(photo: sonnyrollins.com)

Jazz legend Sonny Rollins joined us on Wednesday to reflect on his storied career and give us his thoughts on the future of music and a whole lot more. To celebrate his 80th birthday, the hugely influential tenor saxophonist – one of the last jazz immortals, who played with fellow greats like Coleman Hawkins, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Max Roach, and John Coltrane – is embarking on yet another national tour.

Among many other things, Rollins talked about race and jazz.  One listener asked him about the predominantly white audiences for contemporary jazz, and what it means that younger generations of African Americans have flocked to newer forms of expression such as hip-hop. Here’s what he had to say:

SONNY ROLLINS: This is a huge, huge country, and I think America is an experiment. So, there’s still factions. You know, I remember a lot of the jazz clubs we used to play, and eventually we had more white people coming in. And then some of the black people left because they were more white people appreciating it. I mean there are all of these little subtexts going on…It’s silly reasons like that which, you know, harm the general culture, in that everything shouldn’t be appreciated. I think that hip-hop, all of this stuff, is under the jazz umbrella. I think it’s all jazz. I think jazz is just a music force. You know, the real sense of what jazz is really the freedom, yet the sense of right and wrong. Jazz is what America is in a sense…

TOM ASHBROOK: But I wonder: Do you think there is going to be the kind of musicianship out there in the country, that you grew up in the midst of, around jazz that would be familiar to your peers in that hey-day? Is that going to be there, or is it just going to just be in the archives, just in the old recordings? And doesn’t it matter, Sonny?

SONNY ROLLINS: Well, I grew up in a time that was really a golden age. I don’t know if you’ve seen that jazz photograph, that famous jazz photograph, by Art Kane that had all of these different generations of jazz people.

TOM ASHBROOK: And everyone’s there in Harlem, all at once. It’s kind of – you can’t believe it’s true.

SONNY ROLLINS: I know, I know. But it shows that there was a point when there was everybody…it was kind of a golden age. You could hear Willie “The Lion” Smith, you could hear Ornette Coleman, you could hear everybody. Everybody was sort of playing and creating at the same time. But now I believe the future is bright. And music is so unlimited that we never know how these things are going to come about. But they will come about in some unexpected way.

Listen to the full hour with Sonny Rollins. You can also hear some other On Point jazz-related segments from our archives, on both the new and the old. We did a relatively recent show on the legendary pianist Thelonious Monk. And earlier last year, we looked at a new generation of jazz musicians.

(photo: sonnyrollins.com)

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Jazz great Sonny Rollins was there when the masters were neighbors. When Coleman Hawkins walked Harlem. When Monk and Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Bud Powell would pull up for a midnight jam.

And young Sonny — Theodore Walter Rollins — would pull out his tenor sax and paint the universe.

He was there for bebop and hard bop, with “Saxophone Colossus” and “The Bridge,” and wailing with the Rolling Stones. And he’s still playing, in his 80th year.

This hour, On Point: the last jazz immortal Sonny Rollins.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, or on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests: 

Sonny Rollins joins us from New Paltz, New York. A Grammy Award-winning tenor saxophonist and composer, he’s one of the biggest names in modern jazz. In a career spanning six decades, he’s performed with such greats as Coleman Hawkins, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Max Roach, and John Coltrane. He begins his “80th Birthday Tour” in April. 

Bob Blumenthal, jazz critic who has written for Down Beat, Jazz Times, The Village Voice, The Boston Globe, and The Atlantic. He holds two Grammy Awards for liner notes. He’s the author of “Jazz: An Introduction to the History and Legends Behind America’s Music.” His forthcoming book on Sonny Rollins will be out in September.    

Upcoming dates for Sonny Rollins’ 80th Birthday tour include: 

April 6     Orchestra Hall, Detroit, MI

April 9     Orchestra Hall, Chicago, IL

April 18   Symphony Hall, Boston, MA

May 10    Paramount Theatre, Seattle, WA

May 13    Wheeler Auditorium, University of California, Berkeley, CA

May 16    Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, CA

May 19    Davis Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts Jackson Hall, Davis, CA

June 12   Discover Jazz Festival, Burlington, VT

June 23   Winnipeg Jazz Festival, Winnipeg, Canada

June 27  Montreal Jazz Festival, Montreal, Canada

Producer John Comerford, who appeared on our show this year to talk about his film “Icons Among Us: Jazz in the Present Tense,” suggested before the show that we might look to contemporary pianists Matthew Shipp, Vijay Iyer, or Jason Moran to talk about the Monk legacy. (John’s project is still rolling along; check it out at the “Icons Among Us” Facebook page.)

