Scope and arrangement
The Sonny Rollins papers, dating from the 1910s to 2015 (the bulk dates from the 1950s onward) document the musical, personal, and career development of one of the most important musicians and artists of the 20th and early 21st centuries. This development can be most clearly observed in his music manuscripts and practice material; personal writings; letters; and professional business records. Rollins's career is also illustrated by an extensive set of photographs and a large collection of unreleased sound and video recordings.
Rollins's music manuscripts are unique in that they feature a large set of self-produced practice material. Dating from almost the start of his performing career until its conclusion in 2012, these manuscripts document Rollins's musical development to an extent rarely if ever seen for an improvising musician. In addition to music notation, the practice material holds Rollins's occasional prose annotations, as well as personal observations. The music manuscripts also contain sketches and compositions by Rollins, as well as music by other composers and arrangers, many used on recording sessions.
Rollins's writings, like the music manuscripts, provide a unique perspective on his personal development. They include philosophical essays, self-evaluation of his performances, notes on music and practice methods, social observations, and journal entries.
Business records document all aspects of Rollins's professional career and development; they comprise the largest portion of the collection. Compiled and maintained primarily by Lucille Rollins, they include files that illustrate the financial and logistical aspects of touring; the production of Rollins's commercial recordings; the myriad projects beyond touring and recording that he was involved in; and, via clippings and publicity files, Rollins's media presence. The publicity files include a comprehensive set of concert programs.
Rollins's letters hold notes to Lucille that discuss various aspects of life on tour; letters to musicians such as Benny Carter, Jim Hall, and Clark Terry; correspondence with the saxophonist Sigurd Raschèr; and letters from such figures as John Coltrane, Ishmael Reed, Randi Hultin, and Colette Hawkins (daughter of Coleman Hawkins). Business letters and fan mail are also present.
Rollins's awards and honors illustrate the degree to which Rollins has long been recognized by the music industry, academia, and the United States government. They include unique awards such as the Polar Music Prize, the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master award, and the National Medal of Arts, as well as honorary academic degrees and awards from magazines.
The sound and video in the collection, held by the Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division, is a monumental set of documentation, much of it never heard by the public. The recordings number over 1000 and include live concerts, rehearsals, home practice sessions, radio and television broadcasts, studio recordings in progress, interviews, and concert videos and films. Among the many unique items is an unreleased studio project recorded in 2004. Also present is Rollins's personal collection of long-playing record albums.
The collection holds a deep component of photography which has been transferred to the Photographs and Prints Division. Dating from the late 1940s to 2013, the photographs (mostly prints, with a few contact sheets and negatives) contain performance and publicity images; portraits; personal snapshots taken on tour, with band members and other musicians; vacation photos; signed photographs by other musicians; and photos taken at Rollins's home. The photographs include Rollins with friends and colleagues such as Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, Kenny Dorham, Max Roach, Jim Hall, Bob Cranshaw, Roy Haynes, Jimmy Heath, Larry Ridley, and many others.
Rollins's personal collection illustrates his varied interests. It includes art; music instruction texts; books on music, yoga, and religion; clippings on music, current events, and the environment; and posters and programs regarding other musicians and events.
The collection also holds the Pearson family papers, which document the histories of Lucille Rollins's parents, Leonard and Nanette Pearson, and Lucille's early life. They hold personal letters, photographs, employment documentation, school records, military records, and financial and insurance records.
The collection has four artifacts held by the Art and Artifacts Division: Rollins's 1971 Selmer Mark VI tenor saxophone, a set of claves gifted to him, and two suitcases bearing souvenir stickers from his travels.
The Sonny Rollins papers are arranged in nine series:
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circa 1951-20126.38 linear feet (19 containers)
Sonny Rollins's music manuscripts document a lifetime of disciplined practice and a constant quest for improvement. They consist of practice material and sketches compiled by Rollins from the early 1950s through 2012; compositions and arrangements by Rollins and others, some used on recording sessions; annotated method books; and published sheet music.
The accumulated written evidence of Rollins's practice regimen is rare and extensive to see from an improvising musician. These materials include harmonic and melodic exercises, saxophone exercises, exercises on chord progressions, and occasional written notes on the material. These notes include discussion of personal development and philosophy, and are similar to personal writings found separate from the music manuscripts (in Series II). The practice materials also contain melodic sketches, fully-conceived compositions in the form of lead sheets, lead sheets for music by other people, and set lists.
