Interview: Sonny Rollins
Greatest Living Jazz Soloist

To begin, please tell us what your childhood was like. What was it like to grow up in Harlem in the 1930s and 1940s?

Sonny Rollins: I was born in Harlem in 1930, and of course, I don't know how to compare it with anyplace else. I never grew up anyplace else, but it was a nice place. I had a lot of friends. There was a lot of music, a lot of music around. I had music in my home, but there was also music in a lot of after-hour clubs and speakeasies. So it was a place where -- even though I was too young to go into places like the Cotton Club and Elks Rendezvous -- I sort of imbibed all of this black culture which was around me. So I think it was a beautiful place to grow up, especially for a person that wanted to be a musician like myself.

What kind of a kid were you?

Sonny Rollins: I used to make a lot of jokes and play around when I was a kid. They used to call me Jester, that was one of my nicknames. I guess I was a pretty good guy. When I was about 13 or 14, although the guys around me were a little older, they selected me to be the president of our little club on the block we lived on. Years later, that struck me. I said, "Well gee, why did they select me?" Not trying to be, "Gee, what a great guy I am!" but that might have had something to do with the fact that I eventually ended up being a band leader. Anyway, I liked sports. I played a lot of city sports as a youth on the streets of New York. Stickball, boxball, marbles, all of these things that we played in New York City. I guess you could say that I was sort of an athletic person.

Did you like school?

Sonny Rollins: I liked school, but...

I had one teacher in school when I was in elementary school, her name was Mrs. Love, and she was the most wonderful woman. I'll never forget her because she skipped me into a higher grade. I was doing the work, but she inspired me to do good school work, and I will never forget Mrs. Love or Miss Love. I don't know if it was Mrs., you know. But she was the first teacher that really inspired me to excel, and so I guess I began to like school a little better, and then, of course, I had a few other teachers, a few, but Mrs. Love was sort of the one that I always remember.

Because of her, I guess I would have to say that I liked school.

Do you remember any books that you especially liked?

Sonny Rollins: Books? Well, I guess I went to sort of a disadvantaged high school. We did take Macbeth, but I really didn't understand it. It wasn't explained very well. The teachers were a little bit lacking. When I was a kid, there was a book that I got. My father was a career Navy person, he was in the Navy all of his career, so one time they took the children of the Navy families to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where he was stationed at the time, and had a Christmas party, and I remember that one of my gifts was a book about Chinese outrigger boats, and I never forget that.

I wasn't a particularly avid reader until later. Later on I became really a voracious reader, and I sort of educated myself, because I just went to high school, you know. I just had a high school education, and probably a sub-par high school really.

Did you have a useful education?

Sonny Rollins: Yes.

My brother was sort of a classical player -- of violin, my older brother -- and he used to practice around the house all the time, and then my sister, my older sister, she played, and they were both classically trained. So I was the youngest kid, and I listened to them playing and I enjoyed it tremendously. So they tried to start me on piano -- about six years old, I guess it was -- but you know, by that time I was more interested in playing in the street. So I never -- it wasn't until I wanted to play the saxophone that I began. So then I had a saxophone teacher, and went to little music schools and stuff like that, not private teachers. But I never had sort of the formal education that my older brother and sister had, so I always felt inferior to them.

Do you remember getting your first saxophone?

Sonny Rollins: Oh yeah. My first saxophone.

I had an uncle that played saxophone, and my mother took me over to see him. I think his name was Hubert, so she said, "Well Hubert, he wants to play saxophone." So anyway, Hubert got me this little used horn, of course. I mean it was okay, but I mean it was a used alto saxophone. And I remember, boy, when I got that horn, I was really happy. I played it, and it was great. I had pictures taken with it and everything. This was, I was about eight years old at that time.

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...

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...

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.

Other than that...

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.

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.

When did you start playing professionally?

Sonny Rollins: Once I started, when I was around eight years old or so, I knew that's what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a musician. So I kept playing, I was really at it. You know, there is one thing about me, I was a guy that would practice. Once I started practicing, my mother had to call me to stop practicing. "Come and eat dinner!" Because I was in my own world, and I am like that up to this day really, except that I am older now, and I can't practice like 15 hours a day, but I still have the same inclination and same spirit. But I kept at it, and by the time I was about 14, I guess, we got a little neighborhood band. Then, by the time I was 17, we had a neighborhood band, and I was beginning to get recognized by some of the older people, older musicians. Then, by 18, I made my first recordings. So I was straight, I was on that track. I was on the track to be a professional from that early age, from eight years old I would say.

By the time you were 20 you were playing and recording with Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Monk, Bud Powell. That is rarefied company for a young man. What did they see in you?

