R3 jazz sur Library - Sonny Stitt

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"Fellow saxophonist Alan Barnes joins Alyn Shipton to choose the best examples of Stitt's work, including his recordings with Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell and Sonny Rollins as well as the many sessions he led himself."

Good to see Sonny get this slot but a bit of shame the track listing is the usual routine...

For me Sonny's best album was "Personal Appearance" (Verve c. 1958) with a somewhat "lumpy" section of Bobby Timmons, Edgar Willis (Ray Charles's future bass player) and Kenny Dennis. Some great stuff from three minute ballads to Sonny showing he was '50s Trane before Trane. Also the lovely "Time after Time" from the strings album is not featured and nothing from Sonny's stint with Miles.

BN.

NB. Sonny had one of the most affecting spoken voices in jazz...the clips are available to the BBC

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

...playlist here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y2261

well it has one of my faves Stitt Plays Bird ... probably like it because of John Lewis and the cover!

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

the Proper box set of Sonny is at a silly price these days on Amazon [out of print?] but there is always this for under a tenner at that place:

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=26175

just as the Sonny R & Sonny S track came on [i'm on LA] i was reading this great essay by a certain Mr Mehldau from 2003:

http://www.bradmehldau.com/writing/papers/jazz_times_01.html

i am also reminded of the late Benny Green's perception of the jazz artist and his nomadic community as bound together by the Songbook ... [where did he write that? or did he just say it on the radio?]

Stitt was a blower of extraordinary capability, an old time jazz troubadour ... who made his $$$ where he found it ... it is the artists who can create and sustain a regular group that seem to me to be the exemplars of the Mehldau compositional type, the blowers just hit town, do it and move on ... remembered as spectacular/infamous individuals ... who kept both good and bad company

stimulating programme Alyn & Alan thanks as always ...

[Ian Thumwood]

My knowledge of Stitt was limited to the "Giants of jazz" group and the usual "The String" / "Eternal Triangle" recordings. I also have the track with Ammons on a 4-CD budget set which, incidently, I hooked out after being impressed by an earlier edition of " Jazz Library" dedicated to the other tenor titan. Although I have heard Stitt in some of the other contexts too, I thought the programme said as much about the avuncular Alan Barnes as about the subject of the programme. We frequently heard references to Stitt being "gladitorial" and to his competitive nature but, for me at least, this often leads to the most unappealing aspects of jazz. I very much like Alan's unfussy style as a guest and it was not surprising to discover what elements in Stitt's playing appealed and why.

Whilst I was aware that he played tenor, I was always of the opinion that this was to avoid the comparisons with Bird. I think his tenor playing was more interesting but I felt that this music was really just blowing through the changes. I wasn't surprised about the quote from Ken Peplowski that Stitt knew 100's of standards. Many of these Broadway tunes have pretty ubiquitouss chord changes and , once these have been assimilated, it is just a matter of knowing the melodies. My piano teacher has a similar pocket notebook which constituted his "book" and this consisted of the titles of over 300 such songs that he had learned over the course of a career that started just before the War but really took off around the same time that Stitt and the be-boppers were around. I think that there must be something about this generation who, to quote Calum, could hit town and pretty much play anything. This is probably much less prevalent these days. Certainly, I don't think that this ability was rare - it was probably very much the norm for that generation of jazz musician. The repeated II-V-I patterns and the ability to employ tritone substitutions must have made these standards interesting.

However, I think that, taken as a whole, this kind of jazz quickly gets tedious. For me, the best track was definately the one with Dizzy Gillespie that opened the programme. Gillespie's music often had an element of drama or theatre in the way that he approached solos, even if an breakneck speed. There is something about his employment of dynamics when you listen to him playing that makes you think "wow" whenever you hear something he recorded during his prime in the 40's and 50's. The later "Giants of jazz" session was a bit of a hotch-potch and the record doesn't really match the excitement you would have expected had you caught this band playing live. I also liked the records with Bud Powell as, like much 1940's Be-bop, there is a snappy brightness about the best records of this era that is often hard to beat. Shame so many sessions were so poorly recorded.

All in all, I'm afraid this came across as archetypal "blowing" music. Even the "ballad " track chosen followed the same kind of formula and the use of licks. Granted that Stitt had plenty of technique and I don't doubt would have been hugely exciting at his prime in a live context but the music has moved on substantially in the last 60 years and perhaps would not be sophisticated enough for today's palette. "The String" may have been electrifying back in the fifties yet the reaction now (speaking personally) is indifference. I would lken it to performing dogs - clever but a bit pointless. To be frank, as much as I like Eldridge's earlier work, this is just a bit monotonous. Modern jazz at it's lowest common denominator? Head-solo-Head and even worse for being refracted through Norman Granz's "rent- a -jam- session" factory.

I thought the final track, a recording of "Topsy" , backed up my argument on the other thread about Mainstream jazz. There must be thousands of records from the fifties onwards consisting of Basie repertoire from Shorty Rogers, Paul Quinichette ("For Basie" has a wonderful version of "Jive at Five") through the various sessions for Concord. Never appreciated that Sonny Stitt got on in the act too. This was pleasing enough and much more enjoyable than the hell-for-leather material. The Basie "songbook" was almost as much as a staple for more "Mainstream -inclinded" musicians as the broadway repertoire was for "Modernists."

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

yer pushing it Ian, Webster Young Eldridge to name but a dozen [Tatum another two dozen] lived the songbook ... er weren't they Mainstream ....

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

Ian - "I thought the programme said as much about the avuncular Alan Barnes as about the subject of the programme"

AMEN - I had the very same feeling and likewise I find those tenor jousts deeply boring - the jazz equivalent of Sumo as Stitt and Rollins hurl themselves at each other to decreasing effect. Rollins wins on points, who cares?

Sonny was much more than that.

BN.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

BTW - I see that Scot LaFaro is next up with Dave Green as co-host. That should be a must-listen. Hope he picks up on the 1958 "For Real" album with Hamp Hawes and Harold Land (heroes) - as much a joy in it's (driving, clever, out of bop) way as Scott with Bill Evans. And "Ornette" (Altantic) with Scott is my fav Ornetto album.

BN.

[Byas'd Opinion]

Sonny Stitt was one of the first major jazz players I saw live. He was at the Queen's Hall in Edinburgh in the early 80s with Red Holloway, who he worked with regularly for the last few years of his life. I don't remember much about it beyond the fact that it was very enjoyable, even if possibly a bit "gladitorial" for some tastes. He stuck to tenor for most of the evening, and there was a nice contrast between Holloway's gruff, bluesy playing and Stitt's boppier style.

[Ian Thumwood]

Byas

I saw Red Hollway a few years back and enjoyed his playing. I'm pretty sure in was with a band that bacled singer Kevin Mahogany which also included Grant Green jr on guitar and Bernard "Pretty " Purdie on drums. The set was mainly KC-style standards. Nice to see someone giving Holloway the thumbs up. Not a name that crops up often in discussions here.