Sonny Rollins has been making music professionally since the 1940s so it's fair to say that he's got a big bag of tricks from which he draws while making solos. Some of his playing at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall sounded rote to me, Rollins going through familiar motions even as he was making a great big and beautiful sound on his saxophone.

 

But Rollins is one of the great improvisers in the history of jazz, capable of unleashing torrents of unexpected sound in 10-minute increments. There was a moment like that the other night, toward the end of the concert. At first, it seemed like he was again phoning it in, borrowing phrases from past solos and other songs. (This solo included his second snatch of the night from "Freedom Jazz Dance.") Suddenly, it seemed like he was getting into it. His ideas became fresher, his harmonics became more challenging. He would play little phrases that, whether stock or not, gave him ideas for playing three or four variations off of each one, mixing up his time all along the way.

 

It was awesome, but the fact that it was such a standout moment in a show that was mostly good but not great is in keeping with the mixed picture his entire career presents. Rollins is universally considered one of the two greatest sax players of his generation, along with John Coltrane (although personally I would rather listen to Dexter Gordon than either of them). Rollins also has an appealing legend-making moment from early in his career, when he dropped out at the top of his game to go practice for like a year and a half from the railings of the Williamsburg Bridge. There are very few fans who would deny him the meaningless but impressive title of "greatest living jazz musician."

 

And yet, what is his legacy? Rollins has recorded a few classic albums, notably "Saxophone Colossus." But that came out in 1956. Even Rollins' most ardent admirers, including Gary Giddins and Stanley Crouch, readily concede that most of his recordings are disappointments. His huge reputation rests largely on his live shows, but there, too, he is problematic. He can blow anybody away but quite often he seems bored and if he feels his audience isn't with it or deserving he'll drop jazz and play calypso, as he did the last time I heard him, at Lisner Auditorium a few years ago.

 

The Kennedy Center audience was as primed as just about any I've ever been apart of. They were ready to greet and celebrate him as a living legend, with big ovations after each number including a lot of partial standing O's along the way. His playing was good enough to satisfy people who were there to say "I saw the great Sonny Rollins."

 

And it was definitely the Sonny Rollins show. There were five other musicians on stage, but they were mostly just there, creating a wall of sound, perhaps too repetitively percussive behind him. They got their solo space but as if in parody of their leader their playing was extremely competent but mostly uninspired, with the exception of a truly hot conga solo on one of the evening's two calypso numbers by Victor Y. See Yuen.

 

Rollins played one of the great solos I've ever heard -- a true solo, just him alone on the stage of the San Francisco Opera House spinning out melodies, back in 1981. Along with the visual image of Rollins the other night, that is what I'll keep in my personal memory bank. His back is pretty well bent at 79 and he bends down even lower often as he plays, the curve of his tenor sax reaching down below his kneed. Shuffling a bit around the stage with a wireless mike on top of the bell of his horn, wearing a white jacket, his face and dark glasses framed by his white hair and beard, he definitely looked like the epitome of old-school cool.