![]() ![]() It is unlikely anyone will pen anything about Rollins, and maybe any other jazz musician, that will be its equal.” - NYS Music ![]() ![]() “A wonderful detailed and insightful journey through the life of an incredible artist and thinker. Saxophone Colossus does what the best biographies do: Gives you enough information to pursue your own lines of inquiry.” - Point of Departure “A long book allows for a luxurious detail. “There’s no doubt that SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS will be a great resource for future jazz scholars.” - Nelson George Mixtape “Read it you must.a remarkable read.”- Marlbank “ exhaustive, definitive biography.”- Air Mail “An incredibly deep, well-researched and thoughtfully written biography.” “Aidan Levy’s indefatigable research and interviewing process has allowed him to fill SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS with a vast chorus of voices.” Rollins’s history together in poignant ways.”- Wall Street Journal “Levy paints a vivid picture…Throughout SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS he weds his extensive research to a feel for detail and narrative the book is certainly long, but it has too much great reporting to be dry.”- Los Angeles Times a brimming and organized compendium, something to keep returning to like Rollins’s records…” - New York Times **Jazz Journalists Association's Jazz Awards, Biography/Autobiography of the Year (2022)** **Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award (2023)**.Part jazz oral history told in the musicians’ own words, part chronicle of one man’s quest for social justice and spiritual enlightenment, this is the definitive biography of one of the most enduring and influential artists in jazz and American history. The story of Sonny Rollins-innovative, unpredictable, larger than life-is the story of jazz itself, and Sonny’s own narrative is as timeless and timely as the art form he represents. He returned to performing from 1971 until his retirement in 2012. In 1968, he left again to study at an ashram in India. In 1959, Rollins took a two-year sabbatical from recording and performing, practicing up to 16 hours a day on the Williamsburg Bridge. He served two sentences on Rikers Island and won his battle with heroin addiction. Yet his meteoric rise to fame was not without its challenges. An icon in his own right, he recorded Tenor Madness, featuring John Coltrane Way Out West Freedom Suite, the first civil rights-themed album of the hard bop era A Night at the Village Vanguard and the 1956 classic Saxophone Colossus. A child of the Harlem Renaissance, Rollins’ precocious talent landed him on the bandstand and in the recording studio with Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie, or playing opposite Billie Holiday. His seven-decade career has been well documented, but the backstage life of the man once called “the only jazz recluse” has gone largely untold-until now.īased on more than 200 interviews with Rollins himself, family members, friends, and collaborators, as well as Rollins’ extensive personal archive, Saxophone Colossus is the comprehensive portrait of this legendary saxophonist and composer, civil rights activist and environmentalist. A bridge from bebop to the avant-garde, he is a lasting link to the golden age of jazz, pictured in the iconic “Great Day in Harlem” portrait. Known as the “Saxophone Colossus,” he is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz improvisers of all time, winning Grammys, the Austrian Cross of Honor, Sweden’s Polar Music Prize and a National Medal of Arts. Sonny Rollins has long been considered an enigma. The long-awaited first full biography of legendary jazz saxophonist and composer Sonny Rollins ![]()
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