Dear all,

I will write my AI screed next week, as earlier this week the saxophonist Sonny Rollins passed away at the age of 95.

More than 10 years ago, I attended one of those literary events where you hope one day you will be on stage. It’s the kind of event where they play jazz in the background. As I was sitting there, waiting for the person I knew to read her work, I was struck by the saxophone in the background. Google told me it was Sonny Rollins. I can’t remember which song, but I do know it was on Saxophone Colossus, which he released in either 1956 or 1957.

Sometimes I do things in a way that I think is ‘proper’ regardless of whether or not it is a) proper, b) actually useful, and c) relevant in any way. What this means is that I knew, having done no research or really even reflection, that in order to be serious about jazz I must listen to this album from start to finish. It was not appropriate to just listen to the songs I knew or liked.

Until this time I mostly enjoyed music with words in. I knew I had to like or at least understand what the music intended, and without words I couldn’t figure out a damn thing about what the music intended. Florence and the Machine’s debut album, Lungs, came out in my first year and is probably the reason I survived that year. Every single song on that album is absolutely bursting with energy, imagery, and sheer verve. That was what I found myself gravitating towards. It’s not that I didn’t like the guitar solos by Mark Knopfler or David Gilmour. But I needed the song to have words in order to get to the solo in the first place.

Driving to and from work in the Bangalore traffic while listening to Saxophone Colossus demanded something very different of me. First of all, I hate driving and Bangalore is not a place to learn how to love it. Secondably, and pardon my French, I can’t count for merde. In no tradition of music have I managed to keep a beat, either while playing or while listening. Watching Carnatic music performances I can pretend to by watching someone on stage who is counting for me. On audio, I have no such luck.

The first track on Saxophone Colossus, St. Thomas, starts with a drum beat. I had to get through several bars of drums before I even got to the part of the music I could pretend to understand. When the saxophone came in, it felt like I had eaten my brinjal so I could have mango for dessert. Except, of course, that the drums are the reason the melody works.

Sonny Rollins taught me a crucial thing, something I have not been able to admit to because it seems like a fundamental failing of anyone who claims to love music, especially music in improvisational traditions. He taught me that I don’t need to count to know the beat, and I don’t need to be good at time in order to enjoy what others do with it. I can enjoy it simply by knowing that I enjoy it, and I can enjoy the beat with nothing more than the knowledge that the beat is what makes it work.

I listened to Saxophone Colossus again yesterday. I know every part of the album as well as I can. It’s etched into my memory. When Strode Rode, the third song on the album, started, I laughed. It is such a vibrant song. The first nine, ten notes Rollins plays are the same one, over and over. Max Roach’s drums just go with it. I think this is what taught me that if you pay attention, you can hear that music itself is intention. There is nothing but intention in the way it is played.

I’ve carried Saxophone Colossus with me on every smartphone I’ve had since 2014. I don’t often play it, because I know it so well and I keep thinking I should listen to something I haven’t yet heard by one of the greats (and there’s so much I haven’t heard). But I’ve missed that simple delight of hearing Strode Rode. It’s the delight of familiar surprise. It’s the delight of knowing that something is effortless to listen to because it requires incredible skill to play.

In grief and joy,

mvs