Saxophone Colossus: The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins

by Aidan Levy

Overview

**Winner of the American Book Award (2023)**

​**Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award (2023)**




The long-awaited first full biography of legendary jazz saxophonist and composer Sonny Rollins 

Sonny Rollins has long been considered an enigma. 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. 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. 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. 

Based 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 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. 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. 

Yet his meteoric rise to fame was not without its challenges. He served two sentences on Rikers Island and won his battle with heroin addiction. In 1959, Rollins took a two-year sabbatical from recording and performing, practicing up to 16 hours a day on the Williamsburg Bridge. In 1968, he left again to study at an ashram in India. He returned to performing from 1971 until his retirement in 2012.  

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. 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780306902802
Publisher:	Hachette Books
Publication date:	11/14/2023
Pages:	800
Sales rank:	336,438
Product dimensions:	8.90(w) x 5.90(h) x 2.20(d)

About the Author

Aidan Levy is the author of Dirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed and editor of Patti Smith on Patti Smith: Interviews and Encounters. A former Leon Levy Center for Biography Fellow, his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Village Voice, JazzTimes, and The Nation. 

Table of Contents

Part 1

Chapter 1 St. Eustarius (1864-1930) 3

Chapter 2 Harlem (1930-1938) 9

Chapter 3 The Hill (1938-1944) 24

Chapter 4 The Street (1944-1946) 45

Chapter 5 Annapolis (1946) 45

Chapter 6 The Monastery of San Juan Hill (1946-1947) 72

Chapter 7 Goof Square (1947-1948) 85

Chapter 8 Professor Bop (1948-1949) 103

Chapter 9 Chicago via Montreal (1950) 118

Chapter 10 Birdland (1951) 127

Chapter 11 Carvin' the Rock (1952) 152

Chapter 12 Collectors' Items (1953-1954) 158

Chapter 13 Hackensack (1954) 172

Chapter 14 The Beehive (1954-1955) 180

Chapter 15 Brown-Roach Incorporated (1955-1956) 196

Chapter 16 Saxophone Colossus (1956) 219

Chapter 17 I Remember Clifford (1956) 227

Chapter 18 Way Out West (1957) 247

Chapter 19 A Night at the Village Vanguard (1957) 266

Chapter 20 The Freedom Suite (1958) 283

Chapter 21 The Road (1958) 307

Chapter 22 Finding the Bridge (1959-1960) 317

Chapter 23 The Bridge (1960-1961) 339

Part 2

Chapter 24 After the Bridge (1961-1962) 363

Chapter 25 Sonny Meets Hawk (1963) 393

Chapter 26 Now's the Time (1964) 422

Chapter 27 Ronnie Scott's (1965) 442

Chapter 28 89 East Broadway (1966) 463

Chapter 29 Who Is Sonny Rollins? (1967) 484

Chapter 30 Sandeepany Sadhanalaya (1968) 499

Chapter 31 Musart (1969-1970) 511

Chapter 32 Satchmo Love-mo (1971) 523

Chapter 33 Next Album (1972-1973) 533

Chapter 34 The Cutting Edge (1974-1975) 552

Chapter 35 The Way I Feel (1976-1977) 568

Chapter 36 Don't Stop the Carnival (1978-1979) 583

Chapter 37 The Stones (1980) 600

Chapter 38 Passing the Torch (1981-1983) 613

Chapter 39 Who by Fire (1984-1989) 634

Chapter 40 Here's to the People (1990-1996) 662

Chapter 41 Old Flames (1997-2012) 682

Chapter 42 The Big Picture and the Little Picture (2012-) 707

Acknowledgments 717

Notes 727

Index 729

Editorial Reviews

**Winner of the American Book Award (2023)**

**Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award (2023)**

**Jazz Journalists Association's Jazz Awards, Biography/Autobiography of the Year (2022)**

Boston Globe, "Best Books of 2022"

WBGO, "Jazz Lovers' Gift Guide"

