From entries in The Notebooks of Sonny Rollins, which will be published in April by New York Review Books.

Another good day to think and be thankful for.

There is today in existence a fraternity of people. People who were all irrepressibly drawn to the “horn of horns,” “the instrument of instruments,” the saxophone. Within its proportions we saw a better and more beautiful world.

A picture of saxophones in a window, underneath the picture, the following words: “In deciding upon the saxophone we have chosen the instrument which will serve us nobly throughout our lives forever and ever.”…