Song of the Day 5/28: Sonny Rollins, “Moritat”

Jazz giant Sonny Rollins died Monday at age 95, nearly 70 years after the release of an LP that gave him a lasting sobriquet, “Saxophone Colossus.” He was 26 but already had been recording since graduating from an East Harlem high school a decade earlier, first as a sideman for the likes of J.J. Johnson and Bud Powell, then in combos with a bebop veritable Hall of Fame: Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, Thelonius Monk, Horace Silver.

“Saxophone Colossus” was Rollins’ sixth LP leading his own combo. He was doing all this while working around a heroin habit and a 10-month stretch in Riker’s Island for the armed robbery it inspired. He kicked the drug in 1955 and began a run of recordings that sealed his reputation as a force on the tenor sax. Critics liked his full tone, nimble runs and melodic sense, but they especially esteemed his gift for improvisation.

On most of his records he included popular melodies that he stretched like silly putty. The title of this cut from “Saxophone Colossus” is unfamiliar in its original German. It means “murder ballad.” You know it as “Mack the Knife.”

“Kiss and Run,” a cut from the 1956 set “Sonny Rollins Plus 4,” features Rollins and Clifford Brown trading licks at machine-gun speed.

In 1959, at the height of his fame, Rollins abruptly quit both recording and appearing on stage. Nobody knew what he was doing until a writer for a jazz magazine crossed the Williamsburg Bridge between the lower East Side and northern Brooklyn and saw Rollins, alone with his horn, playing to the trains crossing the East River. The image has been quoted so often in movies and TV it’s become a cliche.

When he returned he dabbled briefly in free jazz, but returned to his hard-bop style until he took another sabbatical in 1966 to study Eastern religion. He made forays into fusion in the ’70s and in 1981 appeared, uncredited, on the Rolling Stones album “Tattoo You.” He didn’t want the gig, but his wife insisted he take it. His solo on “Waiting on a Friend” helped elevate the single to No. 13 on the Hot 100.

There was talk a decade ago about renaming the Williamsburg Bridge for Rollins. It would be a nice honor, and New York has the just the mayor to do it.