Del.icio.usSonny Rollins
Fact Sheet
| Birth Name | Theodore Walter Rollins |
| Occupation | Saxophonist |
| Musical genre: | Jazz |
| Birthday | 7 September 1930 (77) |
| Sign | Virgo |
| Birthplace | New York, New York, USA |
He started as a pianist, then switched to alto saxophone, finally switching to tenor in 1946. He was first recorded in 1949 with Babs Gonzalez; in the same year he recorded with J. J. Johnson and Bud Powell. Rollins recorded with Miles Davis in 1951 and Thelonious Monk in 1953.
Rollins joined the Clifford Brown - Max Roach quintet in 1955, and after Brown's death in 1957 worked as a leader.
Sonny's most widely acclaimed album Saxophone Colossus was recorded on June 22, 1956, featuring Tommy Flanagan on piano, former Jazz Messengers bassist Doug Watkins and his favoured drummer Max Roach. This was only Sonny's third outing as a leader in the recording studio, but it was a date on which he recorded perhaps his best-known composition "St Thomas", a Caribbean calypso based on a tune sung to him by his mother in his childhood: "St Thomas is a song my mother used to sing, it is a traditional tune".
He was considered the leading tenor player of the 1950s and remains a major figure to this day. He was presented with a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in 2004
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