The Sunny Side of Stitt (4 LPs on 2 CD)

Sonny Stitt arrived on the New York scene as an unmistakably Parker-inspired alto man. For over ten years, though, he earned a second identification as a driving and well-equipped tenor soloist who had other influences in his makeup, most notably Lester Young. And from the late Fifties until the early Sixties, while recording several quartet albums, Stitt was blowing as much alto and tenor as ever. He would wander into a recording studio with a pickup rhythm section and just play, as he did on these four consecutive albums with pianist Jimmy Jones. Because he was a through-going professional, a nimble improviser, and because he played with amazing consistency, they convey the fine feeling of easy rapport between Stitt and his rhythm section. He sails through a handful of standards and a few blues tunes with polished, swinging authority and an unparalleled, incendiary, gutsy drive. He had a simple credo. "Don t play too fast, and don't play too long. Play three choruses if you can t make it in three, man, you can t make it at all." His credo is stamped all over these magnificent sessions.