Music Talk: RIP, Sonny Rollins

Sonny Rollins passed a couple of weeks ago.

I happened upon him (and, thereby, Jazz) by accident when I was in my 20s. I sometimes did concert security and door duty for shows and clubs when they had live music. In doing so, I got to know the DJs at the local rock station in New Haven, CT.

One perk of that was I had pretty open access to concert tickets, as long as I was open to whatever was at hand. I could just call up one of my DJ friends and ask what he had tickets for, and if I was interested, he’d leave me the tickets and I could go for free. Not a bad deal. I got to see the Pretenders, Violent Femmes, Tom Petty, and Suzanne Vega, among others, at venues around Connecticut and sometimes Manhattan. It was just a matter of what he had in hand, promotional tickets that hadn’t been given away yet, etc.

So one time on a Thursday, I called Sam T (rest in peace, my friend), and said “hey man, you got anything for me this weekend, maybe tomorrow?”

“I don’t know man, I got Todd Rundgren coming into the station today and everyone has their heads up their asses. Let me look and I’ll call you back.”

He did, in fact, remove everyone heads from where they were deposited, and called me back.

“I don’t have much, man… I got Sonny Rollins at a place in Greenwich Village. He’s playing in Hartford next week and his agent is spreading tickets around I guess”

I was nonplussed.

“The f*** is Sonny Rollins?”

Sam was silent on the phone for a few seconds… I actually thought he’s been cut off… and then…

“Man… I can’t even talk to you right now. If you’re going to ask me that, I might have to disown your ignorant white ass. Come get these tickets and get to the city. You NEED to do this.”

I shrugged after he hung up. It was an easy train ride to the city, I could get a big stupid pastrami sandwich at Carnegie and go see whatever-this-was. I called my friend who I often went these shows with. He asked the same ignorant question I did, but agreed to meet up at the train station tomorrow night.

So, after a train ride, a belly full of pastrami (rest in peace, Carnegie Diner), I ended up at a blues club down in the village. It was a small place, but one of those that’s actually bigger inside than it looked outside.

We got in and sat down and a very tall man came out with a tenor saxophone ( I knew what this was only because I had a friend who played sax). There was a bass player and a drummer with him, and a guy on a stool who played guitar, but not in every song. As he was tuning up and sound checking, I realized this was probably going to be jazz. I didn’t really have any opinion about jazz, had listened to very little of it. But based on the hipsters all around me, this seemed like I’d stepped back in time.

Sonny was incredible. Life changing, really. it’s a simple thing to say I’d never heard anything like that (of course I hadn’t), but what I really want to say is I didn’t even know anything like that existed. My friend was bored, being more attuned to, say, Peter Frampton and The Who. But I didn’t even know what to do with it. I specifically remember him playing St Thomas. If you don’t know it, stop reading my bullshit and go listen to it. Right now.

I was so blown away, in fact, that I went home to my audiophile stepfather and told him I’d just seen Sonny Rollins live, and what did he know about that? I’d be interested in hearing more.

“Oh? Well, come with me…” he said. And I went deep dive, learned about Sonny, the Coltrane, then the beboppers like Bird and Dizz… spent a good few years learning about jazz. I’ve never been the same.

To this day, though, when I need to fix in that direction, I pull up Sonny… Saxaphone Collosus and Freedom Suite from the 50s, The Way I Feel in the 70s, and even Global Warming in 98.

Sonny Rollins was a genius, and I was incredibly Lottery Lucky to have gotten my ignorant white ass to the city to see him, especially in such a small venue. It’s something I’ll never forget and changed my relationship with music and art in general.

He passed a couple weeks ago, as I mentioned. He was 95. I’m lucky to have even been alive at the same time as someone like that, much less having seen him play live.

I’ve seen Paul Austerlitz play St Thomas at Ploughman and it made my entire week.  Go on your apple music and look up Sonny Rollins, Saxaphone Collosus. Close your eyes (not while driving, please), and just listen to it without any assumptions. Then go get it on vinyl and do it again. You won’t be sorry.

Rest Easy, Sonny. I can’t thank you enough.