Sonny Stitt

The beginning of Stitt's late-career renaissance. After years of uneven organ combo dates and commercial sessions, the Cobblestone label put him back in the quartet format with a rhythm section worthy of his talent. Barry Harris is the ideal pianist for Stitt: a fellow Detroiter and devout bebopper whose harmonic vocabulary is perfectly matched to Stitt's melodic conception. Sam Jones and Alan Dawson complete what amounts to a dream rhythm section.

The playing has a renewed urgency. Stitt sounds like a man who knows he has been coasting and has decided to stop. His alto on the title track is ferocious, the double-time passages executed with a precision that would be remarkable for a musician half his age. His tenor on the ballads has acquired a deeper, more weathered quality that the younger Stitt did not possess.

Alan Dawson's drumming is the secret weapon. His time is rock-solid but never stiff, his accents perfectly placed to propel the soloists forward, and his brushwork on the ballads is elegant and swinging. This is the sound of four musicians who share a common language playing it with total commitment. One of the essential Stitt recordings of any period.

The companion piece to Tune-Up!, recorded around the same time with Roy Brooks replacing Alan Dawson on drums. Brooks brings a slightly different energy: more explosive, more willing to push the tempo, with a fondness for dramatic accents that keeps Stitt on his toes. The result is a session that runs a degree hotter than its predecessor.

Barry Harris and Sam Jones are again superb. Harris's solos are models of bebop construction, each one a perfectly balanced miniature that complements Stitt's longer, more exploratory statements. Jones's bass is a constant source of harmonic and rhythmic information, his walking lines so melodic they almost qualify as a second voice.

If Tune-Up! is the more polished of the two Cobblestone albums, Constellation is the more exciting. Brooks drives the uptempo tracks with a ferocity that brings out Stitt's competitive instincts, and the result is some of the most intense blowing of his late period. Together, these two records make the case that the seventies Stitt was playing as well as, or better than, the fifties Stitt.

The move to Muse Records continued the creative momentum of the Cobblestone period. Joe Newman's trumpet adds a second horn voice that Stitt had not had on the Cobblestone dates, and the contrast between Newman's warm, burnished tone and Stitt's sharper attack gives the quintet a richer textural palette. Duke Jordan, one of bebop's original pianists, brings a historical authenticity to the proceedings that Harris's more modern approach did not quite provide.

Sam Jones and Roy Brooks return from Constellation, and their rhythmic partnership is even more intuitive this time around. Brooks has settled into a groove that pushes without bulldozing, and Jones's bass lines have the effortless swing of a musician who could walk in his sleep.

The Champ is not quite at the level of the two Cobblestone records, partly because the quintet format disperses the intensity that the quartet concentrated so effectively. But the playing is excellent throughout, and Stitt's exchanges with Newman on the uptempo tracks have a warmth and generosity that suggest genuine musical friendship rather than competitive one-upmanship.

Recorded for the Swedish Sonet label with a sextet that reads like a Jazz Messengers offshoot: Bill Hardman and David Schnitter were both Blakey alumni, Walter Davis Jr. had played with Blakey in the fifties, and Art Blakey himself is behind the drums. The hard bop credentials are impeccable, and the session delivers exactly what the personnel promises: muscular, swinging, no-nonsense bebop.

Blakey's drumming galvanizes the entire date. His press rolls and bomb accents push Stitt into some of his most aggressive playing of the seventies, and the three-horn front line gives the arrangements a weight and harmonic richness that the quartet and quintet dates lacked. Yoshio Suzuki's bass anchors the rhythm section with quiet authority.

The Sonet label's European distribution meant this album was largely unknown in the United States for years, which is a shame: it contains some of the most exciting ensemble playing in Stitt's late discography. The front line of Stitt, Hardman, and Schnitter is a three-voice choir of hard bop conviction.

