This is New England Public Radio's Jan's Beat. I'm Tom Rini with a podcast edition of Bon Jan's Blog, which you can find at n E P R dot Nats. I spoke with Sonny Rollins on August 12th, 2020, about Yusef Lateef. Yusef Centennial is October 9th, 2020.
Glenn Seagull, producer of the Magic Triangle Concert Series at UMass Amherst, and a pioneer of Ali Jan's shares, is putting together a Centennial celebration of Yusef Lateef's legacy, and he asked me to interview Sonny Rollins for the project. Oh, good. How are you, Mr. Rini?
Good, thanks. How are you, Sonny? I'm well. That's good to hear.
Sonny, I've met you a number of times I interviewed you about 23 years ago before you played a concert at Mount Holyoke College. And the last time I remember speaking with you, Gary Smolian and I took a ride up to Peter Burrow to see you get the McDowell Medal about seven or eight years ago at the McDowell Colony. Oh, yeah, right. Right.
That was a wonderful occasion. Yes, good. I spoke with Gary Giddens before the medal ceremonies, so that interview ran on our radio station for a number of weeks around the time that you got the medal and Gary and I talked about our mutual admiration and love for Sonny Rollins. Really?
Oh, absolutely, of course. Well, yeah, I'm brilliant. All right. Thank you so much.
Well, it's an honor to speak with you anytime. And so the purpose of today's call really is about Yusef Lateef and a project that Glenn Siegel and others are putting together here around the University of Massachusetts in memory of Yusef. So I have a few sort of basic standard questions that they've asked me to run by you. And are you ready to go?
I'm ready to go. Excellent, Sonny. So first of all, would you tell us your name and who you are? My name is Sonny Musician, and I have been on the modern jazz scene for since my first recording in 1949 at the honor of working with many of our great innovators.
This was a modern jazz music and I'm somewhat retired now, but I am still on the planet as you can hear. Yeah. Can you tell us how you met Yusef Lateef and what your relationship was like with him at the beginning or over time? Yeah, well, I can't remember.
I know that when Yusef Lateef, I first saw him. I didn't meet him at this time. He was playing with Dizzy Gillespie's band. And he came to New York with Dizzy Gillespie's band.
I think his name was, he had a different name at that time. Oh, yeah. Bill Evans. Bill Evans was correct.
So I saw him, I'm reading my trumpet playing friend. We were going to school in the upcoming jazz musicians. So we were very aware of everybody, of every musician that came to town. And Dizzy Gillespie, of course, being idols.
So I didn't meet him then. I met Yusef sometime later. I'm sorry, I can't remember exactly when or where it was, but we got to be good friends. I consider Yusef as one of the best people in so many different respects.
I respect everybody. I have no right to not respect any other person. I don't have that right. I'm not in a position where I can feel that.
But Yusef was a person that I respect probably as much or more than anybody that I have met in my life. He was a mentor. He was a friend. He was an example of how I should be.
As you know, Yusef would be ten years my senior. And when I came to Yusef, I had a little reputation in the music field and all of this stuff. And when I met Yusef, he was an example of how a person should be. This is a human being.
And in our field, which is a highly competitive field, as you know, it was a pure blessing. The things that he told me, the things that he advised me on, without saying so, but just by observing him and having an opportunity to be a friend of this was one of the great things that have happened to me in my musical career. And just as a human being, as a friend also, as a musician, I can't say enough about him. Son, you mentioned how competitive the field is.
Did you somehow transcend that feeling or attitude of competitiveness? Yusef, you mean? Yes. Oh, yeah.
Yusef, I'll tell you, I'll give you an example. One time when I was playing in Max Rocha's band, we were playing out in Detroit. And Yusef was playing out of the place. I think he had a regular job.
I was a person called West Band, the cafe in Detroit. And after we played our job, I'm not sure if it was one night or a longer engagement. Anyhow, Max and I went out to the West Band to sort of set in with Yusef. Now, at that time, I was a young terror.
I was really playing what we used to do. We used to play Berk neck speed. Max and myself. And this was quite a formidable accomplishment.
Not many people could do that. Yusef didn't do that. But Yusef was gentle enough and kind enough to allow us to play. Come out there and play on his job and do what was a very difficult thing which we were doing.
And he was flying with it. And it wasn't so much about that. It was just about we were comrades, from play drugs. And that's how Yusef, I mean, I can't say enough.
I wish I had his, I wish I was like Yusef. I wish that God had created me to have his everything that he was. And as I said before, I can't say enough positive things about him. So, blessing.
That I had a chance to know him and we had a chance to hang out together. And he had a chance to counsel me in some music. But whenever we had our opportunity to get together, it was just one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. Knowing Yusef would be.
