Receiving the award from King Carl Gustav XVI, 76-year-old Rollins noted that he was accepting the honor “on behalf of all the great musicians I learned my music from.” In the awards program Monday night at Stockholm Concert Hall, Eagle-Eye Cherry--son of trumpeter Don Cherry with whom Rollins toured in the 1960s--read the academy's citation, which described Rollins as "one of the most powerful and personal voices in jazz for more than 50 years. Although long recognized as one of the world's most acclaimed jazz musicians, Rollins still thinks he has work left to do. "These days I go back to things I've never finished to finish it," he said. Performances in honor of Rollins included Swedish hip-hop singer Timbuktu and the band Damn!, and renditions of his "Alfie's Theme" and "Oleo" played by saxophonist Lennart Aberg, pianist Bobo Stensson and the Jonas Kullhammar Quartet. Swedish jazz singer Viktoria Tolstoy sang "`Round Midnight."

Theodore “Sonny” Rollins was born and raised in New York City, where he first learned piano before moving to alto sax. Inspired by Coleman Hawkins, he switched to tenor, and in high school played with such future starts as Jackie MacLean, Kenny Drew and Art Taylor. Rollins rehearsed with Thelonious Monk for several months in 1948 and recorded off and on over the next few years with leading bop artists such as J. J. Johnson, Charlie Parker, Fats Navarro, Bud Powell, Max Roach, Art Blakey, Monk, and the Modern Jazz Quartet. But his most consistent collaborator during this period was Miles Davis, with whom he introduced three compositions which later became jazz standards: Airegin, Doxy, and Oleo. He joined the Max Roach-Clifford Brown Quartet in late 1955, remaining for two years before returning briefly to work with Miles. From the mid-50s, Rollins led his own bands and released landmark recordings, as a pioneer in playing bop tunes in ¾ meter, exploring calypso, and developing a thematic approach to improvisation.

Dissatisfied with his playing and lack of compatible sidemen, Rollins took a famous “break” from public playing for two years, during which time he was known to practice on the Williamsburg Bridge. His return to performance in the early 60s was marked by a shift toward the new “free jazz” and associations with Don Cherry and Billy Higgins as well as a preference for playing extended, unaccompanied “streams of conciousness” explorations of traditional and original tunes. He scored the film Alfie in 1965, then took another “leave” to focus on yoga, meditation and the spiritual and musical influences of India. Into the 70s began experimentation with electronic instruments and African dance rhythms. In the late 70s he refocused on his bop chops touring with the Milestone Jazzstars (with McCoy Tyner, Ron Carter and Al Foster), and through the 80s and 90s, brought bop, funk and soul together in the popular music of his quintet. His commercial success was not limited to jazz, as he also appeared on the Rolling Stones’ album, Tattoo You.

Shaken by the terrorist attacks near his home on September 11, 2001, Rollins forged ahead with a performance in Boston that was captured live as Without a Song: The 9/11 Concert, which won the 2006 Grammy for Jazz Instrumental Solo for the song, "Why Was I Born?". Rollins was awarded a Grammy for Lifetime Achievement in 2004 and a 2007 Grammy nomination for his 2006 release, Sonny Please. That year he also topped three categories in the Down Beat Readers Poll—Jazz Artist of the Year, Tenor Saxophonist of the Year, and Recording of the Year (Without a Song). In the past year, Sonny also launched his own recording label, Doxy Records.