Thursday, November 22, 2007

Jazz great Sonny Rollins wowing audiences in Europe

BRUSSELS, Belgium - He did jail time on Rikers Island, played the requisite dances with record labels and pioneered the bass-drum saxophone accompaniment known as strolling.

The images of him blowing his tenor saxophone on the lower level of New York's Williamsburg bridge are an indispensable part of jazz culture. Sonny Rollins has been rocking the tenor sax since 1946 and he has no intention of giving it up now.

"I'm raring to go because I'm a very serious musician," he said in a telephone interview with Canadian News. "I still practise everyday. I'm still studying and learning. You never learn all of music." Rollins is in the midst of a two-week tour of Western Europe and Wednesday night at the BOZAR concert hall in Brussels, the 77-year-old proved he's still got it.

Not that there was any doubt.

Wednesday's audience varied in age, with many parents bringing their teenage children. In Europe, jazz is passed from generation to generation.

Canadian News (Google)

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