Sonny Rollins passed away on May 25 at age the of 95. The legendary saxophonist of the bebop era and beyond was famously unhappy with his performances. But the occasional bad night was worth the trade-off to Rollins. His refusal to play the same passages the same way from night to night, those risks he took regularly, might go badly at times. But they were also responsible for his greatest moments. The example he set applies well beyond his playing, well beyond music in fact, to most of life. Staying safe, on the beaten path, is easier; but great achievements, life’s most gratifying moments, only come to those willing to risk departure from safe, to take the road less traveled.
I guess we could talk about Sonny Rollins forever from a lot of different perspectives, one of the most influential of jazz musicians. But one of the things that I think ties into our Music Life and Times podcast theme of how music impacts your life is how frustrated he could get with his own playing. Because he never wanted to succumb to relying on comfortable lines, things he’d memorized, he could have passages, and even whole nights, when he sounded off. Of course, no one can be “on” every night or in our day-to-day lives, not at our best all the time.
He was willing to live with the off nights because “the occasional bad night was a small price to pay for his willingness to take chances … his refusal to play the same things the same way,” reported the New York Times the day of his death. “The real playing happens on a subconscious level, and at that point, the cliches don’t happen,” he told the New York Times in 1989, “When I’m really playing, my mind is completely blank.”
What’s inspiring is his complete commitment to being authentic. No cliches. He’s gonna take the highest risk, because it’s worth it. You know the saying, “You only fail when you stop trying.” That’s been attributed to Thomas Edison, but it’s actually an old proverb. However, Edison did say, “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up.” What we get from that, and from Sonny Rollins, is that risk-taking, and doing so with persistence, plays a role is most great achievements and is a characteristic of most great achievers.