For whatever it may be worth to any one listener, among current and recent tenor saxophone players there is something on which there is, I would say, at least 95% agreement. The three greatest tenor players have been Trane, Rollins and Henderson. Probably in that order. Bottom line is, who has gotten copied the most by other tenor players? Those three are the top three. Of course, they did their share of copying themselves. It’s the nature of the music.
Rollins was amazing. He was one of those players who had such commanding musical presence, particularly in the area of rhythm, that when one listens to him there is the strong sense that, instead of the horn player playing to the rhythm section’s groove, as usual, he is setting the groove and the rhythm section plays to him. Amazing.
https://youtu.be/6aDeFA1iO2Y?si=ThiB94ghvhEyBUGg