I met Sonny Simmons only once, in early 2019. He lived then in a Manhattan nursing home. At the front desk, one had to ask not for Sonny Simmons but for Huey Simmons, the name with which he was born in 1933 in what he called Louisiana’s backwoods. Now 85 and using a wheelchair, Sonny had much difficulty moving around. I had been told that he was a man of great intensity, but in his small, shared room, this intensity seemed to be present only latently.

Saxophonist Ras Burnett joined us and we went outside, pushing Sonny’s wheelchair along Duke Ellington Boulevard towards a neighborhood bar. There, he was known not as Huey, but as Sonny, jazz musician of note. I don’t recall all that we talked about, but we certainly did what jazz people tend to do: discuss favourite musicians, especially those Sonny crossed paths with, everybody from Eric Dolphy to John Coltrane to Sunny Murray. What I do remember is feeling the intensity I knew from his music clearly originating in him.

This pantheon of which he was a part could be revisited here, but it is not the point. This encounter with Sonny happened through jazz historian Marc Chaloin, a mutual friend who had spent much time working with Sonny on a project of autobiography. Not unlike the life it documented, the project ended up taking a tortuous route, and Sonny, who died on 6 April 2021, only ever had the book in his hands as a voluminous manuscript. But, as these things sometimes do, events ultimately took a turn for the better, and the completed book, Better Do It Now Before You Die Later, will be published in November by Blank Forms Editions.

The autobiography covers 1950s Oakland, Charlie Parker, Sonny’s trumpeter partner Barbara Donald, the classic ESP-Disk’ sessions, John Coltrane, rivalries, Sonny’s “lost” 1980s, and more. The present selection, put together with Marc Chaloin, is for its part concerned with one thing in particular: not Sonny Simmons as part of a larger moment in time, but Sonny Simmons as the creator of highly individual works.

Sonny’s discography mirrored the winding lines of his life. This selection mines its obscure corners but does not attempt to provide an exhaustive picture. Sonny’s 1962 debut, The Cry!, the result of a collaboration with flautist and saxophonist Prince Lasha, was made for Los Angeles label Contemporary, which had released Ornette Coleman’s first album only four years earlier. For some observers, The Cry! indicated that Coleman’s free innovations would not remain simply elements of an individual style.

Many recordings – more than 100 releases – followed, with some of the best appearing in limited runs. The CD-Rs of the Paris based Hello World! label were among these. If you had to listen to one track from this selection only (and were ready for it), the 2006 recording of Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things” on solo English horn would be a good choice. This is music that takes up the greatest challenges all at once and comes out victorious. It is music that moves people to do things. There are no gimmicks there, just, maybe, the core underneath the intensity that seemed to radiate from the artist.

This playlist’s long final item would not make sense as an excerpt. The aptly titled “Dead Years Ago, Million Years Ahead” closes both Sonny’s discography and a massive eight CD set released by musician and producer Julien Palomo’s Improvising Beings label. Here, Sonny is accompanied solely by Palomo on a synthesizer that once belonged to pianist François Tusques. “Although its sonic garments are definitely rooted in minimalism and its texture purposefully synthetic,” Palomo writes in the album’s notes, “the solid waltz motif that is repeated nearly a hundred times over the course of this sprawling, excruciating mantra will not be unfamiliar to listeners of Sonny’s 1960s ‘tunes’... With this dry vision of life cycles spiralling into the (n)ether, our journey is cut short.”

With thanks to Kirk Heydt.

Tracklist

Prince Lasha Quintet featuring Sonny Simmons
“Congo Call”
From The Cry!
(Contemporary/Craft 1963/2024)

Sonny Simmons
“A Distant Voice”
From Staying On The Watch
(ESP-Disk' 1967)

Sonny Simmons
“For Posterity”
From Rumasuma
(Contemporary 1970)

Sonny Simmons
“R & B 3 (F-80)”
From Jazz Quartet, Volume 1: Saxophone Legacy
(Zero-G Sample Library circa 1998)

Les Oubliés de Jazz Ensemble
“Persona Non Grata”
From "That" N----- Music
(Touché 1973)

The Quad Force
“One For Thelonious Monk [Take 1]”
From Introducing Black Jack Pleasanton
(Hello World! 2008)

Sonny Simmons
[speaking]
From A True Life Drama
(Hello World! 2005)

Sonny Simmons
“Chimes Of Time”
From Backwoods Suite
(West Wind 1990)

Sonny Simmons
“The Global Prayer”
From Global Jungle (Original First Mix)
(Spin Records Boise 2024)

Sonny Simmons
“My Favorite Things”
From Ecstatic Nostalgia
(Hello World! 2007)

Sonny Simmons
[speaking]
From Live At Knitting Factory
(Ayler 2006)

The Cosmosamatics
“Cosmic Curtis”
From The Cosmosamatics II
(Boxholder 2002)

Sonny Simmons
“Sunset”
From The Traveller
(Jazzaway 2005)

Sonny Simmons & Julien Palomo
“Dead Years Ago, Million Years Ahead”
From Leaving Knowledge Wisdom And Brilliance/Chasing The Bird?
(Improvising Beings 2014)

Better Do It Now Before You Die Later is published by Blank Forms Editions. Marc Chaloin’s 2021 Wire tribute to Sonny Simmons can be read here. Jo Hutton’s review of Better Do It Now Before You Die Lateris published in The Wire 501. Pick up a copy of the issue in our online shop. Subscribers can also read the full review in the digital library.