September 7 is the birthday of Sonny Rollins, tumultuous and often eccentric jazz saxophonist and composer ("St. Thomas," "Airegin," "Oleo," "Valse Hot") born in Harlem in 1930.
It occurred to us that there are probably few octogenarians called "Sonny." But then we remembered Mel Torme's up-tempo spoof on Al Jolson's sentimental "Sonny Boy." In Mel's version, it begins:
"Climb up on my knee, Sonny Boy--
Though you're eighty-three, Sonny Boy."
Happy birthday to Sonny Rollins. Long may he wail.
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