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Sonny Rollins
Greatest Living Jazz Soloist
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.
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