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Sonny Rollins (1930-2026)

Word came through yesterday that Sonny Rollins had passed away at the age of 95 — a titan of 20th century music, a real American hero, a wonderfully strange person who shared so much with us over the course of a long life. There's so much to dig into when it comes to Sonny, whether it's his 60+ year discography, the fascinating recent biography by Aidan Levy, or his revealing notebooks, which NYRB published in 2024. Decades upon decades in search of some elusive perfection, a combination of notes and rhythm that passes beyond all understanding. A holy sound.

One of my favorite Sonny situations is a late 1960s BBC doc that you can watch on Vimeo. Entitled Who Is Sonny Rollins?, it follows Sonny from the Williamsburg Bridge to a New Jersey forest, the camerawork evocative and intimate, Rollins’ playing always imaginative and inspiring. Best of all is an extended sequence that shows Sonny showing up at a youth jazz band rehearsal in Harlem. He seems as serious playing a wild, almost atonal blues with the kids as he'd be at Lincoln Center. Who was Sonny Rollins? I don't know, but he was amazing.

Sonny Says: [I]t’s a journey because I haven’t felt comfortable to say that I’ve reached my goal. If I did, I’d be happy—maybe I wouldn’t be happy; maybe then I’d be sad because I wouldn’t have anything to strive for. But it hasn’t happened ... I still feel that I haven’t gotten to what I want to get to. I’m really hoping that I get there, but there’s no doubt in my mind that I haven’t done enough. I haven’t gotten to something that I know is there.

umarell

achillesinhighheels

womantoday

Danai Gurira, CCH Pounder, Kerry Washington, Carmen Ejogo, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Ava DuVernay, Zoe Saldaña, Rosario Dawson, Nicole Beharie, Anika Noni Rose

LaTanya Richardson, Angela Bassett, Marianne Jean-Baptise, Loretta Devine, Emayatzy Corinealdi, Lorraine Toussaint, Viola Davis, Jurnee Smollett, Margaret Avery

Lynn Whitfield, Kim Wayans, Khandi Alexander, Aisha Tyler, Yolonda Ross {February 18, 2015}

papermagazine

“Another stud she has fond thoughts of is the beloved John F. Kennedy Jr., with whom she schmoozed when she was invited to perform at a high-tone Whitney Museum event earlier this year. Brown says John-John came right up to her and told her he loved her music. “Shut up,” she responded with her usual shyness. “You don’t listen to rap!” “No, I don’t listen to rap,” he admitted, “but I listen to you,” and he proved it by going into a few bars of “Hot Spot”: “You can catch me at the Hot Spot / I fox, I plot at the bar y'all / All night, I pops.” John-John Kennedy rapping – what an only-in-New York moment! The next voice Brown heard was Carolyn Bessette Kennedy’s, conspiratorially murmuring in the rapper’s ear, “Let’s grab his credit card and go crazy at Gucci!” – Michael Musto on Foxy Brown’s A+++-list audience in Paper, 1999.

junkfoodcinemas

Rush Hour 2 (2001) dir. Brett Ratner

digg

tenaflyviper

If you can’t find a place on your blog for Patrick Stewart in a bathtub dressed like a lobster, then your blog probably doesn’t deserve such majesty anyway.