Saxophone Colossus: Celebrating Sonny Rollins
Thursday, September 10, 2026
7:00 PM
Dizzy's Club
Broadway at 60th Street, New York, NY 10019
$24
Scheduled
About This Event
Saxophone Colossus brings a repertory project of Sonny Rollins' writing and improvisational methods to Dizzy's Club, emphasizing thematic development and rhythmic momentum. Rooted in the bebop and hard-bop tenor tradition and with performance ties to Rollins' circle, the ensemble favors structural clarity over display, treating standards and originals as problems to solve in real time.
About Saxophone Colossus: Celebrating Sonny Rollins
At Dizzy’s Club in New York City, **Saxophone Colossus: Celebrating Sonny Rollins** places Rollins’ tenor language back inside the bebop and hard-bop lineage that formed modern improvisation. The program follows his hallmarks—motivic development, long-form invention, and a steady rhythmic push—heard as repertory rather than nostalgia. Rollins’ career is inseparable from the city’s jazz history, from 52nd Street to the clubs that kept the music moving after the war. One clear takeaway is how his method turns a small idea into an entire narrative.
About the Artists
Saxophone Colossus
Saxophone Colossus is a jazz saxophonist whose work centers on Sonny Rollins’ repertory and the mechanics behind it, from melodic variation to long-form improvisational logic. Based in New York City’s performance orbit, he appears at Dizzy’s Club with projects that foreground bebop and hard-bop tenor language and the rhythmic drive associated with Rollins’ circle, where he has also performed.
Sonny Rollins
Sonny Rollins is a jazz tenor saxophonist whose work sits at the center of bebop and hard bop, shaping the language of modern improvisation. In New York City, his legacy is actively revisited in programs at venues such as The Jazz Gallery and Smoke Jazz & Supper Club, including tributes and repertory evenings led by artists like Jaleel Shaw, Eric Alexander, and Nicholas Payton.