Living Legends Department: Saxophone Colossus

NYT has a lovely profile of legendary tenor sax player Sonny Rollins, who will be releasing his first studio album in about 10 years. I'm ashamed to admit that I thought he was no longer living; I assumed (and I suspect I'm not the only one) that everybody as good as Rollins was dead. Can't wait to hear the record. Snip:

Until recently, Sonny Rollins practiced his tenor saxophone in a cottage studio a short, loping distance from his house here, on the rustic property he and his wife, Lucille, bought nearly 35 years ago. Mr. Rollins, who has long been lionized, partly for his intense, solitary practicing — or woodshedding, in jazz argot — would often work in the cottage past nightfall. At the house, his wife would turn on the porch light so he could find his way back through the dark.

Lucille Rollins died not quite two years ago, and Mr. Rollins initially turned to his regimen for solace. “So I came out here a few times,” he said in his studio one recent afternoon, “and then I looked, and there was no light on the porch. It just kind of highlighted that, well, there’s nobody there now.” These days, he practices in the house.

Link.