IT’S A JAZZ KIND OF MONDAY

If St. Thomas was a jazz song which song it would be?

“St. Thomas” is one of the most recognizable jazz songs from Sonny Rollins, who turned 85 years old earlier this month. Appearing on his 1956 album, Saxophone Colossus, the song has become a jazz standard. It’s been covered by numerous artists, painstakingly memorized by students learning the tenor sax, and has found its way onto movie soundtracks and even video games. Evolving from an English folk song, the melody was a popular nursery rhyme sung in the Virgin Islands, which Rollins’ mother sang to him when he was a child. But Rollins takes the familiar tune out into the jazz stratosphere.