Sonny Rollins had recorded the confidently titled “Jazz Colossus” album in 1956. But the saxophonist remained wracked with self-doubt.
So, in the summer of 1959, he began to play on the windswept pedestrian walkway of New York’s Williamsburg Bridge. Initially a place where he could avoid disturbing his pregnant neighbour, the walkway became the site of endless practice.
“What made me withdraw and go to the bridge was how I