A larger ensemble than Stitt typically favored, with two trumpets, guitar, and percussion augmenting the standard rhythm section. The production has a seventies sheen that some listeners may find dated, but the playing transcends the era's production conventions. Jon Faddis and Lew Soloff are both formidable trumpeters, and their presence gives Stitt a brass backdrop against which his saxophone cuts with particular clarity.

Richard Davis returns from the Stitt Plays Bird date, and his bass work is again exemplary. Louis Bellson's drumming is big and propulsive, well-suited to the larger ensemble sound. Bucky Pizzarelli's guitar adds harmonic texture without cluttering the arrangements.

The material is a mix of standards and originals, all arranged to showcase Stitt's saxophone against the ensemble. Not every arrangement works equally well, but the best tracks, particularly the uptempo blowing vehicles, have a joyful energy that captures the spirit of the title. A solid late-period date that falls just short of the Cobblestone and Muse peaks.

After a period of declining health and sporadic recording, Stitt returns to the Muse label with Barry Harris once again at the piano. The reunion is warm and productive. Harris's comping is as supportive and inventive as ever, and George Duvivier's bass has the rich, woody tone and flawless intonation that made him one of the most recorded bassists in jazz history. Leroy Williams plays with a sensitivity to dynamics that keeps the quartet balanced. On three tracks, Ricky Ford joins on tenor saxophone, adding a generational contrast that brings out a competitive edge in Stitt's playing.

Stitt plays only tenor on this date, and his sound has acquired a gravelly quality that adds emotional weight to the ballads. The technical facility remains astonishing: his uptempo solos are still filled with long, complex lines executed at speed, and his rhythmic conception has if anything grown more sophisticated with age. Time has not dulled the blade.

A warm, satisfying comeback record that lacks the ferocity of the Cobblestone dates but compensates with a maturity and emotional depth that the younger Stitt rarely displayed. Harris and Stitt together remain one of the great pianist-saxophonist partnerships in bebop.

Three veterans of the jazz wars, all in their fifties and sixties, blowing through standards with the ease of men who have played these tunes ten thousand times and still find something new to say. Harry "Sweets" Edison's muted trumpet is one of the most recognizable sounds in jazz: spare, witty, and perfectly timed. Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis's aggressive tenor is the perfect foil for Stitt's more polished approach.

Eddie Higgins is a Chicago pianist whose understated accompaniment suits the front line's veteran authority. Donn Mast on bass and Duffy Jackson on drums keep the rhythm moving with a light, unobtrusive swing that lets the horns breathe. The session has a loose, after-hours quality that suggests the musicians were playing for their own pleasure as much as for the microphone. The trades between Stitt and Davis are friendly but pointed: two tenor players who respect each other's abilities and are not about to back down.

The album does not reach for greatness and does not need to. It is a document of three masters in casual conversation, and the pleasure lies in the easy authority with which they navigate material they know by heart. A late-period gem on an obscure label that deserves wider recognition.

Recorded in the months before his death on July 22, 1982, these final sessions carry an inevitable weight of elegy. But the playing itself is anything but valedictory: Stitt sounds vital, engaged, and fully in command of his instrument. The technical facility that defined his career is still present, the ideas still flowing with the inexhaustible invention that made him the most prolific improviser in bebop.

The two-volume set features different pianists for each session. Junior Mance, who played with Stitt on the earliest Prestige sessions three decades earlier, brings the relationship full circle. Walter Davis Jr. provides a harder, more angular accompaniment on the second volume. Bill Hardman's trumpet adds fire to the quintet tracks, and Jimmy Cobb's drumming has the relaxed authority of a man who played on Kind of Blue and never lost that feeling for time.

George Duvivier's bass anchors everything with the warmth and precision he brought to hundreds of sessions. The material is standards and blues, the format unchanged from what Stitt had been playing for thirty years, and the execution is at a level that would be remarkable for any saxophonist at any stage of a career. That it comes at the very end of his is both moving and instructive: Sonny Stitt never stopped working, never stopped swinging, never stopped proving that the bebop language was inexhaustible in the right hands. He died doing what he did best.