Sonny Rollins Is at Peace. But He Regrets Trying to One-Up Coltrane. – The New York Times

Sonny Rollins is, by any reasonable estimation, a genius. He is jazzs greatest living improviser, able to imbue his solos with wry humor, surprise, brilliant logical form and profound emotion. Time and time again, he created something miraculous out of thin air, and he did it until he could do it no longer. The 89-year-old played his last concert in 2012, and in 2014, he stopped playing saxophone altogether, a result of pulmonary fibrosis. That doesnt mean well never hear music from him again Resonance Records will release a set of previously unissued performances this fall but it does mean that Rollinss colossal record as a musician is a thing of the past. I wanted to know how a musician whose playing was always attuned to the present has forged a new life in the shadow of that stark fact. Happy is not the word, said Rollins, seated on a couch under a large painting of Buddha at his rambling home in Woodstock, N.Y., but I am the most content Ive ever been. I have most things figured out.

You never made any formal retirement announcement. Did you ever want to say goodbye to the people who made up your audience? Well, no. The reason my retirement happened quietly was because my health problems were gradual. I didnt expect them. I wasnt quite sure that I would never be able to play again. It took me a while to realize, Hey, thats gone now. But the people? Im glad for their love but I dont feel that Im worthy of anyone saying, Wow, Sonny! And this is going to sound funny, but my highest place musically was not about playing for a crowd. I played a couple of concerts early on where I was out in the open in the afternoon. I was able to look up in the sky, and I felt a communication; I felt that I was part of something. Not the crowd. Something bigger.

Rollins at age 14 in Harlem. From Sonny Rollins

I only realized when I spoke to you a couple of years ago that you had to give up the saxophone. So much of your life had been about using music to fulfill your potential as a person. Now that you dont play, is fulfillment still possible? When I had to stop playing it was quite traumatic. But I realized that instead of lamenting and crying, I should be grateful for the fact that I was able to do music all of my life. So I had that realization, plus my spiritual beliefs, which Ive been cultivating for many years. All that work went into my accepting the fact that I couldnt play my horn.

Tell me more about that work. Im working toward why Im here what its all about. At this point in my life Im well, I dont want to say satisfied, but I feel that Im closer to an understanding. Its always been my idea that the golden rule is a good thing, but I wasnt quite able to understand if the golden rule was possible. If somebody is playing music and Im playing music and were in a saxophone battle, I still have to play my best, regardless of the other guy. It has nothing to do with my trying to make him feel bad because playing music is for a higher cause. So I believe living by the golden rule is possible. Not only possible but the reason were here.

Were you playing for a higher cause on something like The Serpents Tooth with Charlie Parker and Miles Davis? In your solo you quoted the melody of Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better). That wasnt intended as a provocation? If I was so stupid to have to implied that, then I was ignorant. I was in Miless band at the time and Anything You Can Do (I Can Do Better) was just one of the riffs that we played. It had nothing to do with my attitude about Charlie Parker. I would never say that to him. But I take your criticism. I might have been a foolish young boy playing that to his guru. If there was a little of that, it was sophomoric. I was ignorant. I am still ignorant about many things.

Rollins, right, and Miles Davis at the New York Jazz Festival in 1957. Bob Parent/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Im also thinking about when you played with John Coltrane on Tenor Madness. Theres a part of that performance where you guys were trading fours and he played a lick and in response you played the same lick but with the notes reversed. That wasnt meant as one-upmanship? David, I dont believe Ive mentioned this to many people. When I played with Coltrane, I had the impression and back then it was true that I was much more popular than him. I remember what Kamasi Washington said about Tenor Madness: Sonny, you werent even really playing. I wasnt really playing. Coltrane was playing. I was only playing halfway, because I thought that I was the guy and that Coltrane was this young whippersnapper. That was my mind-set. It was immature.

So you were holding back to show your status? Exactly. I dont want people to think that Im saying, Oh, wow, I could have played much better, but thats the story of Tenor Madness. My attitude on it wasnt right.

I was poking around in your papers, and I saw a performance note you wrote for Elvin Jones that I thought was interesting. You wrote that when you were playing rubato on a certain song, he shouldnt look in any direction but yours. Why not? I wouldve said that to him because when Im playing rubato, which would mean when Im playing solo, that presents a perfect opportunity for somebody to relax: OK, Sonnys playing by himself so let me wipe my head or drink water. I wanted the band to be all together even when I was playing by myself because we were all still in the song. People would take their concentration away. I didnt want that.

I also saw all these very detailed instructional notes youd written about saxophone technique and harmony. Did you ever consider publishing any of it? I thought about doing things like that but my stuff is unorthodox. I once had a young guy that wanted to study with me. I said, No, man, go to Coltrane. Coltrane will get you on the right course with fingering and technique. All these things that I might have been writing, I didnt feel they were applicable to other people. So I didnt pursue them.

