Classics France
2004
The Chronological Sonny Stitt: 1951-1953
About This Album
This third volume of Sonny Stitt's complete recorded works in chronological order is packed with positive vibrations. Between May 1951 and November 1953, three different record labels -- Chess, Prestige, and Roost -- presented the saxophonist in several deliciously varied musical contexts. The Chess studios employed smooth, dramatic production values, adding just enough reverb to transform Stitt's already handsome tonalities into stunning waves of larger-than-life masculinity, archetypically personified in the early '50s by the great Gene Ammons. The first of two Prestige dates, in fact, feels more than a little like an Ammons blowing session. Here Stitt used both alto and tenor saxophones, cooking splendidly. Six months later, Stitt waxed four exciting sides with a band including bassist Ernie Shepard and drummer Shadow Wilson. On two of the tracks -- a pair of wonderful mambos -- the quartet was fortified with three trumpeters and Puerto Rican percussionist Humberto Morales. Some jazz critics always seem to be whining about Caribbean percussion as though the inclusion of this vibrant component somehow detracts from the music to which it is added. Dizzy Gillespie, who did so much to circulate and popularize these rhythms and the instruments on which they are played, would surely disagree.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21 and 22)

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