Kevin Whitehead

Wagon Wheels, old cowboy song written for Broadway's Ziegfeld Follies of 1934.

It's from the album Way Out West, an excellent introduction to a few things that made Sonny Rollins great, like how the saxophone has thrived in the bare-bones trio format, which left him fully exposed.

Also, the clarity of his best improvisations.

When you have as much technique as Rollins, it's easy to overdo it.

But he leaves so much space, the effect is more like singing than showing off.

Wagon Wheels also speaks to Sonny Rollins' love of unlikely material.

On Way Out West, he also does I'm an Old Cow Hand, just as he'd recently cut There's No Business Like Show Business and How Are Things in Glockomora.

And then there's his imposing, sometimes garish sound.

Sonny's saxophone tone in his 1950s prime is as durable and flexible as steel-reinforced rubber, and he got plenty of mileage out of it.

Thomas from 1956, the first of many Rollins Calypsos.

His parents came from the West Indies.

Theodore Rollins was born and raised in Harlem and was nicknamed Sonny while still in diapers.

He grew up surrounded by established and aspiring jazz musicians.

Rollins started on saxophone at eight, practiced like mad and developed quickly, cutting his first session under his own name before turning 21.

Months later, he'd record Mambo Bounce, hinting at those calypsos to come.

Even then, he could give you the impression that when he improvises, he's both deep in the moment and standing back to coolly observe his progress.

First came Rollins the searcher, the saxophone colossus of the 1950s, when he had one of the all-time jazz hot streaks, knocking out one classic album after another.

But in 1959, he began a two-year sabbatical from gigging to up his game.

He practiced on the Williamsburg Bridge, blowing to the tugboats, an act so New York iconic Spike Lee restaged it in Mo' Better Blues.

Coming back in the 60s, Rollins tried on new situations, a quartet with guitar, another with Ornette Coleman's sidemen, and a brassy big band.