FEATURE: SONNY'S MUSE

Sonny Rollins confronts the electronic ageSonny Rollins confronts the electronic ageby Dennis Berman There's a security in LPs -- in their worn pictures and creased record sleeves, in scratches and pops. It's not surprising that Rollins, a 63-year-old tenor saxophonist who matured with Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk and Max Roach, would prefer needles to lasers. "I don't think there is anything revolutionary in rap music," says Rollins from his New York apartment. "I think that there have been forms of rap music that have been done over the years, and there are groups that have done things analogous to it before." While Us3 and Digable Planets evoke the sounds of jazz greats -- hoping to merge old style melodies, syncopated drum machines, and "hep" lyrics – Rollins still plays the real stuff. On the musical Mobius strip, Rollins' past has become a new generation's musical future. And though he argues that rap has been an historically viable, yet amorphous, part of the African American tradition, he can't ignore that rap is now carving its own place into the jazz world -- whether he likes it or not. "There is some group that sampled something that I did. They wanted me to play with them on this Grammy show. I said, 'who are they? I've never heard of them.'" While Rollins may be indifferent to the current trends in music, many young fans are tuned in to his work. A tenor sax prodigy, Rollins jumped from his home in New York City into the small recording vaunts that dotted the jazz scene in the '40s and '50s. And while many jazz musicians define themselves by the cast of players with whom they jammed, Rollins maintained his individuality and established his skills amongst the most talented players in the City. His sweet tenor was best when improvising, as he turned each song into its own musical vignette. To this day, he eschews musicians who recreate their albums when playing live. Music is an expansive process. "I think the whole thing is not to sound just like the album. It should be about creating, improvising, especially if you're listening to jazz," claims Rollins. "It's about making things happen at the moment, as opposed to recreating things that were just done." That's great, jazzman. The omnipotent digital sample, which can precisely pilfer a guitar riff or drum solo, erase its original context and sketch in a new aural background, has ushered in a new creativity of repetition. While musicians have always copied each other, this new genre of duplication blurs the barrier between originality and plagiarism. In the face of manufactured music, Rollins stands by the art of live performance, where the sweaty fingers, occasional screw-ups and audience participation merge to form something a little better, a little higher, a little closer to the spirit. "I still think it's up to the player who can really play. Even though you've got all of these machines now, I think people like to see an actual person perform," he says with emphasis. John Coltrane, Rollins' contemporary and tenor rival, almost symbolized the search for spirituality in music. His breathless live shows were about more than simple entertainment. And though Rollins aims to capture his own soul on stage, the perfect show is often elusive. He claims that the demands placed upon a professional musician make it hard to inject divine presence night after night. Genius, after all, does not form on a whim. Rollins says he truly "becomes" his music only four to five times a year. "[T]here are moments when I'm really playing great," he muses. "When I can actually feel myself have the music play itself. It's a really profound experience, like I'm just a vehicle and the music is just coming through me," he says. Seeking ethereal possession can create unattainable self-expectations -- like that irretrievable first drug high. Along with most musicians of his day, Rollins knows plenty about drugs. He and Miles Davis roamed the streets in the '50s looking for heroin. While Davis struggled with his addiction until his death in 1991, Rollins beat his habit in the late '50s. By 1959 he fled the drug and jazz scene altogether, and instead, walked up and down the Williamsburg Bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn, playing his horn to the empty East River. There, removed from the pressures of promoters and eager clubgoers, he performed for himself. "I felt that I was letting down my fans," he adds. But things have changed and today, even when the band plays well on stage, Rollins is less demanding of those fleeting moments reminiscent of a first high. There is something sad behind Rollins' triumphs. For behind his own longevity stands a list of famous names who died in their prime. They are the great ones, Parker, Monk, Coltrane. Rollins is one of the last, and when he speaks about the past, one can't help but wonder why he was lucky enough to survive them all. Maybe it is the music that keeps him alive. "I don't have any figures and facts in front of me, but I know that a musician's life, if you can avoid the obvious pitfalls, is a very fulfilling life." As he says, "playing is better than any kind of physical experience, sex or anything else." So naturally, a man who loves music would want to spread it to a new generation -- but not as a fragmented sample in somebody else's work. When Rollins speaks of the state of music, both in education and appreciation, he derides the American tendency to accept the "lowest common denominator" in pop music. He envisions real instruction, where children dutifully learn their scales and chord progressions. That was the world in which Rollins grew up. Today, it's all backbeats and samples, videos and corporate-sponsored world tours. Who will take the time to actually learn the past when just copying it is so easy? Rollins wonders that himself. And though he describes his audiences as a mix of all generations, it seems that his younger listeners might have the most to learn from him. Though they sample his tenor horn, they might benefit more from a sample of what he has to say. "You can make a record and sample things from different people and put out a product and have all sorts of sound effects and things to beef up the records. What's the point in doing that? It's commercial and it's popular but it's not the same as creating something." Dennis Berman is the surly young Editor-in-Chief of 34th Street from Louisville, KY. While learning the trumpet in the first grade, he just couldn't get enough of that timeless ditty,"Hot Cross Buns."