My mother came from St. Thomas. I heard that melody and all I did was actually adapt it. I made my adaptation of sort of an island traditional melody. It did become sort of my trademark tune.

Rollins explored Latin rhythms on What's New; tackled the avant-garde on Our Man in Jazz featuring Bob Cranshaw on bass Billy Higgins on drums and Don Cherry on pocket trumpet; played with a tenor saxophone hero Coleman Hawkins on Sonny Meets Hawk! re-examined jazz standards on Now's the Time and some Great American Songbook standards on The Standard Sonny Rollins. for drug addicts. Rollins began to make a name for himself in 1949 as he recorded with J.

Theodore Walter "Sonny" Rollins (born September 7 1930 in New York City) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Thomas" "Oleo" "Doxy" and "Airegin" have become jazz standards.