SONNY ROLLINS INTERVIEWED (2011): The old lion still prowling
By Graham Reid from Elsewhere
Gary Giddins, America's most authoritative jazz critic, said of tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins that he was “one of the last immortals, the most powerful presence in jazz today. He is its most cunning, surprising, and unpredictable improviser – the one musician whose infrequent concert appearances foster intense anticipation and heated postmortems”.
Giddins wrote that in 1996 and Rollins -- an old lion at 80 -- is still at large, scheduled to play in Wellington in June, and is even now picked up accolades. In 2001 he won a jazz Grammy for his album with the self-effacing title This is What I Do and three years later was given a Lifetime Achievement award. In 2006 he picked up another Grammy for Why Was I Born? on his 9/11 tribute album Without a Song – recorded just five days after the World Trade Centre fell -- and the same year won three Down Beat magazine awards.
“I stayed alive long enough that they finally had to come around to me,” he laughs. “I say that because so many of my contemporaries were never really honoured properly. But I'm glad they honour me because they are honouring jazz, not me, and the great musicians I learned from. So I accept them, they're very tardy in recognising jazz.”