Life & Mortality Quote by Sonny Rollins

Rollins is dropping the romance from the jazz mythology and leaving the hangover on the table. The line is plainspoken, almost blunt to the point of discomfort, because the point is discomfort: if you love this music, you have to look at what it has done to the people who made it. He’s not talking about “tortured genius” as a vibe; he’s talking about a labor market that treats brilliance as disposable and survival as optional.

The power here is in the piling up of indignities: die obscure, drinking themselves to death, not being able to get any work, stuck in small, funky clubs. It’s a catalogue of failure that isn’t really theirs. The repetition mimics the grind of it, the way talent doesn’t break the cycle once the machinery of bookings, labels, and tastes decides you’re yesterday’s news. “Obscure” is especially sharp: it’s not just poverty, it’s erasure.

Coming from Rollins, the subtext has teeth. He’s one of the rare jazz giants who lived long enough to become an institution, which gives him the authority to puncture the institution’s self-congratulation. This is also a quiet argument against the audience’s complicity: we fetishize authenticity in “funky” clubs, then act surprised when musicians can’t pay rent. The intent isn’t nostalgia; it’s witness. Jazz isn’t only a sound. It’s a system, and it has casualties.