One of the most inspiring things about your playing was how alive you were to the possibilities of a given musical moment. Did that openness translate to your life? Thats a very profound question. I can look back and say, Gee, that was a good solo, but I dont know if it had anything to do with a spiritual or ethical thing. I did some bad things when I was playing my horn. We all knew Charlie Parker was using drugs, and we said, Wow, Im going to use drugs if Im going to end up playing like that. That got a lot of guys using drugs and stealing and whatever else drugs made you do. I know great musicians that werent trying to be good people. A lot of people wouldnt think Miles was a very spiritual person though to me he was and Coltrane was a very spiritual individual. Does that have to do with their music? Possibly. I dont want to say that theres no connection between the way you behave and your music. But its something which I havent been able to figure out.

Rollins during a Sonny Rollins Volume II session at Van Gelder Studio in 1957. Francis Wolff/Mosaic Images

Do you think music has an ethical component? I can hear music that elevates me, but on the other hand theres martial music thats made to make people go to war. So music is neutral. It has nothing to do with ethics. Music is not on the same level as trying to understand life. Were here for 80-something years. One lifetime is not enough to get it right. Ill be back in another body. Im not interested in trying to get that technical about that because I dont need to know. What I need to know is that being a person who understands that giving is better than getting is the proper way to live. Live your life now in a positive way. Help people if you can. Dont hurt people. That works perfectly for me, man.

Are you ready for your incarnation in this life to be over? You mean do I feel ready to die? Dying, its funny. Everybody is afraid to die because its the unknown. But my mother died. My father died. My brother died. My sister died. My uncle died. My grandmother died. Theyre all great people. If they can die then why cant I die? Im better than they are? Its ridiculous to feel, Oh, gee, I shouldnt die. My body is going to turn into dust. But my soul will live forever.

Is there anything youll miss about this life? No. Theres a big picture, which is the afterlife, and this life is a little picture. Theres also karma: What you do, youre going to get it back. So this life is a trip, man, and youve got to go through it. I know Ive done a lot of stupid things and hurt people. Ive got a lot of stuff that Im paying for, and Im trying to get good karma by not trying to hurt somebody or doing things for my own pleasure or aggrandizement.

Does believing in the transience of life mean youre not nostalgic for jazzs past? Or your own life in jazz? Wayne Shorters still here, but Miles is not here. Max Roach is not here. Trane is not here. Monk is not here. Do I feel nostalgic about that? No. These guys are alive to me. I hear their music. OK, Charlie Parker is not in his body, but everything about Charlie Parker is here to me in spirit. Any time of day, any time of night, I might think of Miles, and the spirit is there. Occasionally I go, Gee, I cant hang out with Dizzy Gillespie or Clifford Brown after a gig. I think about that, but its receding. Those guys I dont worry about them not being here in the flesh. Im not going to be in the flesh, either. Youre not going to be in the flesh, either, David. So what? Its OK.

Rollins recording at the the Radio House in Copenhagen in 1968. Jan Persson/Getty Images

This is slightly random, but Ive never seen you talk in much detail about when you played on a Rolling Stones album. How was trying to fit into their music? Mick Jagger, I dont think he understood what I was doing, and I didnt understand what he was doing. My wife was the one that persuaded me to do that recording. I said: Man, the Rolling Stones. I dont want to do any record with the Rolling Stones. Id considered them and its faulty not on the level of jazz. But my wife said, No, no, you must do it. So I said, OK, let me see if I can relate to what they are doing; let me see if I can make it sound as good as possible.

Could you? Not really. I know theyre a very popular rock band, but they were derivative of a lot of black bands, right? Isnt that what they do?

Well, yeah. Right. It might be wrong for me to feel that way because I do like a lot of white artists. I like the Beatles. Paul McCartney is a good tunesmith. But the Rolling Stones, I didnt relate to them because I thought they were just derivative of black blues. I do remember once I was in the supermarket up in Hudson, New York, and they were playing Top 40 records. I heard this song and thought, Whos that guy? His playing struck a chord in me. Then I said, Wait a minute, thats me! It was my playing on one of those Rolling Stones records.

Something Ive heard musicians talk about is losing their sense of self when theyre playing, and how thats when the best improvisations can happen. What does that say about the true nature of the self? It says that there are divine moments in this world. This world is not what its cracked up to be. This world is just a place to pay off our karma. Thats all. Theres something huge happening, and its a matter of feeling. Its different than having book knowledge. The thing Im talking about is more like intuition. Something is there. Ive had experiences which have allowed me to know that.

