Neighborhood
Wikipedia ties Sonny Rollins to Harlem, Manhattan. A tie, not always an origin
On the map at West 137th Street
West 137th Street, Manhattan: Born in a tenement house on this block, between Lenox Avenue and Seventh Avenue.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Places
Listen and read
Music spots
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Venue
Beacon Theatre
1929A 1929 movie palace on Broadway that began presenting live entertainment in 1966. Miles Davis played it in the early 1980s and Laurie Anderson during that decade, Sonny Rollins in the second half of the 1990s, and Paul Simon gave the first performances after its 2009 reopening, per Wikipedia.
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Venue
Village Vanguard
1957Sonny Rollins recorded A Night at the Village Vanguard in this wedge-shaped basement room on 3 November 1957. It was the first album recorded at the club, per NPR.
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Moment
“A Great Day in Harlem”
1958On 12 August 1958 Art Kane photographed 57 jazz musicians for Esquire on this block of East 126th Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenues, where police had blocked off the traffic. Count Basie sat down on the curb and a dozen children followed; Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins are in the picture too, per Wikipedia. In August 2021 the Amsterdam News announced a ceremony co-naming the block Art Kane Harlem 1958 Place.
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Venue
The Village Gate
1958–1994Art D’Lugoff’s club at Bleecker and Thompson Streets, 1958 to 1994. It featured musicians including Sonny Rollins, Miles Davis and Edgard Varèse, and the Alegre label held events there that led to live records, among them the Tico All-Stars’ Descargas (1966) with Tito Puente, Ray Barretto and Joe Cuba. In 2008 its downstairs space reopened as (Le) Poisson Rouge, per Wikipedia.
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