Dennis Rollins

Who is Dennis Rollins?

Dennis Rollins is a British jazz trombonist, the founder and bandleader of BadBone and Co.

Rollins was born in Birmingham, of Jamaican parents, and raised in Bentley, Doncaster and attended Don Valley High School. When he was fourteen years old, he joined The Doncaster Youth Jazz Association, with which he studied and performed for some years before moving to London in 1987.

Dennis Rollins has recorded, performed, and toured with a host of musicians and bands in jazz and pop, including Courtney Pine, US3, Jamiroquai, Roy Ayers, Dionne Warwick, Cypress Hill, Hermeto Pascoal, George Clinton, Lonnie Liston Smith, Blur, Tom Jones, Erykah Badu, Marcus Miller, Sting, Percy Sledge, Gorillaz, Space Monkeyz, the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, Brand New Heavies, Baaba Maal, the Jazz Warriors, Maceo Parker, Prince Buster, and Beverley Knight.

In 1995 he formed his own jazz-funk band, Dee Roe, with which he performed at such venues as the Jazz Café, Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, the London Forum, and Brixton Academy.

In 2000 he again formed a band, the quintet Dennis Rollins' BadBone and Co., launched at the Barbican in March of that year, again specialising in funk-inflected jazz.