Sonny Rollins, the tenor saxophonist known as the “Saxophone Colossus,” has died at the age of 95. Rollins died at his home in Woodstock, New York, on Monday, a spokesperson told the Associated Press, citing no specific cause, but revealing he had been housebound due to physical ailments for the past few years. Born in Harlem in 1930, Rollins sharpened his craft in his late teens before bebop icons Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, and Miles Davis took him under their wing. He composed standards, including “St. Thomas,” “Oleo,” and “Doxy,” and dueled with John Coltrane on 1956’s “Tenor Madness.” The accolades piled up. He won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the Kennedy Center Honors, and a National Medal of Arts, which President Barack Obama presented at a White House ceremony in 2011. He even guested on the Rolling Stones’ 1981 track “Waiting on a Friend.” Reflecting on mortality, Rollins said in 2009, as reported by Variety, “I think when the creative person ends, he continues in the next existence.”
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