Yusef followed a spiritual path in life. I know that you have too. Did you find Yusef in particular to be a guide or a mentor or example for you in that regard? I think, well, yes, but not, I mean, just a spiritual with a big S or a small S.
I don't know, but not in a, I am not a Muslim, which was his religion. Right. And so I wasn't in that sense. He was just a spiritual person.
If everybody had nothing to do, he could have been a Presbyterian. You know, but he was just a spiritual person in his actions, his kindness. I would consider myself one of his students really. Yet we were in the same business as I said in this competitive music business.
We were competing in that area. Never came up. That kind of stuff never came up. I've never met anybody like Yusef or there may be other people there, but I knew Yusef well enough to know that.
And I was around him enough to know that I haven't had that experience with any other musician. And I've known some very fine, great and also very fine people, musician people. But Yusef, I had a closer relationship because it went on for a long time. Yusef was a person that although everybody knew him and knew his name and everything like that, to me, he was under the radar.
He wasn't what he could have been compared to some other very great artists that exist in the music field. So I don't think he's gotten his do. And he might never get his do, but I can't speak for that. But to me, for the friend that he's been to me, that I can speak to.
I've known many musicians, many colleagues on that same level as Yusef. We were all started on that competitive, quote, level. But Yusef was a very special person that I found to be even better than the best of the people that I knew. Sonny, I've read you in the New York Times this year in the New Yorker magazine.
It's been exciting to see the establishment and the journalistic world seeking you out for your perspective on the world that we're in. And you talk often about the Golden Rule. And I wonder if you'd like to say anything about that vis-a-vis Yusef Lateef. Well, of course, we know the Golden Rule, do want to others, do whatever they do and to you.
To me, it's an individual thing. I don't know how the world, if everybody did that, how the world would be would obviously evidently be a different world, which is not my concern. I'm just talking about how the Golden Rule would apply to me, what I want to do. And I think it's a thing with people, we have to be more individualistic.
We can't say, oh, well, my neighborhood down the street, he doesn't do the Golden Rule. He steals and whatever. I think in the big picture that I see that I can save an amazing, complete individual, I want to live by the Golden Rule. If the world can't live by that, there's some political reasons and so on, that's the world's problem, so I'm concerned.
I think that the Golden Rule, as it has been expressed through all these various religions, they all mention the Golden Rule in their credos. So the Golden, everybody, and every religion we've had that I can think of, or that we know of, they all accept the Golden Rule, and so, yeah, this is it. That's in every one of the scriptures. So that's good enough for me.
I find that it's the way that I want to live and what I've learned about, learn something in my lifetime now, and that's it. For me, it's fine. It's no argument. If somebody else doesn't agree with that, that's fine.
I'm not trying to convince people. This is what I find out that I want to do, that I'm going to live by that. Yeah. Sunny, in this year of 2020, the world has experienced some unprecedented things.
We're faced with very serious challenges this spring and winter, and among those, of course, with the killing of George Floyd and Minneapolis on Memorial Day. There's been a renewed attention, I think we could call it, in justice in the US on the ill effects of racism and of police brutality. And we've had occasion to look again at what a leading role music jazz artists have played in what Dr. King called the freedom movement.
And you were way out front back in 1958 with your great work, the Freedom Suite. And I wonder if you would care to reflect on that today on its legacy or how you're feeling about where we're at as a society in 2020. Well, I think that my, I think I might have somewhat of a mild statement. I mean, I was in advocating for any violence, any kind of upheaval.
I think my statement on the freedom series was mild. I mean, I was just stating the fact. Now, I also stated that I don't think that this country, I think it's just too difficult for this country to change. It's the principle of which it was conceived.
It's just too hard for this country to be anything but the way it is. It might be a little more, a little less harsh to various groups and like that. I mean, you know, it's possible. I don't know.
I wouldn't say that. Oh, yes, it's going to have a free society where, you know, there's no racism and all that. I mean, I just don't think the, I don't think the world is ready for that yet. And I don't think America is ready for that yet.
Which is not, which is not to say anything negative. It's about individual people. If I like the golden rule and I want to live in a way where I treat people a certain way, then that's what I have to do. Where in that, the western world is going to do that?
Probably not. It doesn't matter. It's matter what I do. You know, there's an old thing about when we, when we, we, we, we just see some, then we go up to heaven and St.
Peter is waiting there to get the, at the gate and all of this stuff. And we go up to the gate and St. Peter looks through the book of our life and then we can say, well, yes, St. Peter, yeah, I did this.
No, I did that. But you know, that guy down the street, he used to beat up my son all the time. Well, St. Peter's not going to ask about what somebody down the street did.