Shipp indeed made an appearance on our Monk segment, with biographer Robin Kelley. 

Here’s Shipp grooving in person:

A pianist who has pushed the boundaries of jazz — much as Monk did in his day — Shipp told host Tom Ashbrook that the Monk legacy endures:

I’m like a third or fourth generation of pianists that was really touched by Monk’s discipline, his belief in himself, and just the humanness in his music. I mean his music is obviously an Afro-American … jazz music. But at the same time, he has just such an open mind, that he takes in everything … and brings it into his own idiom, where he kind of really discovered the essence of what makes him work as a composer and a pianist. And he was able to just really develop this music that was his vision. So I think that type of thing has really influenced me and other pianists.  

Shipp said Monk’s first generation of heirs includes musicians like Randy Weston, Mal Waldron, and Cecil Taylor. He also mentioned later players, like Anthony Davis and Moran. “The figure of Monk is just a pervasive, pervasive figure,” Shipp said during our show, “…Monk offers an infinity of responses.”

At the end of his book, Kelley also plugs Shipp, Iyer, Moran, and Davis, in addition to Jessica Williams, Marcus Roberts, Danilo Perez, Gonzalo Rublcaba, and Fred Hersch. He writes in his book that those musicians are “just a fraction of the post-Monk generation of pianists/composers whose ideas have been profoundly shaped by a serious engagement with Monk’s music.”

Moran is on tape talking about Monk:

Here’s Vijay Iyer in studio:

And Jessica Williams on stage:

Thelonious Monk performs at the Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, R.I., on July 5, 1963. (AP Photo)

Jazz great Thelonious Monk had a genius for unusual and daring composition, for confounding and delighting the world. He did things with rhythm, melody and chords that had never quite been heard before.

Hip America swooned for his music and for his myth: the mystical, elusive “George Washington of bebop.” From the 1940s to the 1970s and beyond, the myth of Monk nearly overshadowed the man. But his music rolls on.

A new biography from Robin Kelley tells the story of the music and the man — of Coltrane and Chopin and genius and Monk.

This hour, On Point: a deep new look at the great jazzman Thelonious Monk.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Robin Kelley joins us from Los Angeles. Professor of history and American Studies at the University of Southern California, he’s the author of the new biography “Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original.” You can read an excerpt here.

And from New York we’re joined by Matthew Shipp, jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader. His previous albums include “One,” “Harmony and Abyss,” and “Equilibrium.” His forthcoming album, available this January, is “4d.” You can hear him playing and talking about piano jazz at NPR.org.

Here’s a list of the Monk songs featured during the hour:

“Blue Sphere”
“Introspection”
“‘Round Midnight”
“Evidence”
“Trinkle, Tinkle”
“Brilliant Corners”
“In Walked Bud”
“This is My Story, This is My Song”
“Jackie-Ing”
“Well, You Needn’t”

More links:

In this clip from the documentary “Straight No Chaser,” you can see Monk’s famous “dance” during a performance:

And here’s Monk playing his renowned composition “‘Round Midnight” in Norway in 1966:

from iconsamongus.com (click image above to visit the site)

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Jazz, the great American art form, is so great it’s been a problem. How do you keep going, changing, staying vital, fresh, when the shadows of the greats are so long and deep?

There’s Armstrong and Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, and on and on.

So is jazz now? Or is jazz then? A new documentary tours the new horizon of jazz. The new icons. New names. Benevento. Blanchard. Glasper. Shipp. Jason Moran. The Bad Plus. And their sound.

This hour, On Point: on the new frontier of jazz.

What, who, does “jazz” mean to you? Miles? Monk? Dizzy? Or somebody new? And if it’s too new, too different, is it still jazz? Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from New Orleans is John Comerford, president of Paradigm Studios and executive producer of the big, new four-part documentary, “Icons Among Us: Jazz in the Present Tense.” It’s currently airing on the Documentary Channel, Mondays at 9 PM, with the music and voices of a whole new pantheon of jazz.