Sonny Rollins: That is what gave me encouragement, that they would take to a young kid. Then I knew, "Well gee, I must have something going." Even though I was never shy about playing with them, but I was still in awe of them. So the fact that I was accepted by Thelonious Monk and all these guys, I mean they looked at me almost as being an equal. In fact, some of them did. Talking about it now it is somewhat embarrassing to me, but in actuality, some of these great musicians looked at me as being contemporary with them. Of course, I was much younger, at least four or five years younger than most of the guys.

So it was a source of gratification to me that they thought I was good enough. That really gave me the impetus. "Well, I must be on the right track. Keep playing."

You became known as a great improviser and innovator. Was that true even then as a young man?

Sonny Rollins: Well, I guess they called me that, I don't know, you know.

Sonny Rollins: I don't know how technical you want to get, but...

I consider myself sort of a "stream-of-consciousness" player, or what later was to be known as a "free jazz" player. I think I am basically. That's what I am. I just play stream of consciousness. So I had to sort of learn in a way how to play with the strictures of be-bop and all these things. I had to learn that, because I am really just a natural player, you know.

Where do you find your inspiration? Where do you get your musical ideas? Where do they come from?

Sonny Rollins: As a kid, as I said...

I listened to my brother playing the violin, études, practicing. I listened to a lot of music around. Fats Waller and all of these James P. Johnson piano rolls. We had a piano roll of his. I just heard a lot of music. Louis Jordan. I used to hear the Amateur Night in Harlem from the Apollo Theater. All the bands would come through for one week. So I just heard a lot of music, you know. I went to a lot of movies, because in the days when I was growing up, that was the television of the day, movies. So I went to a lot of movies, I heard a lot of movie music, and liked a lot of the music, Jerome Kern and all of these people. Jerome Kern is one of my favorites, but I have others, too. So that's where I guess I get my inspiration from. I just have a lot of music in my mind that I heard as a child, and I guess it comes out when I am playing. I know a lot of songs, words of some of them, but I mean I know a lot of melodies. My head is just filled with music, and when I'm improvising, they come out at different times. It surprises me. Gee, I played something that I didn't know was in my mind, the recesses of my mind.

I guess that's where you might say I get my ideas from, if you wanted to put it that way.

How would you put it?

Sonny Rollins: Those things are in my mind, but I am looking for a deeper level of creation. These sources are sort of on the surface, but I find that I am looking for something deeper. I think there is a deeper level that comes in at some point, but without a doubt, these are my influences that are in my mind, are the movies and jazz bands, and everything, all music. I like all kinds of music, really.

This is a question we ask of many people. When you do what you do, what are you trying to achieve?

Sonny Rollins: I am trying to get a deeper sense of expression musically. I mean people tell me, "Oh gee, Sonny. You still practice. How come?" Well, I am still searching. I still am trying to get to something hopefully more profound than what I'm doing now, and I think it's possible. I think it's there, but it's not always -- every now and then I get a little snatch of it.

Is it something you can define, or is it something that you will know when you get there?

Sonny Rollins: When I have a particularly good performance, I know it. But you know, it doesn't happen more than maybe a few times a year -- if I'm lucky -- that I really get into something which is really where I would like to be all the time. But it is something, you know, it's something that... I am not there yet. I hope there is time to get there, because I'm not 15 years old anymore, but there is something else there that I am still striving for.

If you are not satisfied with the way you blow your horn, if you are still searching, is dissatisfaction part of the process of achieving something?

Sonny Rollins: In my case, it is. I am not sure about other people. That's my thing.

I'm dissatisfied and I'm always striving. There's musicians that I know who are more talented than me, and more gifted than me. They don't have to do that, they can just... And a lot of guys have learned their craft and they get to a place, and they are satisfied, and the stuff they do is great. So it's an individual thing. In my case, my thing is constantly looking for something else. I'm not satisfied yet. I know there is more there. I don't think I have expressed myself yet really, but every now and then, a few times a year, I have a tremendous concert where I really feel that I am beginning to break the barrier and really get into a deeper spiritual place, and it happens. When it happens, then, "Wow! I'm right. There is something else. There is something more than what is here."

How would you describe the life of a jazz musician?

Sonny Rollins: The life of a jazz musician is a very precarious life. A good friend of mine, a pianist who has got a good reputation, he just had sort of an altercation, and he was hurt. Jazz musicians, they want to express everything, and their life is sort of right out there on their sleeve, but we live in a world which you can't always be that way. Playing is great, but you can't live your life like you're on the bandstand. You have to live a different life when you are off the bandstand. You have to be a little more conformist, and most jazz musicians find that difficult. Artists find it difficult to be a more normal person when they are off the bandstand.

