May 26, 2026 11:08 AM
Sonny Rollins Passes Away at 95
Sonny Rollins, the iconic saxophonist, composer and improviser whose career stretched from the origins of bebop to 21st…
After a whirlwind 2004 that saw Jamie Cullum sell 2 million albums worldwide and garner a Grammy nomination, when it came time for the singer/pianist to write songs for his new album, Catching Tales, Cullum started with a clean slate.
“The first song I wrote was on Jan. 2,” said Cullum about the Oct. 11 release on Verve Forecast. “I was at home with my folks and they asked me to clean out the cupboard and I found these old photos. The same day I was reading fan mail and this 7-year-old kid wrote and said that he’s just starting out but he loves playing riffs from my songs. It made me think of something childlike, simple, a riff you could play with one hand. That was the basis for ‘Photograph.’”
As for the song “Mind Trick,” Cullum says, “My brother and I had just been hanging around listening to Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye all day and ended up in the basement, just playing.”
But it’s “21st Century Kid” that Cullum holds closest to his heart. “I think that’s the best song I’ve ever written,” he says. “Though it doesn’t start out that way—it was originally 11 minutes long. Once I decided I wasn’t going to become a prog rocker, I was able to pull it down into something I like very much.”
For details on Cullum, go to www.jamiecullum.com.
Onstage, Rollins would move about restlessly, thrusting his tenor sax in the air as he blew.
May 26, 2026 11:08 AM
Sonny Rollins, the iconic saxophonist, composer and improviser whose career stretched from the origins of bebop to 21st…
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