Sonny Rollins

speaker

278 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 11 Sep

Sonny Rollins’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.

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Fresh Air · Remembering jazz giant Sonny Rollins · 29 May 2026 podcast

They were much more studious than I was.

And I wanted to hang out and play ball.

And as the years went on, I was really the guy that was out going to jazz clubs and all that.

These things were frowned on at that time.

I don't think I would have, actually.

There would really have been no reason, I don't think, to get involved with that.

I got involved with it because a lot of my idols were doing it and so on.

So we thought that using drugs was sort of the thing to do.

But this is something like asking whether Billie Holiday would be the singer she is.

if she didn't use drugs.

I've had this discussion often with people.

And my answer is that, yes, I think Billie Holiday would be the singer she is regardless of what happened to her.

I mean, even though she may sing about hard times and all that, she was a consummate musician and beautiful singer.

So, yes, I think that she would sing the way she did

Charlie Parker would play the way he did.

Everybody would do what they did.

Oh, yeah.

Well, you know, my mother was pretty.

Since I was a baby, my mother really, she stuck by me regardless of what I did.

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