The life of a jazz musician is a difficult life, because you want to play, you want to be, you want to get to the inner spirit and sometimes you drink or you use drugs or you smoke a lot. You do all these things to try to get the spirit out. So it's a difficult existence and a lot of the great people that I have known, and in history, they kind of over-indulge, and they never sort of are able to balance their musical life with their personal life. Maybe it's not necessary to do that. That is another question, I don't know, but I'd like to see young musicians coming up that don't smoke and that don't drink to excess and don't use drugs, and don't sort of debilitate themselves. I think that's where we should go. I think that is what guys should be doing. I don't think you have to drink and use drugs to play good jazz, but that's been the model for so long that a lot of guys get caught up in that, you know.

Early in your career, you encountered great success and recognition, but you also experienced some of these problems -- drugs and prison. Can you talk about that?

Sonny Rollins: I used to be reticent about talking about that, because it was always like, "Well, let's stigmatize this jazz musician. Let's talk about, Oh, he's a criminal." But my wife, my dear departed wife used to tell me, "Well, no, Sonny, don't be afraid. Don't not want to talk about it, because after all, you have been through it, you came through it, and it's a great experience. You have conquered it, so to speak." So I don't mind talking about it now.

Sometimes I wonder why I am asked that.

It's important to understand the kind of obstacles people have to overcome to come out on the other end and achieve something great, as you have. That's the only reason.

Sonny Rollins: Well, that was the rationale actually, not to be ashamed about it. Most people might ask for the same reason, but people that are involved are super-sensitive perhaps anyway. But anyway, yeah, I got involved.

We were following our idols. Charlie Parker. And we were told Billie Holliday used drugs, and all this stuff. But my main influence -- our main influence -- was Charlie Parker; he was our messiah. And Charlie Parker used drugs, so all of us figured that, "Oh, if he used drugs, it's okay." But it wasn't okay, because guys drop through the holes, you know. In my case, I followed Charlie Parker and began using. Well, a lot of guys were using drugs really. Fats Navarro, the great trumpet player, died at a very early age from drugs, and a lot of the guys were on drugs really, a lot of the great be-bop players. And I went along and I got messed up, and it took me quite a while to straighten myself out, you know.

How tough was it?

Sonny Rollins: It was pretty tough. It was very tough.

I went through some really terrible times. I don't know whether I should really even mention it, but you mentioned that I had to go to prison and all that stuff. I was in a state where they had me in a straitjacket at one time. Can you understand what it would feel like to be in a straitjacket? I know. I couldn't either, but I was, and it was brought about by sort of a drug psychosis in prison. I mean I just went completely... But it was tough, it was tough. I mean at that time they put you in -- there's a place in New York they used to call the Tombs. You've probably heard of it. I mean it was like a living tomb, with all the people. So I was there, and the withdrawal -- physical symptoms, which were unbelievable.

But I had my family. I was a very bad guy. I used to steal from my house. I was just an outlaw, an outcast. My father was in the Navy, he wasn't really around during this time.

I was a pretty bad guy. But my mother's love and her belief in me, I think -- and Charlie Parker, who took me aside and told me that this was not the way to be -- that had a tremendous effect on me, so that I finally realized that, well, I am not going anyplace. I'm a pariah. People see me coming, they go across the street, you know. So I eventually was able to go to a hospital. There used to be a big hospital in New York -- not in New York -- in Kentucky, Lexington, which was a very good place. It was a place where you were able to treat addicts, something like the Betty Ford Clinic in later years. Anyway, you were treated in a humane manner, as a sick person, not as a criminal, and you went there for a certain amount of time, and you took what they called "the cure." I went there voluntarily, and by that time I was determined to get away from drugs, so I was able to go there, and through my determination to do it, that place served me well.

If I didn't have the determination to stop, it would not happen, because there are people that went there, that still used drugs when they came out. Several people over the years have come to me, asking me about Lexington. In fact, there was recently a guy who wants to write a book about Lexington, the rehabilitation center there.

During all this time, were you without your music?

Sonny Rollins: I wouldn't say I was without my music. I always had my music. I would get involved with the bands in these institutions. My music was always with me.

You have described it, if you were quoted correctly, as walking into the lion's den and coming out alive. Is that right?

Sonny Rollins: Yeah, I guess so, although I think I might have a better chance with a lion than with some of these substances. But yeah. That, in effect, is what happens.

A lot has been written about the so-called sabbaticals that you have taken, this willingness to turn your back on your career, and not perform in public for a period of time, like when you went to practice on the Williamsburg Bridge. How do you explain these breaks in your career?

