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Sonny Rollins

Jazz tenor saxophonist and composer

United States · 1930–2026

American tenor saxophonist, born Theodore Walter Rollins in New York City and raised in Harlem. He recorded with Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk and Miles Davis while still in his teens, and led his own groups from the mid-1950s. He withdrew from public performance three times, most famously in 1959–61 to practise alone on the Williamsburg Bridge. He played his last concert in 2012.

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Question What is the hardest thing that has happened to you, and what did you carry out of it?

I went through some really terrible times. I don’t know whether I should really even mention it, but you mentioned that I had to go to prison and all that stuff. I was in a state where they had me in a straitjacket at one time. Can you understand what it would feel like to be in a straitjacket? I know. I couldn’t either, but I was, and it was brought about by sort of a drug psychosis in prison. I mean I just went completely… But it was tough, it was tough. I mean at that time they put you in — there’s a place in New York they used to call the Tombs. You’ve probably heard of it. I mean it was like a living tomb, with all the people. So I was there, and the withdrawal — physical symptoms, which were unbelievable.

Recorded Academy of Achievement (achievement.org) source ↗

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