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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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Sonny Rollins
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: September 7
Bandleader
Composer
Conductor
Jazz Musician
Saxophonist
Harlem
New York
Theodore Walter Rollins
Feel
Feels
Good
Obligation
Jazz
Also
Play

More quotes by Sonny Rollins

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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 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.
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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 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 have been many great musicians that, Clifford Brown is one great example, I mean he died very early, 25.
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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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America is deeply rooted in Negro culture: its colloquialisms its humor its music.
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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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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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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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Improvisation is the ability to create something very spiritual, something of one's own.
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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I'm now a legend, whether I want to be or not.
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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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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Music represents nature. Nature represents life. Jazz represents nature. Jazz is life.
Sonny Rollins
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Charlie Parker stuck out in my mind.
Sonny Rollins
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I'll know when I find the ultimate sound.
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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Jazz never ends... it just continues.
Sonny Rollins