Dennis Rollins

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Photo by Ouxu Cheng

Dennis Rollins (b. 1964) is a British jazz trombonist, the founder and leader of BadBone and Co.

Rollins was born in Birmingham, of Jamaican parents, and brought up in Yorkshire. 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.

Rollins has recorded, performed, and toured with many musicians and bands in jazz and pop, including Courtney Pine, US3, Jamiroquai, Roy Ayers, Dionne Warwick, Cyprus 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, 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, the London Forum, and Brixton Academy. After just two years, however, he was forced to break up the band for personal reasons.

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.

In 2005 he formed Boneyard, an ensemble featuring ten trombones, sousaphone (or "sousabone"), and drums; this band performed a series of live gigs throughout the U.K. that summer. Boneyard featured the young British jazz trombonists Barnaby Dickinson, Matt Coleman, Julian Hepple, Andy Derrick, Kevin Holborough, Harry Brown, and Lee Hallam, with Andy Grappy on sousabone.^{[citation needed]}

Current Band members of Badbone&co are; Jay Phelps on trumpet, Johnny Heyes on guitars, Alex Bonfanti on bass, Christian Gulino on keys and Jack Pollit on drums.