“A revealing, comprehensive biography... [and] a brimming and organized compendium, something to keep returning to like Rollins’s records…” —New York Times

“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

"[Author Aidan Levy] distills essential truths... and ties strands of Mr. Rollins’s history together in poignant ways.”—Wall Street Journal

“Aidan Levy’s indefatigable research and interviewing process has allowed him to fill SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS with a vast chorus of voices.”
 —The Wire

"A figure of such heroic stature deserves a monument worthy of him. And until something even larger and more expansive comes along, Aidan Levy’s new biography of Rollins will do nicely… an admiring yet clear-eyed chronicle.”

—The Nation

“An incredibly deep, well-researched and thoughtfully written biography.”
 —DownBeat

“[An] exhaustive, definitive biography.”—Air Mail

“Read it you must....a remarkable read.”—Marlbank

“There’s no doubt that SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS will be a great resource for future jazz scholars.” —Nelson George Mixtape

“A long book allows for a luxurious detail....Saxophone Colossus does what the best biographies do: Gives you enough information to pursue your own lines of inquiry.” —Point of Departure

"Monumental."—WICN "Inquiry"

“A wonderful detailed and insightful journey through the life of an incredible artist and thinker.  It is unlikely anyone will pen anything about Rollins, and maybe any other jazz musician, that will be its equal.” —NYS Music

“A memorable work that will become the standard biography of the saxophone giant and should be embraced by all jazz fans and general readers. Highly recommended.”—Library Journal

“[Saxophone Colossus is filled with]...precise and ravishing descriptions of Rollins’ music, ‘tireless work ethic,’ inspirations, frustrations with the record industry, social and environmental activism, and surprising collaborations.”

—Booklist

"[The] definitive account of a jazz icon."

—Kirkus

“Moving and meticulously researched.” —Publishers Weekly

“Scrupulous and exhaustive... Levy comes as close to the enigma of Rollins as any biographer could.” —Telegraph (UK)

“Rollins has never deviated from the obsessive nature of his calling. He’s found a like-minded biographer, who paints pictures with words as adeptly as Rollins did with his saxophone. Subject and author deserve each other.” —iPaper (UK)

“Sonny Rollins told stories through his horn.  His ‘telling,’ no matter how intricate or elaborate, was always pure, honest, and vulnerable, while the storyteller himself remained elusive and intangible.  Until now.  In Aidan Levy, Mr. Rollins has found his chronicler, an immensely talented writer whose lyricism, mastery, and dedication to truth matches that of his subject.  The result is an opera, a calypso, a magnificent symphony that captures All of Him: Sonny, Newk, Theodore, Wally, Brung Biji, and the one and only Saxophone Colossus.”—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original

"When I was a boy, I knew nothing of Sonny Rollins, the man, but his music set me free. Now, forty-some-odd years later, this book has gifted me a profound, almost revelatory, appreciation of all it took for our singularly Great American Improviser to exist, to persist, to survive, to thrive, to comprehend, to transcend, to create, to liberate, to be — at once the towering, omnipotent, immortal Colossus and the humble, gentle, questioning, questing human. Sonny Rollins has always been the master storyteller of the jazz idiom. What an illuminative joy it is to finally read the story of his own life so exhaustively and engagingly told."—Joshua Redman, Grammy-nominated saxophonist, composer, and educator

“Sonny Rollins is the most acclaimed and celebrated jazz musician alive. His fearless creativity and willingness to test his limits are the stuff of leg- ends, as are his modesty, discipline and self-criticism. With deep research and meticulous documentation, Levy, with the aid of Rollins, gives us a revelatory and richer picture of the man and his era. A colossus of a book.” —John Szwed, author of Space Is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra and So What: The Life of Miles Davis

“In this forensically researched biography of an American hero, the elusive Sonny Rollins stands revealed not only as the great Jazz Maker but a man of profundity and passions. By combining the story of his rise as a Saxophone Colossus with a picture of the Black artist in an age when social progress was not necessarily a given, Levy has produced a memorable book.”—Val Wilmer, author of As Serious As Your Life: Black Music and the Free Jazz Revolution, 1957-1977

