David Booker benefit, Sonny Rollins sells catalog, Jazz artists join Arts and Letters academy

Colorado blues legend and former KUVO host David Booker has medical bills piling up due to cancer treatment, so friends and blues lovers are producing a benefit concert, coming up Sunday, March 5 at 2 pm. At the Oriental Theater, 4335 West 44th at Tennyson.

Info on this Wang Dang Doodle of Colorado blues players is at The Oriental Theater. (And they might go “all night long!”)

Saxophonist Sonny Rollins has sold his publishing rights and catalog to Reservoir Media, a New York-based company that just also recently acquired the catalog of Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Dion DiMucci and swing legend Louis Prima.

Rollins’ catalog includes over 60 albums across seven decades, with numerous compositions of his becoming jazz standards, including St. Thomas, Oleo, Doxy, and more.

Music Business Worldwide reports Reservoir Media is on a $100 million dollar spending spree for “strategic mergers and acquisitions” in fiscal 2023.

On the deal, Rollins said: “I’m happy that Reservoir will be helping to maintain my musical legacy, which was created in concert with so many great musicians I’m proud to be associated with.”

Though he no longer is performing, Rollins still releases live recordings of past performances on his own Doxy label.

In addition to his career as a performer, Rollins has also been active as a philanthropist, establishing and maintaining the Oberlin Conservatory of Music Sonny Rollins Jazz Ensemble, “in recognition of the institution’s long legacy of access and social justice advocacy.”

The American Academy of Arts and Letters has elected two jazz luminaries to its ranks, multi-Grammy winner, MacArthur fellow and NEA Jazz Master Maria Schneider, and jazz trailblazer trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith.  We’re talking the heights of American literati, and surely Schneider and Smith will liven up their proceedings.  Phillip Glass and Henry Threadgill are already members.  The induction ceremony is in May.

Stay connected to KUVO’s programs and our community! Sign up for the Oasis E-News today!