This groovy, bebopping picture book biography chronicles the legendary jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins's search for inspiration on the Williamsburg Bridge after quitting the jazz scene in 1959.
Barry Wittenstein has worked at CBS Records, CBS News, and was a web editor and writer for Major League Baseball. He is now an elementary-school substitute teacher and children's author. He is the author of The Boo-Boos That Changed the World- A True Story About an Accidental Invention (Really!) and Waiting for Pumpsie.
♦ An appropriately jazzy picture-book biography of African-American
musician Sonny Rollins. It impresses from the endpapers, which
mirror a vinyl LP in its paper sleeve and then playing on a
turntable, to the liner notes about Rollins' seminal album "The
Bridge" in the back. Born and raised in Harlem, Rollins grew up at
the perfect time for a jazz musician. Written in free verse that
flirts with rhyme, the text moves through measures and beats like
the up-and-down swings of jazz. The vibrant, digitally created
illustrations set the mood as they go from deep blue and purple
nighttime hues to bright daytime tones and back again. The birth of
Rollins' career is explored as he acquires and falls in love with
his first horn and learns the nuances of jazz by sneaking into some
of the greatest clubs in Harlem. By the time he's 19 people have
started to notice how great he truly is. He spends most of the
1950s playing two shows a day, every day. Ten years later he needs
a sabbatical: "Sonny knows if he don't jump, / He. Won't. Last." He
practices on the Williamsburg Bridge, and the first album after his
return is called "The Bridge." Child readers may not have thought
much about Rollins, but Wittenstein's admiration for his subject
establishes his importance. All the characters present as
African-American. Opens the door for further exploration of both
man and music.
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
♦ The life of jazz legend Sonny Rollins pulses with the rousing
spontaneity of his music in Wittenstein’s free verse biography.
Readers witness Rollins’s career as an acclaimed musician
followed by his explosive success and the subsequent reincarnations
of his art. When Rollins feels like his career is one
out-of-control improvisation, he ducks out of the limelight,
devoting days and nights to playing his sax on the Williamsburg
Bridge. On that bridge, he does some soul-searching; after two
years, he returns to the spotlight as a more confident, grounded
musician. Wittenstein’s verse replicates the swift tempo of bebop,
interspersing rhyme and combining informal vernacular with a sense
of extemporization in the rhythm. Some words, such as
“per-co-lat-ing,” are punctuated at every syllable, each striking
like a staccato note. Others are emphasized in all caps and are
onomatopoeic (“BOOM BOP BEBOP!”). Mallett’s smooth, bold
illustrations are rendered in dusky purples, moody blues, and earth
tones: colors suggesting notes of jazz swirling through a thick
night sky. An author’s note, liner notes to Rollins’s seminal
album, The Bridge, a time line, and additional content provide an
opportunity for further exploration. VERDICT Pair with Rollins’s
music to introduce children to this legendary musician and to the
rhythmic exuberance of jazz.
—School Library Journal, starred review
This insightful biography of Sonny Rollins opens with two New
Yorkers hearing the sound of saxophone: “What the heck is Sonny
Rollins doing on the Williamsburg Bridge?” Wittenstein turns back
the clock as Mallett depicts formative moments from Rollins’s life
alongside concurrent historical events: Rollins is born at the time
of the Harlem Renaissance, and discovers a love for saxophone as
WWII soldiers march and eventually give way to civil rights
demonstrators. After Rollins’s music career launches and he
“rockets to the top of the jazz universe,” the book fast forwards
to Rollins’s mid-career moment of crisis: “Looks in the mirror,/
doesn’t like what he sees./ Name bigger than talent.” Seeking a
private place to play (Rollins leans dejectedly on his fire escape,
his saxophone resting against the railing, the sun setting over the
Manhattan skyline), he finds solace in practicing on the bridge,
which connects “the old to the new,” and leads to a new recording.
Wittenstein fluidly provides historical context while exploring the
ebbs and flows of the artistic process. Back matter discusses
Rollins’s The Bridge album.
