Sonny Rollins (1930-2026): A jazz legend for whom art and life were never different

Lord – use my troubles to bring beautiful harmony to my life

Lord – shine your light on every problem I have and show me its beauty

These are two prayers from the notebook of Walter Theodore “Sonny” Rollins, who passed away on May 25 in his home in Woodstock, New York. He was 95 years old, the last of a generation.

He was the final surviving member from A Great Day in Harlem. I hung a copy of this photograph on my wall as a teenager and my eyes often drifted to Sonny Rollins and Thelonious Monk in their sunglasses.

? Iconic Photo Spotlight — A Great Day in Harlem
On August 12, 1958, photographer Art Kane (1925–1995) captured one of the most legendary images in jazz history—57 musicians gathered on a Harlem stoop for Esquire magazine. pic.twitter.com/3v6fyIKZ3q— Huey K. Bridgeforth (@hkb73) May 18, 2025

Several years ago, I went to Harlem myself to read some of Rollins’s personal papers, which the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture acquired in 2017. I was especially interested in Rollins’s extended engagement with India, where he visited for the first time in 1968 during one of his self-imposed sabbaticals from public performance.

While his hiatus from 1959 to 1962 is ingrained in jazz lore, Rollins took another break...

Read more