TODAY at 7:30 P.M.

Creative Sanctuary Sonny Rollins Tribute

Arcata Playhouse

Creative Sanctuary will pay tribute to the late great saxophone colossus Sonny Rollins with a program of his compositions and standards which he performed over his 60 plus year career. An all-star cast will gather for the occasion. Trombonist vocalist James Zeller will host and lead the band, Humboldt native and currently Bay Area resident Mike Newman will be featured on Tenor Saxophone, and the stellar rhythm section will be Matt Seno on piano, Ramsey Isaacs on drums and Saul Stewart Smith on double bass.

Doors open at 7 p.m. and the show runs from 7:30 to 9:15. Advance tickets are available at SanctuaryArcata.org.

Sonny Rollins died in his home in Woodstock, New York, May 26, 2026 at the age of 95. He had retired from performing in 2011 due to health reasons, and though he has been gone as a performer for some time, and though now his physical being has left too, his music, character and life philosophy live on as an example to artists, musicians, and really, all of us.

Walter Theodore “Sonny” Rollins was Born Sept. 7, 1930, in the Sugar Hill neighborhood of Harlem, New York City. His parents were immigrants from what was at the time the Danish Virgin Islands, his father from St. Croix and his mother from St.Thomas. The Harlem Renaissance was in full swing, and residents included W.E.B. Bu Bois, who lived on the same street as the Rollins, Duke Ellington, Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Billy Strayhorn, Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, and Fats Waller, just a few in a list of influential names that could fill volumes.

Inspired by rhythm and blues saxophonist Louis Jordan, Rollins picked up the alto saxophone at age 11. In 1946 he switched to the instrument played by his idol, Coleman Hawkins, the tenor saxophone. In 1949, at age 19, he made his first recordings with bebop singer Babs Gonzalez. He soon after recorded with J.J. Johnson, and then with Bud Powell on a Blue Note Records session that still stands as a classic example of Bud Powell’s composing and playing, and one of the classic records of the era.

At the Playhouse November 7th, the program will be made up of songs from throughout Rollins long career, including “Bouncing’ With Bud”, from that 1949 Bud Powell session. The set list will include Rollins’ tunes that are now jazz standards such as Doxy, Oleo, Tenor Madness, and of course St. Thomas, his most famous “composition”, of which he explained,

“My mother came from St. Thomas. She was born there and she used to sing that to me when I was a little boy. I heard that melody and all I did was actually adapt it. I made my adaptation of sort of an island traditional melody. It did become sort of my trademark tune.”

Rollins had eclectic musical tastes, and a sometimes eccentric style. His interests spanned from Broadway to Tin Pan Alley, from Bebop to the Avant-garde style brought to the Jazz world by Ornette Coleman, to the Caribbean music of his parents. The evening will be lent a great and interesting variety, and be rounded out, by visiting these various influences.

In his musical life and more broadly as a human being, Rollins was self-reflective, sometimes self critical to perhaps a fault. As he grew older he worried about the future of the planet, and also encouraged us to remember that as artists there are two worlds, the world we live in, and the “real world” of artists. The intersection can be challenging, painful and feel unresolvably at odds. In an October 1998 interview with Fred Jung, his life, Rollins reflected on the golden era of the music, and worried about the future of the planet.

“There was a period which I refer to as the “Golden Age of Jazz,” which sort of encompasses the middle Thirties through the Sixties…in the middle century when you had Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Thelonious Monk, Count Basie, Lester Young, Coleman Hawkins, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald. You had all of those people active around that period…

“…these things go in cycles and I have every reason to believe that if the planet can survive for the next generation, we will see some more wonderful things happen in jazz, because jazz is a music that is open ended. It’s all about creation and surprise. It just needs to be appreciated and watered like flowers. You have to water flowers.”

“What I am more concerned about is whether our whole civilization will be around in the next 25 years. I think we are in the midst of this period where we are committing this suicide on the planet and everybody is just using up all of our natural resources like a bunch of insane people. That’s what I worry about more than I worry about jazz. I think as long as people are around and can hear a re

DATES/TIMES

• Today: 7:30-9:15 p.m.

WHERE

• Arcata Playhouse

PRICE

• $15
• $75 Ya can’t take it with you
• $30 Patrons of the Art!
• $20 feeling generous?