His concert, which was part of both the 2001 Carolina Jazz Festival and the Carolina Union Performing Arts Series, was nothing short of incredible. Rollins and the rest of the band put on a powerful show that was as energetic as it was unassuming.
Rollins, one of the last representatives of jazz's golden age, trained on the tenor sax under Thelonius Monk. Rollins' contemporaries included Jackie McLean, Kenny Drew and Art Taylor, and he recorded tracks with Babs Gonzales and Miles Davis before the age of 20.
Now, as he approaches 71, Rollins is still a dynamo on the stage.
"Someone told me, 'Sonny, you're getting old,'" he told the audience. "I said, 'I know, I don't even buy green bananas from the grocery store anymore.'"
Rollins, however, seems to just be getting started. As he strolls around the stage in his dark suit and dark glasses with his white beard, Rollins is so cool he defies the very slang of cool. But when you see him start snapping his fingers and bobbing his head with the other players or pumping his fist triumphantly after a great riff, it's hard not to think, "This man is a badass!"
And he is, though even that word is too weak to describe how Rollins rolls notes from his sax, moving with the instrument as if he's dancing with a woman.
Rollins was accompanied on stage by a piano, trombone, bass and drums, and together, the group had a definite rapport. As the trombonist picked up the melody and then tossed it over to the piano for a response, or back to Rollins, the group seemed so lost in its musical banter that at times it was almost oblivious to the audience.
So if true genius is making something look easy, Rollins plays jazz with the same casual mastery with which someone has a street conversation. As the band played songs like Thelonius Monks' "Reflections" or Rollins' tribute to Charlie Mingus, "Charles M," it was hard not to feel nostalgic for jazz legends' mythologized world of smoky clubs, Harlem neighborhoods and the like.
Even Memorial Hall, completely packed with a sold-out crowd, felt somehow smaller and more intimate when filled with the warm notes of Rollins' sax.