Sonny Rollins: I have always been a person that has had a strong sense of right and wrong, a strong spiritual guide or guardian angel or belief maybe, I don't know how to explain it, but a conscience maybe. There was always something inside of me that was talking to me all the time. When something talks to me, like the thing with the drugs, I realized something said, "Yeah," and it finally came to me, "This is not the way to go." I just have that in me, and when I find something that I want to do, I block out everything else, and I would do it. It's the sense of right and wrong, so it doesn't matter to me that people were saying, "How can you leave the music? Because they won't accept you back if you go away. You will lose your edge," and all. This was inconsequential to me, because I had an idea that I wanted to improve my self, my musical arsenal, if you will. So I do what I want to do, and that's that. I am very strong about that, and this has held me in good stead, just listening to the inner voice. This is what I do, and I am happy about it, that I have that much determination, if you want to call it that. That's what I have done all my life, and the sabbaticals were the same.

I went away from music for certain reasons. The bridge was the one you mentioned. That was sort of self-improvement.

I realized I wasn't sounding as good as my reputation was, so I wanted to kind of get to that point where I wouldn't be ashamed to go on the bandstand, which happened to me one time on a job I was playing with... Elvin Jones, at that time, was the drummer playing with me. We used to go around, had a big sign, "Sonny Rollins is coming to town," everybody was there, but I didn't sound good, and I knew I wasn't playing up to what I should be. So I said, "Okay, I am getting out of here. I am going to go and woodshed," as they say, and get myself together.

So I do things like that, if I feel that there is some reason to do it. Anyway, that was the bridge and other things.

How did you end up practicing on the Williamsburg Bridge in New York City? Could you even hear yourself while you were out there?

Sonny Rollins: Well you know, that was an accident. I lived down on the Lower East Side, and experienced some of the problems with trying to play a horn with neighbors, so I had to find someplace to practice. I practiced in the house because I had to practice, but I felt guilty sometimes, because I'm a sensitive person, and I know that people need privacy in the apartments. So anyway, I just happened to be walking on Delancey Street one day. That was the neighborhood I was in. I had moved down to the Lower East Side, and we had a small apartment there. It was a nice time. I had a lot of friends there. I was welcomed really in the neighborhood by the people on the Lower East Side at that time. Anyway...

I was walking along Delancey Street and I just happened to look up and see these steps. I wasn't thinking about anything, so I just walked up there and I walked up the steps, and there, of course, was the bridge, and it was this nice, big expanse going over. There was nobody up there. So I walked, I started walking, I said, "Wow. This is what I have been looking for. This is a private place. I can blow my horn as loud as I want." Because the boats are coming under, and the subway is coming across, and cars, and I said, "Wow, this is perfect," and it was just serendipity. Then, I began getting my horn and going up there, and it was a perfect place to practice. Every now and then somebody would come across, but it was perfect. I would go up there at night, I would go up there in the day, I would go up there, I would be up there 15, 16 hours, you know, and I lived nearby.

How do you measure your own success, your sense of achievement? What does achievement mean to you?

Sonny Rollins: Well, it means the ability to stay in a good hotel, to not worry a lot about financial things. I am not a big movie star. I am not in that category, but I am able to put food on the table. Success enables me to do that. I am not a person that wants a lot of those things. I am not a materialistic person, so it is easy for me to satisfy those things really. Nevertheless, I know there are people who find it difficult economically sometimes. So success probably means that. It doesn't mean as much because I am still searching for a deeper expression.

I don't feel myself completely satisfied, I mean as a success. In the material way, I am known, some people know me, and life is maybe a little bit easier. Like in the little town I live in, in Upstate New York, I have been getting a lot of publicity and everybody up there knows. I have blown my cover. Everybody is, "Oh gee, Sonny!" People may treat me a little better. "Wow! This guy is somebody!" But you know, I wanted to be a perfect individual.

I am a spiritual person to the extent that I understand what life is about, how difficult it is, how difficult it is. How difficult it is for me to kind of be the person I want to be, better habits, better eating habits, better exercise habits, better Golden Rule habits towards other people. All these things, according to my spiritual belief, is important for my development of my soul, so to speak. I mean I don't want to get too esoteric here, but this is what is important to me. So, that's what I am trying to do, that's what I want.

That's the hardest thing, for people to take care of themselves and not overeat, or do these little things. We know the difference between right and wrong. We know that inside, even though we disregard it. This is the struggle of life, to be better people. That's how I figured out what life is all about. This is what I am trying to do. Life is an opportunity, but the hardest battle is with ourselves. That is what I realize, and that's what I am doing.

As an artist, how do you know when you reach that level of expression that you are searching for?