“The life and music of Sonny Rollins as chronicled by acclaimed author Aidan Levy is an insightful view into the daily struggles, achievements and spiritual journey of whom I like to refer to as the ‘Maestro di Maestri,’ Mr. Sonny Rollins. All I can say is:
II: READ LISTEN LISTEN READ  :II  
You will be enlightened as I am.”
 —Joe Lovano, saxophonist, composer, producer, educator and Grammy winner

"Aidan Levy has provided the jazz world and beyond an important documentation of one of the greatest musicians of all time. Sonny Rollins spoke his own language through the saxophone—just check out his solo on 'Alfie'! And Saxophone Colossus provides for us in words a portal to deeper understanding of this legendary jazz giant!"—Terri Lyne Carrington, Grammy-winning drummer, producer, and composer

“[The] authoritative book on Rollins . . . among the best-researched books ever devoted to jazz.” —Lewis Porter, Grammy-nominated pianist, composer, educator, and author of John Coltrane: His Life and Music and Playback with Lewis Porter

From the Publisher

★ 12/01/2022

Levy's (Dirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed) biography of saxophone great Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins (b. 1930) meticulously moves from year to year with material gleaned from 200 interviews and much-neglected sources. He describes Sonny's childhood, his start on the saxophone, and his initial professional success with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk that drug abuse and short prison stints partly tarnished. Levy continues with Rollins's drug-free brilliance during the mid-to-late 1950s, his two-year disappearance from the scene, and his triumphant return in the early 1960s with five classic albums. The last part of this monumental book focuses on Rollins's symbiotic relationship with wife Lucille and his creative, intense, never-ending, and spiritual search for jazz perfection during the next 50 years. This includes his hesitant appearance on the Rolling Stones album, Tattoo You, and his musical battles with Wynton and Branford Marsalis. Throughout, Levy vividly illuminates the clubs, jazz artists, record labels, and such burning social issues as racism and the 9/11 bombing near his home that enveloped, shaped, and motivated Rollins. VERDICT A memorable work that will become the standard biography of the saxophone giant and should be embraced by all jazz fans and general readers. Highly recommended.—Dr. Dave Szatmary

Library Journal

2022-10-05
A colossally detailed account of the legendary saxophonist.

In this meticulously researched biography of Sonny Rollins (b. 1932), Levy, the author of Dirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed, documents a 65-year career through conversations drawn from nearly everyone who interacted with Rollins. The saxophonist’s central place in the history of jazz means that he played with a list of luminaries that spans generations. We hear about his interactions with early idols like Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young, his work with contemporaries Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk, and his later mentorship of younger players like the Marsalis brothers. While completists will be thrilled with the in-depth chronicle of exactly which songs were played with which musicians at which concert dates, others will find that these frequent asides make the text read like a very long track list. Levy’s obsession with complete documentation also means that we only come to appreciate Rollins’ fascinating personality through the sheer weight of repeated anecdotes instead of synthesis on the part of his biographer. The portrait of Rollins the activist, yogi, and perfectionist genius that emerges frequently borders on hagiography, though the author gradually manages to convey the essence of an artist driven by a relentless spiritual quest to improve himself. Fans who are only familiar with Rollins’ late-1950s hard-bop golden age (particularly the classic album from which the book’s title is drawn) will be delighted to discover more about his later evolution. In fact, Levy's greatest contribution is his extensive account of the dissatisfaction that led to Rollins’ decision to practice on the Williamsburg Bridge for more than a year as well as the attention paid to the less-well-known work that followed. In this sense, Levy’s book counts as a success, since its endless supply of superlatives can still inspire and guide readers to listen afresh to Rollins’ huge catalog of recordings.

A definitive account of a jazz icon in which the level of detail will interest only superfans.

Kirkus Reviews