“The love from the jazz and music community restored my faith in humanity,” Walia wrote in an online post upon his release from detention at an ICE facility.
(Photo: Courtesy Pritesh Walia)Aug 18, 2026 2:15 PM
Indian jazz guitarist and composer Pritesh Walia has been released after being unexpectedly detained by ICE and taken into custody on Aug. 2 at Los Angeles International Airport.…
Sonny Rollins performing at the Chicago Jazz Festival in 1992
(Photo: Ronald Heard)May 26, 2026 11:21 AM
“Is this going to be another negative, punch-Sonny-Rollins-in-the-eye article for DownBeat?” the man asked with weary resignation as he plopped into a den chair. “Well, I agreed to do it. I know how it’s going to come out anyway. So, go ahead, ask me. I’m ready.”
It was a telephone interview. I imagined Sonny Rollins sitting there in his Hudson River Valley country home north of Rhinebeck, New York; sitting there in a nimbus of ennui waiting to be prodded and poked with an assortment of those unpleasant, blunt instruments we journalists…