Within the practice exercises, on occasion, Rollins will articulate principles, but also question their validity. In one example from 1964 (in box 1, folder 1), he outlines an idea regarding superimposition of major chords, but he questions whether it is "an evolution of hearing" or "a temporary preference of the day." On the same page, he also quotes himself: "It's sacriligeous to worry." In other cases, exercises on chord progressions will have notes on how to arrange a song for performance, or specific instructions for musicians (identified by name). While such prose elaboration on particular exercises is present, most of the practice material is written as music notation without further explanation. Further insights into Rollins's practice regimen can gleaned from recorded practice sessions in Series VI.
Most of the finished compositions are arranged under Rollins's name or under "By Others." Compositions by Rollins include the scores and parts for Concerto for Tenor Saxophone and Orchestra (1985-1986, orchestrated by Rollins in collaboration with Heikki Sarmanto). The scores for the Concerto include Rollins's sketches, and letters from and notes by Sarmanto. Also present are sketches and lead sheets for compositions recorded by Rollins; and transcriptions of Rollins saxophone solos by Jeb Patton and others.
Work by other composers consists of lead sheets, arrangements for small groups, and big band arrangements. Notable items include arrangements by Kenny Dorham for tenor saxophone and big band (written for Rollins), and small group arrangements by Paul Jeffrey, Jimmy Heath, Dizzy Reece, and Jimmy Jones.
A few of the compositions and arrangements are organized under Recording Projects by the name of the released recording. These include Rollins's music for the film Alfie (1966, arranged by Oliver Nelson), and arrangements by Ernie Wilkins for the album Sonny Rollins and the Big Brass (1958).
Rollins collected published sheet music throughout his career, including many songs he performed and recorded. They include material from Broadway shows, films, and popular hits. Some of the published songs contain his annotations.
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1957-20143.62 linear feet (6 containers)
Rollins's writings offer an extremely rare look into a jazz musician's thought processes regarding his art, personal development, career, and daily life. Mostly written on lined yellow legal pads, they contain reflections on personal and musical growth; his opinion of his and his band members' performances; notes on practice methods, saxophone issues and fingerings; sporadic journal entries; social and political observations; drafts of letters and essays; and drawings and sketches. Writings like this can also be found in the music manuscripts (Series I), and in letters (Series IV). Essays prepared by Rollins for journalists can be found in the Publicity Files in Series III.
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1950s-201341.95 linear feet (106 containers)
The Business Records offers a panoramic view of the development of Rollins's career, as well as the day-to-day minutia of a working, recording jazz musician; they comprise the largest portion of the collection. Rollins's wife, Lucille, managed his career from the early 1970s until her death in 2004, and she compiled and maintained many of these records. Sonny Rollins managed his own business and kept records before Lucille managed him, and after her death. The records include files on touring, recording, and other projects; calendars, datebooks, and address books; clippings; posters; and publicity files.
Touring files constitute a major portion of the business records. Arranged chronologically, these consist of correspondence with concert presenters, Ted Kurland (Rollins's booking agent), and band members; contracts; travel arrangements; budgets; technical information; programs; clippings; and, occasionally, photographs.
The Recording Projects files date from 1964 to 2011. They contain correspondence with record companies and production personnel, such as Orrin Keepnews of Milestone Records; recording and production notes; scores; cover art; and photographs.
Further project files are divided into chronological and alphabetized sections. Researchers should examine both sections carefully as the contents overlap. They include files on projects or businesses such as Doxy Records (Rollins's company), Milestone Records, television appearances, and DVD releases; royalty statements from publishing and record companies; and letters from Rollins's lawyers, S.E. Katz and Peter Shukat. Further business-related letters can be found in Series IV: Letters, in the chronological file.
A small set of calendars and datebooks offers sporadic documentation of Rollins's schedule for roughly one year in each decade between 1960 and 2012.
Address books date from the 1970s through the 2000s. They supply a detailed look at Rollins's social and business network, and were probably maintained by both Sonny and Lucille Rollins.
The Publicity Files hold sporadic coverage of Rollins's publicity efforts from the late 1950s to the mid-2000s, and detailed coverage between 2006 and 2013. During the latter years, his publicist was Terri Hinte, with whom he maintained frequent contact. Hinte managed Rollins's interview schedule, working with reporters and Rollins to insure that published quotes had Rollins's blessing. This extended to allowing edits of interview transcripts and articles derived from them, some of which were published under Rollins's name. These files include faxed correspondence with Hinte; interview transcripts; a few written notes and essays by Rollins; clippings; and publicity literature. Publicity literature can also be found in the files for Milestone Records, in the alphabetical portion of the project files (box 80, folders 4-5).
