Sonny Rollins, Jazz’s ‘Saxophone Colossus,’ Dies at 95

By Chris Morris

Chris Morris

Music Reporter

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Tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, the “Saxophone Colossus” who was schooled by bebop’s legends as a prized sideman and became their peer as a formidable leader, improviser and composer, has died, according to a social media post from his family. No cause of death was cited; he was 95.

Sporting a burly tone, a tart sense of instrumental humor and keen melodic and harmonic ingenuity, Rollins was acknowledged as a jazz voice as groundbreaking as that of his friend and contemporary John Coltrane, with whom he unforgettably locked horns on “Tenor Madness” in 1956.

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