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Sonny Rollins, the towering tenor saxophonist whose improvisational voice helped define modern jazz, died on May 25, 2026, at his home in Woodstock, New York.
He was 95.
Born Walter Theodore Rollins on Sept. 7, 1930, in Harlem to parents from the U.S. Virgin Islands, Rollins rose to prominence in the 1950s with a string of landmark recordings including Saxophone Colossus and the calypso-inflected âSt.
Thomas.â His public sabbatical practicing on the Williamsburg Bridge produced the 1962 album The Bridge and became part of his legend.
Over a seven-decade career he recorded more than 60 albums, wrote standards such as âOleoâ and âDoxy,â collaborated with Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane, and appeared on the Rolling Stonesâ Tattoo You.
Rollins won multiple Grammys, a Lifetime Achievement award, a National Medal of Arts and Kennedy Center honors.
He had been largely housebound in recent years and stopped performing after pulmonary fibrosis forced him to give up the saxophone; his last public concert was in 2012.
He is survived by a nephew and nieces.







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