And it’s not just Rollins’ ability to play the lung-bursting theme from “Best Wishes” more than 30 times without ever repeating himself that makes him great. Anyone not moved by his tender ...

Growing up in 1940s Harlem, Sonny Rollins idolized swing-era heavyweights like Coleman Hawkins and jump-blues saxophonists like Louis Jordan. But when he heard Charlie Parker and the torrid ...

ROLLINS: Thank you. GROSS: My interview with Sonny Rollins was recorded in 1994. Today is his 90th birthday. I send my best birthday wishes to Sonny Rollins and thank him for our interview and for ...

Rollins’s playing, as on the opening track, “Best Wishes,” is only intermittently imaginative. He exerts himself mightily, as if to achieve with brute power what could not be attained with ...

The Very Best Of Sonny Rollins concentrates on what can be considered his traditional or classic period, 1953-58. Culled from his time with the Riverside, Prestige, and Contemporary labels ...

It's not easy being a giant. Just ask Sonny Rollins, who, for decades, has tried to live up to the billing as one of the truly big men of jazz. When he turned 75 this year, his record label marked ...