Sonny Rollins Interview (page: 2 / 8) Greatest Living Jazz Soloist	Print Interview

Did you take to the horn right away? Was there something inside of you that just responded to this instrument?

Sonny Rollins: Well, I listened to a lot of music, and I became enamored of this fellow Louis Jordan. He had a rhythm and blues band, I guess you would call it today. My uncle's girlfriend had a lot of his records. My uncle used to take care of me a lot, quite a bit. In fact, I loved going to my Uncle Reuben and Lizzie, his girlfriend. I loved going there because he would take me to these cowboy movies and then I would hear this music. She had all of these old blues records, guitar players like Arthur Crudup and Lonnie Johnson. So I loved it when my uncle had to take care of me in the day sometimes. Anyway, I listened to Louis Jordan. Also, just as a coincidence...

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Louis Jordan was playing in the club right next to my elementary school in Harlem, and every day, coming out of school, I would see these 8 by 10s with Louis Jordan. He had on the cutaway tuxedo, and the shiny horn, and the white bowtie, the whole thing, you know. So boy, I said, "This is what I am going to be. This is what I want to be, a saxophone player." And I liked his music. So I sort of decided pretty early that that's what I wanted to do.

Who else influenced you?

Sonny Rollins: You mean in the musical sense?

In any realm, in any way.

Sonny Rollins: Well, okay. I was influenced also besides -- well...

Get the Flash Player to see this video. In the musical realm, I had Coleman Hawkins. After Louis Jordan, I began to gravitate to a more sophisticated -- I might put it that way -- not comparing the two, but Coleman Hawkins had a more intellectual approach maybe to music. He played a lot of very difficult things. So he really became my idol. I wanted to play tenor, and had alto before. So anyway, in the musical field, I would say those were my early idols -- saxophone. I always loved Fats Waller, because I heard him as a boy, and I just loved anything he did.

[ Key to Success ] Passion

Other than that...

Get the Flash Player to see this video. My grandmother was what you may call a black activist. She was involved with Marcus Garvey. You know, Marcus Garvey and the Communist Party, all these things were sort of lumped together. I don't believe she was a Communist, but she was a black nationalist. Certain groups would lump them all together, but there were distinctions. At any rate, I became a devotee of Paul Robeson, because my grandmother used to take me to a lot of his rallies, and I remember marching and everything for Paul Robeson. Let's see, who else was a big influence on me? Marcus Garvey was a little bit before. I knew of him, but I didn't really know him enough. Paul Robeson, I was there and saw him speak and everything, and saw him in the movies, so he was a big hero to me.

How do you think you were affected by that kind of activism when you were a young man?

Sonny Rollins: It's an interesting question. I am a very politically aware person. I am not anti-white or something like that, never been like that, but I am a politically active person.

One of the big favorites in the house was Henry Wallace, President Roosevelt's Vice President. I think he ran on the Communist Party. Did he?

I think he ran as an independent.

Sonny Rollins: Independent, right, okay, right. But he was a big person in the house. We were fans of the New Deal, of course. We were also on what they called "home relief" at that time. I remember going to the home relief place and getting the boxes of food.

Franklin Roosevelt was a pretty big person, so I think that is what I reflected. I was very politically active all my life, but as I said, I am not an angry person. I am not angry at anybody. Every now and then you get mad, but I am not an angry person, I never was. It's just against my personality. I think I have a very mild, spiritual side, which doesn't allow me to get too politically active. I think I might be a conscientious objector or something like that if it ever came down to it, but I certainly believe in human rights.

Did you experience discrimination?

Sonny Rollins: Oh sure. I think it's impossible to be black in the United States and not experience discrimination. In fact, I was talking to Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar) tonight, and he was asking me about when I went to Benjamin Franklin High School.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. My group of students, coming from Edward Stitt Junior High School, were sort of the first black, integrated busing group really, because Benjamin Franklin High School was a brand-new high school, which was built down in an Italian part of town, Little Italy -- no, not Little Italy, because Little Italy is downtown -- this was Italian Harlem, 116th Street and Pleasant Avenue. Anyway, this was a brand-new school and I guess they were having trouble with the student population and they needed to disperse it, or whatever the reason, but we were the experiment, and we went. I took the bus and then the train down to Benjamin Franklin High School. We met a lot of resistance from the neighborhood. Frank Sinatra came down to our school and sang -- and told the kids not to fight -- in our little auditorium. The Nat King Cole trio came down, and said, "Don't fight," and all of that, and it was good. I think it helped a lot, and the kids began to get along.

Coming from that neighborhood, there was also a Communist person who was a big hero in our house, Vito Marcantonio. He was a Communist, and he came from that part of Harlem, Italian Harlem. Vito Marcantonio was a very liberal person. See, these lines are blurred, because to be in favor of treating a black person as an equal, some people would say, "Oh well, he's a Communist," automatically. This is the thinking that prevailed, as you know, in many parts of the country. Vito Marcantonio was great, and he was from where we went to school, that area. So I was a politically active person. I was always interested in how to make the society a better place. I still am, because it's still not a perfect place.

Sonny Rollins Interview, Page: 1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8