—Publishers Weekly
Walter Theodore "Sonny" Rollins was born during the Jazz Age in the
cradle of the Harlem Renaissance. After WWII, jazz slowly morphed
into bebop, and Sonny was in the middle of it. Overwhelmed by early
fame, the young saxophonist decided to take a break from the
limelight —until the siren song called again, and he began
practicing on the Williamsburg Bridge, away from complaining
neighbors. The text is divided into "sets," framing the narrative
within the larger historical moments, and Wittenstein presents the
story in jaunty, lyrical phrasings. He also works in the titles of
famous standards like "Stompin' at the Savoy" and "Take the 'A'
train." Mallett's palette alternates between royal purples and
sandy browns, with the digital art seeming to glow during Sonny's
highs and dim during his lows. The back matter details some of his
heavier moments, including issues with substance abuse, and it
mentions a current-day project to rename the Williamsburg Bridge
after Rollins. A good choice for collections in need of biographies
focused on music or lesser-known African American musicians.
—Booklist
A story about an adult's sabbatical from his professional life is
an unusual concept for a children's book, but Barry Wittenstein's
jazzy-rhythmed Sonny's Bridge makes perfect sense once it's in
readers' hands.
In the 1940s, a young saxophonist named Sonny Rollins began
sneaking into Harlem's Apollo Theater and Cotton Club to hear jazz
musicians like John "Dizzy" Gillespie and Charlie "Bird" Parker. He
began playing "two-bit joints," writing his own music and turning
standards like Billie Holliday's "God Bless the Child" into his
own. By his 20s, he had rocketed "to the top of the jazz universe."
But when he was "twenty-nine in '59, in his prime,/ Sonny
shatter[ed] the jazz world" by taking a break from performing and
recording--the pressure had become too intense. Courageously, Sonny
took an intermission: "No gigs, no deadlines, no pressure....
Sixteen hours every day, plays to his heart's de-light" in the
small Lower East Side apartment he shared with his wife. When
neighbors complained about the noise, Sonny looked for a private
place where he could "make notes cry and squeak, beg and plead,/
bend 'em up, bend 'em sideways." He found that place on the
Williamsburg Bridge, connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn.
For more than two years, Sonny found "refuge and sol-i-tude" on the
pedestrian walkway of the bridge, playing only for himself and the
trains and tugboats. When he emerged from his self-imposed exile,
rumors swirled about what he'd been doing: Had he found a new
sound? Was he afraid of the "younger cats on the prowl?" Was he
even playing sax anymore? Sonny didn't care. He went back into the
recording studio and entered "a new dimension:/ his subconscious/
'cause 'you can't think and play at the same time.' " In ear-ly
1962, he released to acclaim a new album called The Bridge. He had
become "more confident in himself as a musician and as a person,"
Wittenstein (Waiting for Pumpsie) writes in the "Liner Notes" of
the book's back matter (which also include an author's note, a
timeline of Rollins's life and additional notes and quotes).
Wittenstein's energetic text mimics the syncopated rhythms of jazz,
incorporating the lingo and locales of the time. Keith Mallett's
(How Jelly Roll Morton Invented Jazz; Take a Picture of Me, James
VanDerZee) digital illustrations also capture the electric mood of
the end of the bebop era. Using warm, vibrant colors, his
depictions of Sonny and his cohort are expressive and full of life.
Flashes of gold--a backlit Sonny, glowing streetlights and, always,
Henrietta, his trusty sax--glitter through the pages. Readers
accustomed to YouTube superstars will be intrigued by this story of
one musician--who was already successful and famous--truly
"find[ing] his groove" after stepping away from the limelight for
an unimaginably long period (in today's terms) of more than two
years.
Shelf Talker: This dynamic picture book tells how legendary jazz
sax player Sonny Rollins, at the height of his career, stepped out
of public view to find his groove again.
—Shelf Awareness
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