Jazz Legend Sonny Rollins 'Saxophone Colossus' Dies At 95

Tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, the “Saxophone Colossus” who was schooled by bebop’s legends as a prized sideman and became their peer as a formidable leader, improviser and composer, has died, according to a social media post from his family. No cause of death was cited; he was 95. Sporting a burly tone, a tart sense of instrumental humor and keen melodic and harmonic ingenuity, Rollins was acknowledged as a jazz voice as groundbreaking as that of his friend and contemporary John Coltrane, with whom he unforgettably locked horns on “Tenor Madness” in 1956. He penned such now-standard entries in the jazz book as “Airegin,” “Doxy,” “Oleo” and “St. Thomas,” the last of which was a calypso adaptation (one of several he recorded) that reflected his family’s Caribbean origins. He sported an all-encompassing knowledge of the standard repertoire, and could wring highly personalized statements from such unlikely vehicles as “Toot, Toot, Tootsie.” One of his most celebrated albums, 1957’s “Way Out West,” was built around his interpretations of cowboy songs. Over the course of a career that stretched back to the late 1940s, his stature was acknowledged with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the Kennedy Center Honors and a National Medal of Arts.

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