THE EVERGREEN SONNY ROLLINS

A tribute to the jazz giant who shared a profound connection with India.

- by Sunil Sampat

Jazz, as we know it today, is about a hundred years old, and Sonny Rollins has lived through ninety-five of those years. In his lifetime, he had seen jazz grow right from the early days in New Orleans, when Louis Armstrong first shaped it into a serious jazz sound, through the era of the swing and dance bands, through the innovation of bebop, hardbop, cool jazz, postbop, modal jazz, the electronic/fusion phase, and all the way back to the mainstream sounds. Sonny Rollins heard it all, assimilated these jazz phases and crafted a distinctive, emphatic and highly personal style of delivering jazz on his magnificent tenor saxophone.

Like the true “Saxophone Colossus” — both his nickname and the title of one of his most celebrated albums — Sonny Rollins had a distinctive sound. The moment you heard it, you knew Rollins was laying down the law. His passing on May 25, 2026, closes a monumental chapter in jazz history, but his influence will continue to resonate across generations and continents.

There is a ream of material about the stages of his musical career, but let us look at the indelible impact Sonny Rollins had on jazz in India. The jazz scene in present-day India owes plenty to an event way back 48 years ago.

In 1978, a newly created organisation, Jazz India, did something unprecedented on the music scene. They decided to unveil a week-long jazz festival, the Jazz Yatra in Bombay (now Mumbai). Sonny Rollins was to be the headliner for the festival; in fact, he was named the Patron of Jazz Yatra ‘78. He played, and oh, how he played during that festival!

We were fortunate to be seated next to R.D. Burman and Asha Bhosle when Rollins played on the opening day, and we easily chatted about the music on display. Their expressions of wonder are still vivid in our minds. These two masterful music makers were clearly listening to a magical new sound.