The world has gone flat. The saxophone has been silenced. Sonny Rollins, the colossus of jazz, the man who made his tenor sax roar like a lion and whisper like a lover, has died at 95. I’m not crying, you’re crying. Actually, I’m crying into a glass of gin that is now officially the only thing in this newsroom with any soul left.
Rollins wasn’t just a musician, he was a force of nature. A man who could turn a simple melody into a labyrinth of emotion, who could play a note and make it sound like the universe was having a conversation with itself. He was the bridge between bebop and the avant-garde, the man who famously took a sabbatical to practice on the Williamsburg Bridge, because why not? When you’re Sonny Rollins, even a bridge becomes a stage.
His albums, like ‘Saxophone Colossus’ and ‘The Bridge’, are not just records, they are sacred texts. They are the sound of a man wrestling with angels and demons, and occasionally winning. He outlasted the critics, the trends, the fickle gods of fashion, to become a living legend. And now, a dead one. But legends never truly die. They just get reissued in mono.
I remember seeing him at the Village Vanguard in 2007, a gnarled sage blowing fire from his horn. The room was packed with acolytes, all of us knowing we were in the presence of greatness. He didn’t just play. he commanded. He made the air itself vibrate with meaning. And now that air is just air again. Damn it.
The obituaries will talk about his Grammy, his National Medal of Arts, his Presidential Medal of Freedom. They will mention his influence on everyone from John Coltrane to Branford Marsalis. But what they won't tell you is that Sonny Rollins was the reason jazz didn’t become a museum piece. He kept it alive, snarling, sweating, swinging, right up until the end.
So pour one out. Or better yet, put on ‘St. Thomas’ and let the man’s spirit wash over you. The saxophone has been silenced, but the echo lingers. And I, for one, am going to go find a bridge to play my imaginary saxophone on. Goodbye, Sonny. You will be missed, but never forgotten. And if there is a heaven, it now has the best rhythm section in the universe.
