Charlie Parker stuck out in my mind.
Sonny Rollins
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I'm now a legend, whether I want to be or not.
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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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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...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 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.
Sonny Rollins