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The Saxophone Colossus is officially on bluesky! bsky.app/profile/theson…

Happy Birthday Jerome Kern! Here's his composition (with Dorothy Fields) "The Way You Look Tonight," recorded by Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk, Tommy Potter, and Arthur Taylor for Prestige Records in October 1954: youtube.com/watch?v=BVjakW…

"Jazz is a music of freedom... because we had to create. We had to fight. We had to struggle. We had to break down barriers. And that’s why jazz has something special." –S.R. to Paul Holdengräber of Literary Hub (2020)

Sonny Rollins performs his composition "John S."—code for John & Sonny, dedicated to his relationship with Coltrane (see A. Levy's Saxophone Colossus, p. 376)—w/ Jim Hall, Bob Cranshaw, and Ben Riley, recorded for the RCA LP The Bridge on this day in 1962: youtube.com/watch?v=1KW-dA…

Recorded on this day in 1963: "You Are My Lucky Star" by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, performed by Sonny Rollins with trumpeter Don Cherry, bassist Henry Grimes, and drummer Billy Higgins, released on the RCA Victor compilation 3 in Jazz: youtube.com/watch?v=6zKl9G…

"All time, rhythm, and harmony are pulsating, sounding, resounding, and happening according to the grand symphony which is constantly being played. All sounds, when discerned in this context, are rhythmically & harmonically involved and fit." The Notebooks of Sonny Rollins (NYRB)

Happy Birthday Ornette Coleman! "The same quality I heard in Ornette, I heard in Louis Armstrong and in Charlie Parker... I don't know how people compartmentalize music, but to me, jazz is jazz is jazz is jazz!" –S.R. (quoted in Aidan Levy's Saxophone Colossus, p. 258)

Oakland & Hammerstein's "I'll Take Romance," recorded by Kenny Dorham, Sonny Rollins, Bill Wallace, George Morrow, and Max Roach, for Roach's EmArcy LP "Jazz in 3/4 Time" on this date in 1957: youtube.com/watch?v=ue_ylG…

Happy Birthday Thad Jones! Here's the cornetist with Sonny Rollins, Bob Cranshaw, and Roy McCurdy, on Thelonious Monk's 52nd St. Theme, recorded for the 1964 RCA Victor album Now's the Time: youtube.com/watch?v=AwMgm4…

Jerry Brainin and Buddy Bernier's "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes," recorded by Sonny Rollins with guitarist Jim Hall, bassist Bob Cranshaw, and drummer Ben Riley for the RCA Victor LP What's New on this day in 1962: youtube.com/watch?v=zCJ3-Q…

Happy Birthday Freddie Hubbard! Here's the fiery trumpeter with Sonny Rollins, Elvin Jones, and Jimmy Garrison on the title track of the 1966 Impulse! LP East Broadway Run Down: youtube.com/watch?v=-hHXhn…

"We have to 'release' the music. We must be constantly alert for the sounds which will release the music... We then attune ourselves by intuition and a form of meditation into and with the music so that we become absorbed into its essence." —The Notebooks of Sonny Rollins (NYRB)

Happy Birthday Paul Chambers! Here's the bassist with Sonny Rollins, Red Garland, Philly Joe Jones on "Paul's Pal," from the 1956 Prestige LP Tenor Madness: youtube.com/watch?v=15om8R…

Happy Birthday to Edward Kennedy Ellington! Here's Duke's composition "Solitude," performed by Sonny Rollins, Ray Brown and Shelly Manne, recorded for the Contemporary LP Way Out West in 1957: youtu.be/RVNCkDmKqJ4?si…

Happy Birthday Ron Carter! Here's the bassist with Sonny Rollins, Herbie Hancock, and Roy McCurdy on John Lewis' "Afternoon in Paris," recorded for the RCA Victor LP Now's the Time in 1964: youtube.com/watch?v=tc-5b1…

"5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Sonny Rollins": Melissa Aldana, Joshua Redman, Aidan Levy, Jack DeJohnette and others pick their favorites: nytimes.com/2025/05/07/art…

Sonny Rollins plays his composition "Jungoso," recorded for the RCA Victor LP What's New on this day in 1962, with bassist Bob Cranshaw and percussionist Candido, who called the session "a conversation without telephone." (Saxophone Colossus, p. 380) youtube.com/watch?v=6ehI4s…

Happy Birthday Fats Waller! After first hearing this track, as Sonny Rollins told Larry Appelbaum of the Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Project, "I knew I wanted to play jazz... It makes you feel that there is a God, and that things are okay." youtu.be/f8SB0-BV4r0?si…

Happy Birthday Miles Davis! “Miles was a seeker… he didn’t just go the way other people were going, he had his own approach.” –S.R. (2007) Here he is with Sonny Rollins on Bud Powell's "Tempus Fugit" from the Blue Note album Birdland 1951: youtube.com/watch?v=ZiwFBa…

"Al [Foster] and I were Harlem Boys. We had a great time hanging out together. Many, many good times." -S.R. youtube.com/watch?v=NqEvfq…