"When is Sonny Stitt going to get his props?" asks Harvey Pekar, getting right to the point at the start of his liner notes. "He was one of the founders of bebop, yet during his lifetime and to some extent even now, he's been dismissed as a technically skilled copier of Charlie Parker. I think his detractors are misreading his legacy. Stitt contributed a lot of his own ideas to the jazz vocabulary."
Pekar has certainly nailed Stitt's reputation: I'd previously heard him as a sideman, and almost immediately wrote him off as just one more Bird clone. But I was unfair even without having heard more of Stitt; I mean, show me a sax player in that first generation of beboppers who didn't try to sound like Charlie Parker, and I'll show you a sax player who's lying about trying to sound like Charlie Parker. But all of those people learned to find their own sound, just like all jazz players worth their salt do.
Stitt is undoubtedly the bop saxman who stuck to Bird's path the closest, but even the most superficial listen to the new Prestige box Stitt's Bits: The Bebop Recordings, 1949-1952 proves in an instant he was not just another Parker wannabe. His jet-fast runs and high-note-to-low-note dynamics are Parkerian, Stitt has a sleeker, more streamlined approach, and a firmer foot in the blues (Parker was a great blues player, but he tended to use them as more of a jumping-off point for his flights; Stitt stands firm in the gutbucket).
This is partly because he specialized in the tenor, which demands a more grounded and bluesy technique, but also because Stitt had a different vision: he wanted to flex some of the subtle sinew that Lester Young had bequeathed to jazz. In doing so, Stitt added a kind of lean lyricism to bebop saxophone: he sounds less like a descendant of Bird than he does a precursor of Sonny Rollins.
Fortunately, the revelation comes when Stitt is surrounded by some of the best players in the postwar jazz world. He first appears here as a sideman for trombone god J.J. Johnson, and nearly half of the rest as second tenor and/or baritone in the band led by Billy Eckstine's favorite son, Gene Ammons. In these sessions and in the ones he leads, Stitt is joined by such musicians as John Lewis, Duke Jordan, Kenny Drew, Nelson Boyd, Junior Mance, Tommy Potter, Max Roach, and Art Blakey. But the jewel of this CD set comes in two sessions Stitt recorded with a fella named Bud Powell on piano.
Article comments
1 - JR
Did you know his daughter is a DJ on KPFW?
2 - Michael J. West
No shit? I didn't know.
3 - Matt
Her name is Katea Stitt and she was "instrumental" in interviewing musicians and transcribing interviews in the the Smithsonian's Jazz Oral History Project. It is every American citizen's right to go see these transcription and hear these tapes at the National Museum of American History in DC.
4 - Jenny
You know, I am not such a jazz expert, I'm a female who happens to love the music form but don't always follow the interpretations of say, Miles Davis. But I have always understood and loved Charlie Parker. His notes flew all over the place but he stood to the basic melody and beauty. I loved that man. I am so glad to read how you feel about Sonny Stitt. I met this man once in a Chicago Club and he bought me a drink because he couldn't honor my request to hear Just Friends because someone had played it before I came it. It was in the 70s and it felt as if I had arrived, just being there witnessing this magnificent man. Artists are often inspired others whether consciously or not but it would be ashamed, after people witnessing such brilliant performances to continually feel that he is a copier or clone of Charlie Parker. They were similar but to a woman, miles apart in passion and melody. Thank you