Sonny Rollins 1964 Interview

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Sifting through stuff, I came across a copy of Abundant Sounds, a tiny (4 folded letter-sized sheets) publication. I imagine that not many people have seen this interview. The interview would have taken place in early May 1964. It was during this Five Spot engagement that Sonny had Grachan Moncur sit in with the group. I believe the Show Boat gig that is mentioned is from August 1963, before the Japanese tour in September.

Enjoy.

Mike

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Sonny Rollins Interview

[Originally published in Abundant Sounds, vol. 2, no. 3 (July 1964)]

Tapeing The Artists (With Abundant Sounds)

Sonny Rollins was kind enough to spend quite a bit of time with Abundant Sounds publisher Fred Miles and New York Representative Jean French during his Five Spot engagement. Fred and Jean had our Uher #4000 Report battery tape recorder along and the highlights of their conversation with Sonny follow.

FM: I enjoyed hearing you not long ago at the Show Boat. This is a different group, I notice.

SONNY: Yes, slightly different and much more, I hope, by the time we go back to Philadelphia. We are trying to introduce another element into the music.

FM: I understand you have been to Japan for a while. Maybe you could tell us a little about it?

SONNY: Very nice trip. It's a wonderful place. The people are very nice. We had to buy a trunk to bring back all the gifts we had and they liked the music. I stayed over there a little while to study Japanese music and got a little bit of an insight into the ancient classical Japanese music and into Eastern music in general. These bells, of course, are from India. We did not go there this time but I hope to go to India next time.

FM: You said something about having something new when you come to Philadelphia once again. Tell us a little bit about that.

SONNY: Oh yes. It might be difficult to do it at the Show Boat as we are planning to use an element of drama. We would have to use some kind of a stage to have it done correctly. We can do it here but at the Show Boat it's not as flexible.

FM: It's all around you with the people and the circular bar.

SONNY: Yes, and the stage is elevated so that we can't come off.

JEAN: Have you done any further thinking on the plans that you had a while back on dancers and vocalists?

SONNY: Are you a dancer, Jean?

JEAN: No, I'm not.

SONNY: Just wondered. Yes, well, we would like to use them also. But for that we would have to have a more elaborate place to do it. Whereas most of the clubs, with the exception of the Show Boat, can accommodate what we have now. We do plan to use dancers at special presentations. It's nothing new. We are not trying to say that we are doing something new.

FM: Music and dance have certainly gone together for many years.

SONNY: Ah, very much so. There is no reason why we cannot have jazz and drama or jazz and dance.

JEAN: There is something else that I would like to ask you about and that is your hairdo. There are quite a few people that have not actually seen you in person since your hair has been cut in this fashion. You mentioned something about children in West Virginia?

SONNY: She makes me sound like a chick - "Hairdo." Oh yes, I had found out that children in West Virginia wear their hair in this style. I was surprised to learn of this and I was wondering if I began to do it before they did or what the case was. Of course, we know the Mohicans did it first. It's very nice. It's easy for me to keep up. I do it myself. I don't have to go to the barber. It's very economical. I do it myself. It takes a few minutes, plus I think it enhances my continuance on personality. I've always had a feeling to do this. I got the nerve one day and did it. There is no other significance or meaning.

FM: I notice the bells - are they something recent?

SONNY: These have been recent. These are from India.

BELLS: Ring, ring, ring.

SONNY: Like them?

JEAN: Yes.

FM: I notice that there were two different sizes or shapes of bells. Is there any significance?

SONNY: Yes, there is. See the one bells, the new ones, the light colored ones? I just put them on for the first time tonight. These were worn by the mendicants, the priests. These are a standard shape bell. You can see that they are very pretty. These are worn by the priests as they go around and if I am not mistaken, people give them food to eat and their whole life is spent just going around and blessing people.

FM: They have a nice tone.

SONNY: Exactly; and that's why I added them, because this also helps to get the audience in the correct frame of mind and get myself in the correct fram of mind.

FM: The others are ball shaped.

SONNY: They are almost completely enclosed.

BELLS: Constantly ringing through conversation.

FM: Sounds somewhat mystical.

SONNY: They are; and I'll make you a present of a set if you are going to be around here by tomorrow. Anyplace you hang these up, and everyone that has these bells reports the same thing: that they ring at very rare times and it makes you think.

BELLS: Ringing louder.

JEAN: How long have you been here?

SONNY: Eight weeks all together, Jean.

JEAN: Nice stay.

SONNY: Yes. It went pretty fast, didn't it? Next week is the last.

FM: Then what? Overseas?

SONNY: Yes, we want to go to Europe again because we have not been in a while.

FM: You have been recording with RCA, I believe.

SONNY: Yes, we have one more album with them which we are working on just about now, and there is one that's coming out now which has Herbie Hancock and Elvin Jones and Thad Jones.

BELLS: Ring, ring.

FM: Just saw Thad Jones in Philadelphia playing with Jerome Richardson and the group, up at the Uptown Theater there.