Also from New Orleans, we’re joined by Alan Evans, drummer with the jazz/funk band Soulive. They’ve recorded with Chaka Khan, Dave Matthews, Talib Kweli, and John Scofield, and opened for The Rolling Stones, The Roots, and John Mayer. Their latest album is “Up Here.”

More links:

Here’s the music heard in the segment ins and outs during this show, in the order played, with links to the artists’ websites:

“Fleur de Lis” – Nicholas Payton, from the album “Into the Blue”

“Flow, Pt. 1″ – Terence Blanchard, from the album “Flow”

“Blue Skies” – Robert Glasper Trio, from the album “Mood”

“Principle” – Greg Osby, from the album “9 Levels”

“I Know You Know” – Esperanza Spalding, from the album “Esperanza”

“End of the World Party” – Medeski, Martin and Wood, from the album “End of the World Party (just in case)”

The New York Times’ Ben Ratliff reviews “Icons Among Us.” On the LA Times music blog, Chris Barton reviews the film and features some video clips. “Icons Among Us” on MySpace features more video.

Here’s an 8-minute trailer for the film and an excerpt featuring Soulive (from YouTube):

Count Basie

Originally broadcast: June 6, 2008

William “Count” Basie didn’t really read music. He and his band — rolling out of Kansas City, on their way to the American stage — just made it up.

Felt it in their bones. Blew it on their horns. Played it on keyboards, and behind Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, in the late 1930s, in a sound known as swing.

It was a time of Depression and FDR, Joe Louis and Amelia Earhart. It had a soundtrack. And Count Basie was a huge part of it.

Do we have a soundtrack today? Gnarls Barkley? Beck?

This hour, in an archive edition of On Point: Count Basie, and the sound of America, then and now.

- Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Roxane Orgill, music critic and author of the new book “Dream Lucky,” which chronicles Count Basie’s rise in the 1930s.

Tim Riley, NPR music critic and frequent contributor to “Here & Now.” His latest book is “Fever: How Rock Transformed Gender.”

In the world of jazz, saxophone giant John Coltrane was so big, so powerful, so deep, so out there that almost half a century later jazz musicians are still wailing in his shadow.

Coltrane, says New York Times jazz critic Ben Ratliff, was the John Henry of jazz, the John Wayne, the Paul Bunyon — the giant.

Whether with Miles Davis or Thelonious Monk or in straight-up solo on his own, Coltrane broke the rules and made new ones in his search for the jazz divine in “Love Supreme,” in his sound.

This hour On Point: John Coltrane, and the story of a sound.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Ben Ratliff, jazz critic for The New York Times and author of “Coltrane: The Story of A Sound.”

Roy Haynes, drummer who played with John Coltrane, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Sarah Vaughn and many other jazz notables. He’s out with a new 4-disc boxed set of his music “A Life in the Time: The Roy Haynes Story.”

Best-selling jazz trumpeter Chris Botti says “music that breaks your heart is the music that stays with you forever.” And that’s what he gives his listeners — sweeping jazz ballads that warm the heart and soul.

Influenced by his piano-playing mother and the legendary Miles Davis, Botti has played with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Sting, and Paul Simon.

Is it jazz? Does it matter? He sells out venues wherever he goes — and he goes everywhere, on the road nearly every day of the year.

This hour, On Point: trumpeter Chris Botti.

-Jane Clayson

Guest:

Chris Botti, jazz trumpeter and composer. He’s toured with Sting and played with greats such as Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, and Paul Simon. His new album is “Italia.”

In the world of jazz, saxophone giant John Coltrane was so big, so powerful, so deep, so out there that almost half a century later jazz musicians are still wailing in his shadow.

Coltrane, says New York Times jazz critic Ben Ratliff, was the John Henry of jazz, the John Wayne, the Paul Bunyon — the giant.

Whether with Miles Davis or Thelonious Monk or in straight-up solo on his own, Coltrane broke the rules and made new ones in his search for the jazz divine in “Love Supreme,” in his sound.

This hour On Point: John Coltrane, and the story of a sound.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Ben Ratliff, jazz critic for The New York Times and author of “Coltrane: The Story of A Sound.”

Roy Haynes, drummer who played with John Coltrane, Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Sarah Vaughn and many other jazz notables. He’s out with a new 4-disc boxed set of his music “A Life in the Time: The Roy Haynes Story.”