Sonny Rollins

The New Mexico Jazz Festival is honored to welcome tenor saxophone great and National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master, Sonny Rollins in one of his few U.S. festival appearances of 2007. Rollins is one of the revered icons of a golden era of jazz. He first recorded in 1949 and was recognized as one of the most promising, spontaneous, and creative tenor players on the jazz scene, sought after by Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, and the Modern Jazz Quartet. As the most formidable of all jazz improvisers, Mr. Rollins remains a living inspiration to musicians and listeners worldwide, maintaining a steady program of carefully chosen performances and recordings, each one illuminating why he is, as the Village Voice noted, “the last jazz immortal.” Born Walter Theodore Rollins in Harlem, New York on September 7, 1930, Rollins started playing tenor saxophone in high school, inspired in particular by Coleman Hawkins with whom he eventually got to record in the early 1960’s. By the time he was out of school, Rollins was already working with big-name musicians such as Bud Powell, Fats Navarro, and Roy Haynes and in 1951 debuted as a leader on the Prestige label with whom he produced such classics as Saxophone Colossus, Worktime, and Tenor Madness (with John Coltrane). Rollins went out on his own as a leader permanently in 1957 and his most fertile period quickly followed producing such major works as A Night at the Village Vanguard, Way Out West, and Freedom Suite. Mr. Rollins has received many honors and awards over the years including winning his first performance Grammy for This Is What I Do in 2000, and his second for 2004’s Without a Song. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 2004 and in 2006 was inducted into the Academy of Achievement. In 2006, Rollins received top awards from the Jazz Journalists Association and Down Beat Critics Poll and he released his first new studio recording in five years, Sonny, Please, on his own Doxy label. Just this past May, Rollins was awarded the Polar Music Prize by Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustav in Sweden. The prize recognizes artists with “exceptional lifetime achievements whose work has been able to transcend musical genres and break down musical boundaries.” In a recent interview for the Catalan magazine Jaç, Rollins said, “I am convinced that all art has the desire to leave the ordinary, and to say it one way, at a spiritual level, a state of the exaltation at existence. All art has this in common. But jazz— the world of improvisation— is perhaps the highest, because we do not have the opportunity to make changes. It’s as if we were painting before the public, and the following morning we cannot go back and correct that blue color or change that red. We have to have the blues and reds very well placed before going out to play. So for me, jazz is probably the most demanding art.”

$75/$55/$45/$35. $5 Discount for Outpost Members available in person only with valid Outpost Member Card. No Member passes.. Tickets available at Lensic Box Office in person or by phone (505)988-1234; online at ticketssantafe.com; or at The Outpost Performance Space in person 10am-2pm, M-F; or by phone 268-0044.