Saxophonist Benjamin Herman
Photo Andreas Terlaak
Benjamin Herman‘You can follow his entire life, his entire development over all those decades, through his records’
“For me, Sonny Rollins is forever linked to one of my first saxophone memories. My father – who was also called Sonny by the way – gave me the record +4 by drummer Max Roach. On that record, Rollins plays the lowest note on a sax, a low B-flat. When I was young, I would put two speakers opposite each other and then lay my head between them to listen to how those speakers vibrated with that one low note. That sound… that’s what made me fall in love with the saxophone.”
“I’m having a hard time with it today. But the great thing is that he was with us for so long, unlike many other geniuses from his generation. You can follow his entire life, his entire development over all those decades, through his records.”
“I saw him live several times and something happened to him that does not happen very often at jazz concerts: everyone came out with a smile. So not just people who rubbed their chins with a difficult look and said: ‘Gosh, how nice everyone’. He knew how to appeal to people with his music on all kinds of levels.”
Also read
Sonny Rollins was the last jazz giant of a legendary generation
Tineke Postema in 2019
Photo Merlijn Doomernik
Tineke Postma‘His playing was so powerful, so full of charisma’
“You have of course been aware for some time that Sonny Rollins was one of the last giants who had to go. But he has had so much influence on me, on everyone actually, it certainly touches me.”
“His playing was so powerful, so full of charisma. He never leaned on clichés in his improvisations, never fell back on things he had played before, things he knew worked. He always kept looking ahead and always kept the drive to develop themselves.”
“Rollins really had a gigantic sound. He phrased very rhythmically and very clearly articulated. Even with one note you immediately knew it was him. That personal style and sound always stood out above everything.”
Yuri Honing at North Sea Jazz 2023.
Photo Andreas Terlaak
Yuri Honey‘His death feels a bit like the end of an era’
“I received a text message at 4 a.m. last night with the news. My first thought was of course: a terrible shame. He was a bit of the last of the Mohicans, and perhaps the greatest improviser in the history of our music. Rollins could compete with the very greatest in history. With Armstrong, with Ellington. With Miles and Coltrane. His death feels a bit like the end of an era.”
“When I was still a student, someone played me a live recording of Rollins from the 1950s. I was so upset by it that I didn’t touch the saxophone for two weeks. Because I thought: what’s the point, I’m never going to achieve this. Unbelievable, with such ease.”
“The most important thing I learned from him: it is not about the quality of the idea you have. Fortunately, because the vast majority of ideas you have are ultimately very mediocre. It is about how far you can develop an idea. Having patience, continuing to work on something that is not quite there yet. Until it is crazy. That is typical of Rollins for me: that he could elevate even the most mediocre ideas to great art.”
Hans Dulfer during a performance in Paradiso.
Photo Paul Bergen ANP
Hans Dulfer‘Rollins showed me how freely you can handle your own music’
“I first heard Rollins when I was 15. I will be 86 next week and in all the years in between, Rollins has greatly influenced my life. The way he knows how to make something out of nothing… He was a master in paying attention to the little things, so that he could also make something beautiful out of them: he made the most beautiful compositions from a small, crappy song.”
“And his improvisations, of course. They were always exceptionally broad, he could solo for endless amounts of time. But he could also say a lot with little; play a calypso with a few simple notes.”
“In jazz music you always try to find what you like about the playing of others and add a bit of yourself to it. Rollins showed me how freely you can deal with your own music. Sometimes you see those classical musicians who look at all those notes with serious faces. That was not the case with him at all. He played with complete freedom.”