He's going to ask about what you did. Say, what did I do? That's what it's about. That's why the individual thing comes in.
I don't care what people, whether they accept the golden rule or they accept anything like that. That's, you know, I'm not, I can't. I mean, I have to accept, I don't accept it. So that's my life.
Nobody's going to lift forever. Anyway, what am I going to, because I, I'm not looking at, I mean, they, Jesus Christ, they got killed. Why? Because they were talking something right?
Maybe so. But that doesn't mean anything. You have to do what you feel is, is correct. That's, that's sort of the bad person.
And life is short. This life is short. There'll be other lives. And what best life each you try to do what you can do and those will be hypocritical about it.
And I step up for it. And suffering here is not the end. That's where my spiritual life comes in. I don't believe that this world, if you get so-called killed and that's the end of you.
We don't believe that. We don't believe that. When this life is over, our soul will go on to another life and we'll have to get it straight. If we get something wrong in this life and there we are in a funeral home, our body is red.
That's not us. Our soul is going to have to pay for whatever we did. So you reap what you sow. You're not going to get away with anything because you died.
You're not going to get away with anything. Your body died. That's all. Your soul has got to keep going through eons and eternity forever and forever.
That's not the universe works. Makes sense. That's not to do with this one life. It's one life.
It's amazing. Go away to the whole life. Seven to eight years old or something is the average of life. I mean, come on.
How can you learn a minute time? How many of you are going to create in that time? You say you don't have time, but the universe is not this lifetime. The universe goes on endlessly.
As we progress, as the Buddhists say, we keep accumulating more life as we go through different incarnations forever. Until we get it right. Until we get it right. But we will get it right because the universe is good.
God is good if you hate the word God. But the universe is right. It's just can't get away with anything. You can't do anything and think, oh, I'm going to get away with it.
They'll be okay. It doesn't work out. We can see that in this life. It doesn't work out.
You're going to have to pay for what you do. And that's the way it is. If you die, you're somewhat. Your body is better in the ground than turning into dust.
So what? Your soul is what you did. Not your body. Your soul is what you stole from somebody.
You kill somebody. That's what's being. Not going to get away with doing things. So it all means something.
There's nothing random in the world. Oh, something happened to me. Oh, see, that I broke my leg and wow, wow. How did that happen to me?
No, it doesn't work. It doesn't work. The universe doesn't operate that way. We do something that's going to pay for it.
Some people call it karma. The same thing. You do something bad. You're going to have to pay for it.
I'll say that in this life. In this life or something like that. That's just the way it is. What you do.
You're going to have to know. They always say, I've been making this speech often recently. I'm getting to, I don't want it to sound like it's just right. You know, the day used to say in this TV commercial, pay me now or pay me later.
You're not going to get away with anything. Sonny, if we could bring this back to the specifics of music for a moment, you just said, you just said there's nothing random in this life in this universe. And I think about your music, the sort of beautiful, in inner, almost thematic logic that is there in Sonny Rollins' great art as an improviser. And a lot of people, I think, would approach jazz as a music that is random.
They're a conception of what a solo or improvisation is. Is a series of random moments. But I wonder if you think something different about the music in terms of it's kind of inner logic. Well, music is such a spiritual force that it's hard to try to describe it.
You know, it's really a gift. You have to have it. Especially at the level when you're talking about professional musicians that improvise and all this stuff. You have to be born with that.
And wherever that gift comes from, I can't say it. I don't know exactly. But it's hard to talk about music. It's something which is definitely a spiritual nature, how it's created.
It comes from just such a spirit world. So I feel very ignorant when it comes to trying to discuss music. Thank you for all that you've shared and discussed with us today about yourself, about life, about yourself, the team. It's really an honor to speak with you.
I know your birthday is coming up in a few weeks in the sort of life conception that most of us have. A 90th birthday is a big deal. And I want to wish you a very happy birthday. And of course...
Thank you very, very much. But I'm not here yet. I was going to say something. I also want to wish you a happy day today because that's what we've got.
Right. Well, that I'll accept. Thank you very much for that. You're welcome.
Well, Sonny, again, it's been a pleasure to speak with you. Thanks so much for giving us some good time today. And stay cool. And thank you for all the blessings that you have shared with us over the years.
We really appreciate it. Oh, it's very, very kind. I thank you so much. And I hope for whatever you do for yourself.
It lives up to what I think about it. We're working on it. Yeah, work on it because he deserves everything that this world can give him. And more, you know.
But just one of those people that can never get enough credit. Well, we'll take that to heart and thank you for concluding our conversation with a further thought about you, Seth. Thank you, man. And you take care of yourself also.
We'll do, Sonny. Thank you so much. Right. Thank you.