Dark matters don’t lend themselves to nosegay piety. I sniff something of my allergy to vestments and gospels in Sonny Rollins’s tolerance, at 89, for honoring the elusive there where it lies. He has, by his words, shunned the laughing gas expelled by preachers, and blown rapture out his horn, instead, for many a year.

‘Happy’ is not the word… but I am the most content I’ve ever been. I have most things figured out.

And this is going to sound funny, but my highest place musically was not about playing for a crowd. I played a couple of concerts early on where I was out in the open in the afternoon. I was able to look up in the sky, and I felt a communication; I felt that I was part of something. Not the crowd. Something bigger.

(David Marchese, “The Jazz Icon Sonny Rollins Knows Life Is a Solo Trip,” NYTimes, 2-21-20)

(c) 2020 JMN