Sonny Rollins, whose forceful and imaginative approach to the tenor saxophone made him one of the dominant jazz musicians of the post-World War II era, died at his home in Woodstock, N.Y., on Monday. He was 95.
His death was announced in a statement from his publicist, Terri Hinte.
Even by the standards of a music that prizes individuality, Mr. Rollins stood out, as both a musician and a personality.
In the late 1940s, when most young jazz saxophonists favored a light tone with minimal vibrato, he developed a fat, full-bodied sound that was a throwback to the older style of Coleman Hawkins, the first great tenor saxophonist in jazz. In the late 1950s, when his career as a bandleader was just getting off the ground, Mr. Rollins abruptly began a hiatus that lasted more than two years — mostly, he explained later, because he was not satisfied with the quality of his playing.
Mr. Rollins came of age when a new kind of jazz known as bebop was in ascendance, and from the start his playing was suffused with bebop’s harmonic sophistication and rhythmic daring. To classify him as a bebopper, however, would be an oversimplification.
Over the years he flirted with the avant-garde, jazz-rock fusion and other styles. But with his ferocious energy, his penchant for playing the unexpected note at the unexpected moment, and his unusual sound — sometimes harsh and mocking, sometimes lush and romantic — he was ultimately unclassifiable.