Also present in the Publicity Files are clippings, posters, and concert programs. Clippings offer detailed coverage of Rollins's media presence from the mid-1950s to the 2010s. With the exception of two scrapbooks, all are loose.
Posters date from the 1950s to 2010. They advertise appearances at jazz festivals, clubs, and theaters, as well as album, film, or video releases, such as the documentary, Saxophone Colossus.
The Publicity Files also contain a large set of concert programs, handbills, and flyers documenting appearances around the world from 1957 to the 2010s. These include high-quality tour books produced for Rollins's Japanese visits.
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1959-20137.54 linear feet (16 containers)
Rollins's letters consist almost entirely of incoming mail, with the notable exception of letters and cards to and from his wife, Lucille. Most of the letters to her date from 1959 to 1962, in particular from a west coast tour Rollins undertook in the winter of 1962. Often written in between performance sets, these letters discuss personnel issues, Rollins's health, and other problems of performance and travel. A few letters from Lucille to Sonny are also present among them. Most of the remainder of the correspondence with Lucille consists of greeting cards and love notes sent or given over decades. The few letters in this series from Rollins to people other than Lucille include notes to Benny Carter, Jim Hall, Clark Terry, Ben Webster, Phil Schaap, Bill Clinton, and Sigurd Raschèr (see below).
The remainder of the letters are in four divisions: an alphabetical file, a chronological file, fan mail, and birthday and holiday cards sent to Rollins.
In the alphabetical file, letters from the Norwegian jazz impresario Randi Hultin (a friend) make up the largest portions. Other notable writers include classical saxophonist, teacher, and close friend Sigurd Raschèr, who maintained correspondence with Rollins about the saxophone and music; John Coltrane, from whom a letter to his first wife, Naima, regarding his poem "A Love Supreme" is present (gifted to Rollins by Naima); and Bret Primack, a jazz journalist and media figure who assisted Rollins with his website. Primack's letters include website guestbook entries, some of which have Rollins's written responses.
The chronological file, dating from 1950 to the 2010s, contains business, personal, and fan mail. In some cases, letters to Rollins contain unsolicited papers, dissertations, book manuscripts, and television and film scripts sent for his review. Some incoming letters in this file are to Lucille Rollins.
A separate set of fan mail dates from the 1980s to the 2010s. Some contain photographs of Rollins with the writers. Fan mail can also be found in the chronological file and in letters from Bret Primack in the alphabetical file.
The birthday and holiday cards, sent by friends, family, and fans, date from the 1970s forward.
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1957-20138.0 linear feet (21 containers)
The files for Rollins's awards, in addition to the awards themselves, often include letters from presenting organizations, travel arrangements, and photographs. The awards include notable honors such as the Polar Music Prize, the National Medal of Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master award; honorary degrees from colleges and conservatories; and multiple critic and reader poll plaques from Down Beat magazine;
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1962-2007Over 1000 items; 37.13 gigabytes; 969 computer files
Sound and video recordings in the collection date from 1962 to 2007, and contain extensive documentation of Rollins in performance and in practice. The sound recordings, numbering in the hundreds, include concerts, radio broadcasts, rehearsals, interviews, oral histories, warm-ups, practice sessions, rough mixes of studio recordings, and comparisons of reeds, mouthpieces and saxophones. The moving images include film and video of concerts. A large component of the sound and video recordings has never been commercially issued, or has been broadcast only once. Notable contents include an unissued 2004 studio project (in multi-track and mixed versions), a 1965 live recording of Rollins with Dexter Gordon, a 1997 Japanese concert video, a 1983 interview on WKCR-FM New York, and the 1986 world premiere performance of Rollins's Concerto for Tenor Saxophone and Orchestra in Japan (excerpted in the film Saxophone Colossus).
Rollins's personal collection of over 800 commercial record albums consist primarily of jazz artists from throughout the music's history. Also present are blues, gospel, popular, and classical albums, as well as music from Japan and Morocco.
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1940s-201321 containers
The collection holds a rich and extensive photographic component which was transferred to the Schomburg Photographs and Prints Division. Dating from the late 1940s to 2013, the photographs contain performance shots; portraits and publicity images of Rollins; informal photos taken on tour, on vacation, or at the Rollins homes in Germantown, New York or New York City; photographs of Rollins with colleagues, friends and family; images of other people; and photographs of events such as the Kennedy Center Honors and award ceremonies at the White House. Photographs can also be found with letters in Series IV.
