Saxophone Colossus: A Portrait of Sonny Rollins

On September 7, 2010, the 80th birthday of jazz legend Sonny Rollins, Saxophone Colossus will appear in celebration of his incredibly prolific career. This intimate appreciation in pictures and words combines the images of John Abbott, who as Rollins' photographer of choice for the past twenty years has captured the saxophonist at home and at work, and the essays of Bob Blumenthal, a jazz critic who has chronicled Rollins and his art for nearly four decades. Sonny Rollins has been at the center of jazz and its evolution virtually from his birth. Growing up in Harlem in the heyday of swing and coming of age as the first wave of modernists announced their discoveries, he quickly found himself sharing bandstands with his idols and role models as a peer and making discoveries of his own that continue to influence and inspire later generations. Employing a framework inspired by the tracks on the 1956 album Saxophone Colossus, a consensus masterpiece and essential jazz recording for over a half century, Abbott and Blumenthal honor Rollins' music and spirit in a book that will appeal to jazz novices and longstanding fans alike.