Sonny Rollins Quotes

• I enjoy playing clubs. I still enjoy the closeness of the nightclub venue. However, after a certain period of time and after playing around some of the clubs in New YorkI felt that jazz should be presented in a more prestigious atmosphere.

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Club, Enjoy

• I feel that L.A. has not always been my strongest base for support. That can be for various reasons.

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Always, Feel

• But if I didn’t have to make money, I would still play my horn.

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Money

• I am a person who thinks about the music first in trying to achieve something musically valid.

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Music

• I don’t want to appear hostile, like I’m hostile to L.A. or that I feel that the people don’t appreciate jazz. I don’t think it’s that. I think it’s something more. It’s something a little bit more complicated than that.

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Appear

• Europeans really provided many venues over there and hailed the jazz artists, and a lot of musicians went over there and stayed over there for a long time. A lot of them moved over there, lived over there, and died over there.

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Provided

• Even the most jingoistic person would have to admit that even American cultural music comes from Europe. That’s what classical music is, real European music.

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Admit

• I have always been a person who is concerned with the dignity of jazz music and the way jazz musicians have been treated and are treated, and the fact that the music has not been given the kind of due that it deserves.

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Concerned, Always

• I have seen great jazz musicians die obscure and drinking themselves to death and not really being able to get any work and working in small, funky jazz clubs.

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Drinking, Jazz

• Many jazz artists go to L.A. seeking a more comfortable life and then they really stop playing.

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Jazz, Artists

• I guess fortunate that I’m still around and I emphasize I guess because you never can tell what musicians would be playing had they been around as long as I have.

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Fortunate

• I miss playing with Miles. I did play with him a little while before he left the planet, but even at that time I longed to maybe do some things together.

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Play

• I think what we need is a more welcoming mode from the people who put on a hundred million country-western shows on television. How about a monthly jazz show?

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Think

• I think the problem starts with the general appreciation of the music in the larger society.

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Appreciate

• I think we are in the midst of this period where we are committing this suicide on the planet and everybody is just using up all of our natural resources like a bunch of insane people. That’s what I worry about more than I worry about jazz.

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Period

• I’ve played with all of the heavyweights in the modern jazz, progressive jazz movement. I’ve been fortunate enough to play with them, a who’s who. All of those guys, I’ve been fortunate enough to have performed with.

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Modern

• I think as long as people are around and can hear a record and hear people like Lester Young on a recording, there will always be a great inspiration for somebody to try to create jazz.

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People

• It’s all about creation and surprise. It just needs to be appreciated and watered like flowers. You have to water flowers. These peaks will come again.

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Creation

  Tags in Needs

• There was a period which I refer to as the ‘Golden Age of Jazz,’ which sort of encompasses the middle Thirties through the Sixties, we had a lot of great innovators, all creating things which will last the world for a long, long time.

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Period, Refer

• You had many jazz musicians who lived in the United States, who had a hard time being accepted over here and had to play in sort of these inferior type dives.

  Sonny Rollins

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Jazz, Musicians

Sonny Rollins (25)

Birth:	7th September, 1930
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Composer, Musician, Lyricist

Related Authors

• Kevin Eubanks
• Hoagy Carmichael
• Samuel Hoffenstein
• Carlisle Floyd
• Nadia Boulanger
• Erroll Garner
• Benjamin Zander
• Les Brown
• Stanley Clarke
• Bjorn Ulvaeus

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 7th December

Births

• 1952 - Susan Margaret Collins
• 1978 - Shiri Appleby
• 1873 - Willa Sibert Cather
• 1928 - Avram Noam Chomsky
• 1979 - Sara Bareilles

Deaths

• 1970 - Rube Goldberg
• 1902 - Thomas Brackett Reed
• 1997 - Barry Brooks
• 1985 - Robert Graves
• 1902 - Thomas Reed