SONNY: He was enjoyable, I know. He is a great musician. I heard him with Monk at Monk's Lincoln Center concert and he was great. So that should be a pretty good date and then we have one more which we are about to do now and then RCA and I will have come to the culmination of our stay together. We will part - friends, I hope.

FM: There is definitely a parting there?

SONNY: Definitely. The people are nice and I've been able to do what I wanted to do, more or less, but it's just that there are no other jazz musicians at RCA. So we will come to the end of our contract, which was for six albums. As you know, the much talked-about contract that we signed with them, this will be over by the end of June. We have our last date to do by that time. As I said, the company is fine and Mr. Avakian over there has been doing his job very well and I have no complaints. We now want to go with a company which is a little more oriented to the jazz idiom, if you know what I mean.

FM: With this interview, I was eager to take this whole portable rig down to a bridge that you are very famous for. Evidently, we didn't, but I was just wondering about this. I read and heard of you practicing down on - what was it, the Williamsburg Bridge?

SONNY: The Williamsburg Bridge, right.

FM: Did you do this often?

SONNY: Well, I did at one time, of course, after I came back to active work, and it became so highly publicized it wasn't so much the ideal spot. It's a nice bridge, though, just to go up and look at. It's a nice walk over that bridge. It's a long walk but it's nice. It has a promenade which is over everything else tso you are up on top of the cars and trains and everything.

FM: Was this something that was just done once or twice or did you go repeatedly?

SONNY: No, I stayed up on the bridge for six or seven days a week for quite a while.

JEAN: This wasn't during the winter?

SONNY: No, I had to stop when it got very, very cold. I was there quite a bit, even in the winter time. I got some gloves. It's a beautiful bridge and it's always nice to go up on something high, then you can see all around you. So it's a principle evolved of going up on a hill or up on a bridge. Unless you do, you can't see the terrain around you. So I was down in the lower east side in my apartment and I was like holed up in a little box and I never knew that this bridge was right there to show me the whole city.

JEAN: Would you say that it created a feeling of no criticism and that you were the king up there?

SONNY: I'll put it this way: it gave me a spiritual feeling. It, ah - gave me strength.

FM: Acoustically, I imagine that you just heard yourself with no echo or reverberation.

SONNY: Yes, it was very good for practicing.

FM: Well, thanks, Sonny. It's been nice seeing you again after all of these years. We were talking about the Max Roach-Clifford Brown days.

SONNY: Clifford Brown - oh boy, I'm glad we got his name into it. That's right. I'd like to come back to Philly. I don't know when I'll get back there. Whenever I'm there, Fred, I always think about those same days with Brownie. he did a great deal to help me along, and not just in a musical way. Such a great man.

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[Chuck Nessa]

Thanks for posting that. I think I have a couple copies of Abundant Sounds somewhere.

[.:.impossible]

BELLS: Thanks Mike!

[JSngry]

Wow.

[AllenLowe]

interesting, to me, as much for what he doesn't say - this period is my favorite Sonny (love the Impulse and RCA recordings), but I also believe it indicates the beginning of a very confused journey - bells, mohawk haircuts, spiritual yearnings - I once had a very interesting conversation with the bassist Jamil Nasser who told me he thought that Rollins was sent spinning by Coltrane's rise in dominance; whereas Sonny had been the king of the hill prior, Coltrane was now the one on everyone's minds - and within a few years (not to start that old thread again) he would basically stop making decent recordings and begin the accumulation of electric baggage -

[Guy Berger]

Thanks a lot for posting that interview, Mike.

I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything while reading this interview or it might have come out my nose when I read this:

JEAN: Have you done any further thinking on the plans that you had a while back on dancers and vocalists?

SONNY: Are you a dancer, Jean?

JEAN: No, I'm not.

[jazzbo]

BELLS: Ring, ring, ring.

This and other "BELLS:" comments crack me up!

[ghost of miles]

Thanks a lot for posting that, Mike. The allusion to line-up changes--was Cherry gone from the group by this time? I'd love to read a really well-done bio of Sonny some day.

[AllenLowe]

I don't think it'll happen unless it's "unauthorized," as Sonny holds everything so close to the vest -

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Yes, Cherry was gone. SR had then done the quartet with Paul Bley, Henry Grimes, Roy McCurdy; then that band went to Japan with the addition of trumpeter Reshid Kmal Ali - a very mysterious figure - and then I'm not exactly sure who was in the band when they came back, but Grimes wasn't. I don't know if the studio groups had anything to do with the live shows. Beaver Harris joined late in 1964.

Mike

[Jazz Kat]

What hair style were they talking about? The mohawk?

[JSngry]

Yep.

[.:.impossible]

BELLS: Ring, ring, ring.

This and other "BELLS:" comments crack me up!

←

That's what my post referred to. I thought that was hilarious.

[jazzbo]

Yeah Cary, it IS hilarioius!

[.:.impossible]

So is that portrait of you above Satch's fireplace! Awesome.