Schomburg Center
For Research in Black Culture
Acquires Jazz Legend Sonny Rollins's
Personal Archive
Acquires Jazz Legend Sonny Rollins's
Personal Archive
Collection to Offer Extensive Insight
Into the Prolific Creative Life and Career of
One of Music's Greatest Minds
Into the Prolific Creative Life and Career of
One of Music's Greatest Minds
May 30, 2017
The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at The New York Public Library today announced the acquisition of American tenor saxophonist and jazz legend Sonny Rollins's
personal archive. The robust collection includes more than 150 linear
feet of material that document Rollins's life and career from the 1950s
to the present.
This acquisition also marks the Harlem native's "return" to
the neighborhood of his youth. Rollins was profoundly influenced and
inspired by the sights and sounds of the Harlem Renaissance and its
pioneers, including Duke Ellington and Louis Jordan, who shaped modern
music and Rollins's creative life.
"Well, I'm home again," Rollins said. "Home, where I absorbed
the rich culture which was all around me. Where, on 137th Street, two
blocks from the Schomburg, I was born in 1930. This archive reveals my
life in music, how someone principally self-taught became taught. How
the spiritual light of jazz protected and fed me, as it does to this
day."
Spanning a 60-year career and more than 80 albums, the
Rollins archive is rich with texture, offering an intimate look into the
creativity, curiosity, and organization that led to the artist's
creative process and practice. Archive items range from audio reels and
cassettes of unheard music and practice sessions, personal photographs
from Rollins's travels abroad, sheet music with margin notes, personal
writing, practice diaries, and handwritten letters between Rollins and
his wife and partner of more than 45 years, Lucille Pearson Rollins.
The archive also offers insight into
Rollins's social and professional network of musicians through detailed
notes from recorded sessions, letters, and snapshots from touring over
the decades.
To be primarily housed within the Schomburg Center's Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division,
the Rollins archive joins a robust collection of jazz-related materials
across the institution's divisions, including the A Great Day in Harlem
Documentary collection, the Louis Armstrong Jazz Oral History project,
the Don Redman papers, the Billy Taylor collection, the Ron Carter
collection, and the Duke Ellington Society collection.
This acquisition also adds significant weight to the New York Public Library's collection of jazz-related items including the
George Avakian and Anahid Ajemian papers, which include letters from
Rollins to Avakian and several unreleased live and studio recordings
from Rollins's time at RCA; the Ivan Black papers that include
promotional and performance photographs of Rollins; along with the Sy
Oliver, Phoebe Jacobs, and Benny Goodman collections.
"Rollins had a measure of professional and personal stability
that allowed him to collect the artifacts of his life from original
manuscripts and compositions to his business records, unlike many of his
peers. In this sense, his archive is unique," said Shola Lynch, curator of the Schomburg's Moving Image and Recorded Sound division."He
has also been aware of keeping the flame. As Rollins said recently of
his peers and mentors: 'They're not here now so I feel like I'm sort of
representing all of them, all of the guys. Remember, I'm one of the last
guys left, as I'm constantly being told, so I feel a holy obligation
sometimes to evoke these people.' As in life, Rollins's archive will
undoubtedly evoke them and their musical relationships, and through it,
will add granularity to a swath of black history. For the first time,
Rollins has opened the doors to studying his music, life, and work as a
giant of jazz."
"Famous for his reinventions, Sonny Rollins
and his archive reveal the profound nature of jazz, America's classical
music. Drafts, notes on composition, extensive correspondence, the
entire spirit and scope of the Rollins archive show his sophisticated,
sustained, and spiritual creative process up close in a way that may
best be called literary," said Kevin Young, noted author and Director of the Schomburg Center. "Having the archive of Sonny Rollins
come home here, just blocks from where he was born and grew into one of
our finest artists, provides a connection to the geniuses who made
Harlem and whose legacies, like those of James Baldwin and Maya Angelou,
also are housed at the Schomburg."
Highlights from the Sonny Rollins Archive include:
● Personal papers, diaries, notes, and drawings illuminating
Rollins's private thoughts and creative process sporadically through the
decades
● Recordings of practice sessions as well as recording takes from as early as the 1960s
● Snapshots and photos from life on the road with his fellow musicians from as early as the 1960s
● Personal correspondence between Rollins and his wife and
manager, Lucille Pearson, over the decades that range the gamut from
love notes to unfiltered thoughts related to colleagues, bandmates, and
business
The Sonny Rollins archive will be processed
over the next year at NYPL's Library Services Center in Long Island
City, and will be made available for research at the Schomburg Center.
About the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
The Schomburg Center for Research
in Black Culture, a research unit of The New York Public Library, is
generally recognized as one of the leading institutions of its kind in
the world. For over 90 years the Center has collected, preserved, and
provided access to materials documenting black life, and promoted the
study and interpretation of the history and culture of peoples of
African descent. Educational and Cultural Programs at the Schomburg
Center complement its research services and interpret its collections.
Seminars, forums, workshops, staged readings, film screenings,
performing arts programs, and special events are presented year-round.
More information about Schomburg's collections and programs can be found
at schomburgcenter.org.
About the New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is a free
provider of education and information for the people of New York and
beyond. With 92 locations-including research and branch
libraries-throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, the
Library offers free materials, computer access, classes, exhibitions,
programming, and more to everyone from toddlers to scholars, and has
seen record numbers of attendance and circulation in recent years. The
New York Public Library serves more than 18 million patrons who come
through its doors annually and millions more around the globe who use
its resources at www.nypl.org.
To offer this wide array of free programming, The New York Public
Library relies on both public and private funding. Learn more about how
to support the Library at nypl.org/support.
Photo of Sonny Rollins by John Abbott.
Read the New York Times piece about the archive acquisition (by Giovanni Russonello)
Media Contacts:
For the Schomburg Center:
Ayofemi Kirby | AyofemiKirby@nypl.org
For Sonny Rollins:
Terri Hinte | hudba@sbcglobal.net, 510-234-8781
