Welcome to the ezine produced by SGI Buddhists that prompts the positive, kindles the constructive, highlights the hopeful and leaves you feeling - well, up!
Published on Thursday, 31 July 2008 19:00 | | 
| 
|
Jazz legend Sonny Rollins says he is still searching for his ultimate performance.
by Geraldine Royds
Born in the rough
He started playing saxophone when he was a
child and by twenty years old was playing with the likes of Charlie Parker,
Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk. Rollins
idolized Parker and followed him into the abyss of drug abuse. Although Parker couldn’t
pull himself out of it, he managed to inspire the younger Rollins to get clean.
Rollins then took
the first of his legendary sabbaticals, turning his back on his career. “I
wanted to work on my horn, I wanted to study more harmony, I wanted to better
myself,” he says. Although he had withdrawn from public life, he was renowned
for practicing his sax alone on the
Widely regarded
as the most talented and innovative tenor saxophonist of his generation, Sonny
Rollins continues to record and to give concert performances around the world.
‘But if you
love music and you've been given a gift, then pursue it,’ Rollins says. ‘Be
satisfied, be happy, be grateful, be a good person and