Photographs of Rollins in performance, often sent as a courtesy to Rollins by the photographers, offer extensive coverage of his concerts in the United States, Europe, and Japan. The earliest feature him in performance with Art Blakey, Tommy Potter, and Kenny Dorham. They also include shots with the Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quintet of the mid-1950s; with his early-60s group featuring Jim Hall; his mid-60s band with Don Cherry; and later groups featuring Mark Soskin, Jerome Harris, Al Foster, Clifton Anderson, Stephen Scott, and other musicians. Performance shots can also be found in the informal photos taken on tour.
The informal photographs include shots of Japanese tours of the late-1960s and early-1980s; these include images of Larry Ridley, Roy Haynes, Chick Corea, Jack DeJohnette, and Joe Zawinul. They also contain a large number of photos taken on vacations or at home.
The portraits, dating from the late-1950s to 2008, include the work of photographers with whom Rollins had long-term working relationships and friendships, such as Katsuji Abé and John Abbott. The portraits contain performance photographs, but most are studio portraits used for publicity purposes. One set of photographs from the 1980s, taken for a Japanese magazine, features Rollins on the Williamsburg Bridge.
The publicity photos date primarily from Rollins's years with Milestone Records (1970s to the 2000s), but also include a few from 1957 to 1963.
Photographs of Rollins with others include Dizzy Gillespie, Hank Jones, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Art Blakey, Orrin Keepnews, Max Roach, Jim Hall, Bob Cranshaw, Roy Haynes, Jimmy Heath, Dexter Gordon, Ben Webster, Oscar Pettiford, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ronnie Scott, Ravi Coltrane, Christian McBride, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Cosby, Hillary Clinton, Sigurd Raschèr, and many others. Also present are photos of Rollins sent to him by fans. There are very few photographs of Rollins with his wife or family in the collection.
Photographs of other people (without Rollins) include a set of prints of other jazz musicians (with Rollins's commentary on them for Life magazine), John Coltrane (in performance in 1964), David S. Ware, Benny Carter, Bud Powell, Paul Bley, Roy McCurdy, Coleman Hawkins, Sonny Stitt, Max Roach, Abbey Lincoln, Terri Lyne Carrington, Sigurd Raschèr, and Masahiro Oki (Rollins's yoga instructor in Japan). Some of these prints are autographed.
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1950s-2010s10.69 linear feet (25 containers)
Rollins' personal interests are revealed through his collection of art, books, calendars, clippings, posters, programs, and a scrapbook. None of these items document his activities.
Art is comprised mainly of portraits of Rollins, created and sent as gifts by fans and friends, in the form of oil paintings, watercolors, drawings, and sketches. These include a folio of portraits by Klaus Albrechtsen. There is also a set of art works that do not depict Rollins, and may have been displayed in his home.
The books include music instruction manuals, coffee table books of jazz photography, and books on yoga and Rosicruicanism. The calendars feature images of jazz musicians, including Rollins.
Rollins regularly saved clippings about music, musicians (especially obituaries), and current events, in particular regarding issues such as racism, injustice, the environment, inequality, and politics.
The posters advertise performances by other musicians. The programs document concerts, memorial services, lectures, and other events. Rollins attended some of these events, while other programs were sent to him by friends. The scrapbook, containing published photographs of jazz musicians, was created for Rollins by an unidentified fan or friend.
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1910s-19810.83 linear feet (2 containers)
The family papers of Lucille Pearson Rollins document the lives of her parents, Leonard (1896-1949) and Nanette (1901-1979), as well as Lucille's early life. The papers are divided between a chronological portion, sections for all three Pearsons, and photographs.
The chronological portion mainly documents Nanette and Lucille Pearson. It contains cards and letters, school reports, a confirmation program, promotion documents and other work reports, financial and insurance records, clippings, and an address book. None of the cards and letters are substantial, but they include a few postcards from Sonny Rollins to his mother-in-law, dating from 1972 to 1973.
The Leonard Pearson papers hold work documentation, military promotion and discharge papers, Veterans Administration letters, mortgage records, Pearson's death certificate, and his funeral guestbook. Nanette Pearson's papers contain financial records, employment records, retirement cards from co-workers, letter of condolence after Leonard's death, and insurance records. Lucille's papers contain her Baptism records, school records and transcripts, clippings, letters and cards from her mother, and employment records.
The photographs are of Leonard Pearson, his parents, and extended family; Nanette Pearson and members of her family; and Lucille. They date from Leonard's early childhood to the 1970s.