2 min readMay 28, 2026 06:14 AM IST First published on: May 28, 2026 at 06:14 AM ISTJazz genius Sonny Rollins, who died on May 25 in New York, was at the top of his game in 1959 when he disappeared from the music scene. A master saxophone player, he was already celebrated for his technical brilliance and stunning improvisations. But dissatisfied with his own music, Rollins stepped away from the spotlight. For the next two years, come rain or shine, he climbed onto an empty deck on the side of the busy Williamsburg Bridge and wrestled with his mind and its blocks for up to 16 hours a day. The photograph of Rollins, alone above the East River with his saxophone, is the stuff of lore. When he returned in 1961, he called his comeback album The Bridge — uncluttered, long explorations and an airy feel.Born in Harlem into a musical family, Rollins’s mother gave him a second-hand alto saxophone at 11 and he never let go. He became a teen sensation, later going on to play with Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk. Performing well into his 80s, he went on to record 60 studio and live albums, winning a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.AdvertisementEight years after his “bridge sessions”, a restless Rollins, battling drugs and alcohol and drawn by eastern philosophy, arrived in India for a second sabbatical. Jazz enthusiasts and archivists Jahangir Dalal and Niranjan Jhaveri, central to documenting jazz in India, went looking for him, finding him at Swami Chinmayananda’s ashram in Mumbai’s Powai. Years later, Rollins would go on to headline Jhaveri’s jazz yatra in 1978 in Mumbai. Never fully satisfied with his music, Rollins, the “saxophone colossus”, remained a seeker, chasing what seemed just out of reach.