Experiences that happened while you were playing? Ill tell you one. I was in France playing at a place called Marciac. I was staying at a hotel a little ways out in the country. I liked to stay at nice hotels. The band stayed at another hotel, and if they could afford it, they could stay at this hotel; Im not trying to be above them. Anyway, the night before the concert I lost my partial. I needed it to play. I was very concerned. I didnt know what to do. I called up the front desk. I said: Listen, I have a dental partial, which I misplaced. Can you please look through the garbage and find if its there? They said, Well look and see. So while I was searching, I looked up and I saw a vision of what was like a window opening horizontally. It opened just a bit and there was something I saw; colors behind that little opening. It was such a revelation. I said, Wow, what was that? Then I looked down on the floor and there was my partial. I cant say, Oh, man, therefore theres a God. Its not about that. But this happened to me and for months, even years, the feeling coming out of my body I was elevated.

So you took this vision as a confirmation of the existence of something greater? You could call it a confirmation. That was a beautiful thing that happened to me. Something else happened a long time before that, David. When I was about 9 years old I was living up on Edgecombe Avenue in Harlem. I used to live on the block between 150th and 155th Street. It was one long block of houses and there was a shortcut there from St. Nicholas Place to Edgecombe Avenue. People would walk through the shortcut to get to the subway. So one day I went up on the roof, and there was part of the roof, the mortar, that was loose. I thought it would be a great idea if I dropped the loose part down and scared somebody walking through the shortcut. So I did that and when I dropped it I realized, If this hits somebody, theyre dead and there was a guy walking through the shortcut. I prayed like I never prayed before. I asked God, Please dont let it hit this guy. I prayed and I prayed and it didnt hit him. Somebody could say, Sonny, you were lucky. Maybe so. But I knew that I was communicating with something greater and it worked in my favor.

Rollins waiting backstage at the Berkeley Jazz Festival in California in 1979. Ed Perlstein/Redferns/Getty Images

This is a crazy thing to bring up but lately Ive been listening to your music and associating it with the pharaoh Akhenaten. Maybe its just because I wanted to see the Mets production of Philip Glasss opera about him and everything has gotten jumbled in my mind. But let me just throw it out there: Is Akhenaten significant to you in any way? Oh, very much so. Years ago, I began reading about Egypt. Akhenaten went against the old order. He was a break from some of the other Egyptian theology. He was a maverick, and I felt sympathetic to that. Akhenaten was a guy that influenced me a lot to be serious.

Im glad my shot in the dark wasnt useless. No, not at all. I was very much into Egyptology. That was another thing to learn about life, and learning about Akhenatens seriousness is another reason why, in a sense, I hate this world. Its so inconsequential. Sure, there might be a good movie or this or that but we dont have time for it. Instead we have to try to get some wisdom.

Does that mean your music was inconsequential too? I didnt say everything was inconsequential. I can listen to some beautiful music, I can see a beautiful painting, and I wouldnt dare to say theyre inconsequential. But the majority of what you see out here is inconsequential. Eating ice cream, wanting to have sex with some broad Oh boy, shes beautiful and all that stuff the seven deadly sins. You have to get above that. Because if you dont do it in this life, its like what the guy said in the commercial: Pay me now or pay me later.

Have you made plans for what will happen with your unreleased recordings when youre not around? After I get out of this planet Im not going to have any say about whats going on, so Im not worried about that. And, boy, I agonize over my music; I wont have to agonize about it anymore. Thank God.

Do you play any other instruments now that you dont play the horn? The communion I had with my horn, the things I tried to do, I cant get otherwise. I do have a Fender Rhodes piano upstairs. In fact, I think I should get a piano, a real piano, and play around. Id probably get something out of it. But its not like it would be a continuation of where I was at with my horn. I feel like that thing is broken.

Is your relationship with silence different these days? Thats an excellent question. I used to look at TV a lot. Then I realized, this is very negative. Images and lies and bad for your eyes: I made sure that mantra got in my head, and I stopped looking at TV. I do listen to the radio. Im trying to get away from that. Silence to me is meditative. To get into that silent space is a huge thing. But even today Ive had the radio on so much. Its something Im working on.

Do you ever get lonely up here in Woodstock? On occasion. Fortunately not too often. I like being alone, actually. I have my yoga books. I have my Buddha books. I have a lot of spiritual material that I need to get with. At my age, all my friends are gone. At one time I began to lament that and then I said, No, this is good that I have nobody to call and waste time talking. Every now and then I do go, Yeah, man, Im lonely, let me call somebody up, but to me thats a weakness. I have to deal with myself. Thats what it gets down to for each of us. Understanding is up to you. Its up to me. Theres no escape. I got pains and aches all over but spiritually, man, I feel better than Ive ever felt. Im on the right course.

David Marchese is a staff writer and the Talk columnist for the magazine.

This interview has been edited and condensed from two conversations.

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Sonny Rollins Is at Peace. But He Regrets Trying to One-Up Coltrane. - The New York Times