Sonny Rollins: There are certain concerts that I play, performances when I do feel that I have reached the higher level. When that happens as a normality rather than rarely, then I will feel that I am there. Then there will probably be something else I need to do, but I do feel that I am getting closer to more of a complete expression. It's a reachable goal, it is not something which is never going to happen, but that doesn't mean that will be the end. There will always be something else to do. I think I can get to a better place.

When bright young people come to you for advice, what do you say to them?

Sonny Rollins: I would say that they have to love what they are doing. Never mind the material. A lot of people come to me -- a lot of kids -- "Gee, Sonny. What should I practice? How can I get to be a successful musician?" You have to love what you are doing, and if you are not hurting anybody or harming anybody else, that's it. Just stay on that path. If you are looking for money for material success, I don't know. There is no advice, because I don't want to think like that, because I don't believe that's the meaning of life. I am not a materialist, I don't believe in consumerism and all this stuff.

If a young person that's a scientist, or wants to be a musician, wants to be a painter, sculptor, and you love it, then, give yourself to it, that's all. This is the only way to do it, that's its own reward really. And if you succeed, I don't know. It's a matter of what you just said, "What is success?" I don't know, but giving yourself to something you believe in, that is success. So I would tell people to really get with what you are doing, with abandon, do your thing and really want to do it, and believe in it, and block out the rest of the world, because you are the world. You are the world, not these other people around you. Your project, your love, your art, that's the world. That's where you have to be.

As we look ahead in the 21st century, what concerns you most about this world we live in?

Sonny Rollins: Well you know, I studied yoga.

I went to India back in the '60s when I was interested in yoga and studying. Did different philosophies and so on. There is a concept there that there are different ages of existence. As we go into the 21st century, we shouldn't put too much faith in how the century is going to come out, because I am going to revert to what my answer was a moment ago. You, I, individually, that is the war. That's the battle that we have. It doesn't matter what happens, in a sense, to the environment, to nations fighting each other, to tribalism, to diseases taking over. That doesn't really matter. What matters is you winning the battle with yourself.

In Indian philosophy, there are different ages of existence. You have one, and then another age, something like what people used to talk about, the Aquarian Age. Things go into different phases, and existence changes. These are things that are beyond my mind. I am a simple human being, but the principle I know is there. I can't explain everything, but the principle of us taking care of our own problems individually -- not nationwide, not how to solve the 21st century -- individually, that's to me the whole ballgame, the ball of wax. So when you say the 21st century, it's not really important. You could look at it. There are so many problems, but don't get bogged down in those. The problem is within ourselves. That's the problem.

The real place where I feel comfortable, and I think most people do feel comfortable, is in themselves, and in that sense, we don't need to worry about the 21st century. Do you understand what I mean? I don't mean turned off and don't help an old lady up off the street, I don't mean that. I just mean put it in perspective and realize that our battle is with us. Once we do that, the whole universe will be better.

One last question. How would you like to be remembered?

Sonny Rollins: I would like to be remembered as someone who made choices and tried to make myself a better person, and who didn't listen to the crowd, and went the way that my conscience -- if you want to put it that way -- I listened to my conscience. I would like to be remembered as a person that did that. Therefore I was able to make certain changes in my personal life, and strengthen myself as a person, individual. My music and all that stuff? I don't even think about that. My thing is my personhood and trying to be a better person and fighting that fight within myself.

That's how I would like to be remembered, so that other people will say, "Sonny stopped eating pork," for instance, or he stopped doing some detrimental thing. He made that fight, and he did it, and he's better for it, so that's how I would like to be remembered.

To be remembered like that, I have got to keep fighting, which I am doing every day really. This is a constant fight, until we leave this planet and go someplace else, but the fight is constant, and it's great. It's a great opportunity that life gives us to use it and do something in a positive way.

People are also going to remember Sonny Rollins for being a great tenor saxophone player.

Sonny Rollins: Well if so, that's great, I would appreciate that.

I've spent a lot of time practicing and working, and I've played with some great people, and they've liked me, I've liked them. So as far as my profession? Yeah, I'm not ashamed of that. I have done a lot and influenced some people, and I have some young people say, "Oh gee, I really like your playing," and "You changed my way of life" even. Some people have said that to me. So I am happy about that, but my real joy, if I could be remembered, would be to say, "Sonny was a guy that wanted to improve himself regardless of where society was at."

If I could get to that point, I would say, "Wow. I really made a difference." Probably would never happen, but you asked the question, so that is what I would like, to be remembered like that.

Thank you very much. You have been terrific. You are very generous. Thank you.

Sonny Rollins: Okay.