The Jazz Foundation gave Sonny a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015.

Here’s what he had to say:

“I’m one of the soldiers in the spiritual battle of jazz.”

This comes from a very recent report with David Amram:

“Last week I spoke to Sonny Rollins on the phone.We have known one another since 1955 when I was playing with Mingus and are the same age. I asked him if he was o.k. up in Woodstock, since he can’t play anymore and is housebound.

He said he was fine, even though he is housebound and can’t play the saxophone any more but said he is happier than ever.

He told me that all of us were so fixated on the Virus and our current mis-Administration that we forgot about the Golden Rule and that we should devote ourselves to following it each day as our number one priority!!

“That’s all I think about” he said.”We are all just here for a while and then turn to dust. But the spirit lasts forever”

David comments: How ’bout THAT, compared with the news channels constant morbid fixation on doom, gloom and death and airing of interviews with politicians on both sides hustling us?

How about that?

Part One: Warsaw. October 23, 1980
Part Two: Lauren, Netherlands. October 23, 1973

– Ken McCarthy
Jazz on the Tube

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