The Notebooks of Sonny Rollins

Praise

“Rollins pushed the art of melodic improvisation to transcendent new heights, his charismatic sound, his snaking melodies and his rhythmic liquidity ringing the changes as surely as Louis Armstrong had done thirty years earlier…. Rollins kept returning to the possibility of documenting his thoughts about music and other spin-off ideas inside a book…. Here are the workings-out for that never-completed book.” —Philip Clark, The Spectator

“It is possible to imagine the jazz musician Sonny Rollins’s life as a novel, pitched between realism and surrealism in the manner of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man…He stares at his psyche as if in front of a full-length mirror. He fills the pages with lists — of books to read, of favorite songs, of possible titles for his own books. He deplores his impatience, and his lusting after women. He wants to be more punctual…Rollins was a true eccentric.”  —Dwight Garner, The New York Times 

“An indispensable look into the mind and interior life of one of the most celebrated jazz musicians of all time.” —The Millions

“Through his notebooks, Rollins emerges as a driven, humble, thoughtful, dedicated, persistent, and spiritual soul in search of a higher force through music…. [These are] illuminating diary entries by a jazz legend.” —Dave Szatmary, Library Journal

“A welcome peek into the mind of the great jazz musician…. Reese, author of Blue Notes: Jazz, Literature and Loneliness, delves into the tenor saxophonist’s substantial archives in the New York Public Library, unearthing these fascinating notebooks. Divided into four chronological sections covering nearly 50 years, they capture how Rollins’ thinking about a wide range of subjects evolved…. Heady musical and philosophical stuff.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Music critic and short story writer Reese celebrates tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins with … the 93-year-old jazz legend’s personal notes spanning from 1959 to 2010. Individually precise, yet somewhat loosely arranged into four broad sections, Rollins’s undated jottings break down his practice routine in commentary that can be mundane or surprisingly philosophical…. [A] sense of the artist’s complicated internal life and nearly religious dedication to his craft comes through powerfully and poetically…. This will be a boon for Rollins’s myriad admirers.” —Publishers Weekly