Includes extensive booklet with recording details, notes and rare photos.
Sonny Stitt arrived on the New York City 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 make-up, 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 cant make it in three, man, you cant make it at all.
His credo is stamped all over these magnificent sessions.
—Jordi Pujol
Tracklist
Total time: 149:35 min.
CD 1
01. When the Red, Red Robin (Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin Along) (Woods) 2:48
02. For All We Know (Lewis-Coots) 3:06
03. Im Confessin That I Love You (Daugherty-Reynolds-Neiberg) 3:19
04. Cocktails for Two (Johnston-Coslow) 3:38
05. Star Eyes (Raye-DePaul) 3:39
06. On a Slow Boat to China (Loesser) 3:21
07. Laura (Raskin-DePaul) 3:39
08. J.B. Blues (Sonny Stitt) 3:56
09. Dont Take Your Love from Me (Harry Nemo) 2:55
10. After the Late, Late Show (Sonny Stitt) 3:56
11. Skylark (Carmichael-Mercer) 2:46
12. Dont Worry 'Bout Me (Bloom-Koehler) 2:50
13. Ill Remember April (Raye-DePaul-Johnson) 3:42
14. Day by Day (Kahn-Stordahl-Weston) 3:29
15. Red Top (Kynard-Hampton) 3:50
16. Moonray (Shaw-Madison-Quinser) 2:57
17. Old Fashioned Blues (Sonny Stitt) 4:42
18. I Never Knew (Bruce Carroll) 4:26
19. Hitsburg (Sonny Stitt) 4:22
20. Angel Eyes (Dennis-Brent) 3:08
21. It All Depends on You (DeSylva-Brown-Henderson) 2:47
CD 2
01. Stormy Thursday (Sonny Stitt) 3:22
02. Embraceable You (Gershwin-Gershwin) 2:35
03. It Could Happen to You (Burke-Van Heusen) 3:23
04. But Not for Me (Gershwin-Gershwin) 3:07
05. Memories of You (Blake-Razaf) 5:09
06. I Cried for You (Now It's Your Turn to Cry Over Me) (Arnhein-Lyman-Freed) 3:15
07. Bright as Snow (Sonny Stitt) 2:44
08. Spinning (Sonny Stitt) 2:26
09. Sonny Side Up (Sonny Stitt) 2:31
10. On Green Dolphin Street (Kaper-Washington) 3:53
11. The More I See You (Warren-Gordon) 3:38
12. Dont Take Your Love from Me (Harry Nemo) 4:41
13. My Blue Heaven (Donaldson-Whiting) 2:37
14. My Mothers Eyes (Baer-Gilbert) 3:44
15. When I Grow Too Old to Dream (Romberg-Hammerstein II) 3:00
16. Bye Bye Blues (Lown-Gray-Bennett-Hamm) 5:00
17. Ive Got the World on a String (Arlen-Koehler) 5:07
18. Beware Rocks Comin Down (Sonny Stitt) 6:52 *
19. Six-O-Seven Blue (Sonny Stitt) 6:07 *
Album details
(*) Bonus tracks
All original Roost recordings
Sources CD 1:
Tracks #1-10, from the 12-inch LP "A Little Bit of Stitt" (SLP 2235)
Tracks #11-19, from the 12-inch LP "The Sonny Side of Stitt" (SLP 2240)
Tracks #20-21, from the 12-inch LP "Stittsville" (SLP 2244)
Sources CD 2:
Tracks #1-8, from the 12-inch LP "Stittsville" (SLP 2244)
Tracks #9-17, from the 12-inch LP "Sonny Side Up" (SLP 2245)
Tracks #18-19, taken from the 12-inch LP "Stitt in Orbit" (SLP 2252)
Personnel:
Sonny Stitt (alto & tenor sax), Jimmy Jones (piano), Aaron Bell (bass on CD1 #1-10 & CD2 #9-19), uncredited bass & drums players on CD1 #11-21 & CD2 #1-8, Charles Persip (drums on CD1 #1-10), Roy Haynes (drums on CD1 #11-21 & CD2).
All sessions recorded in New York City:
CD 1, tracks #1-10 Nola Studios, April 10, 1959
CD 1, tracks #11-19 recorded on September 21, 1959
CD 1, tracks #20-21 & CD 2, #1-8 same location as #11-19, but June or July, 1960
CD 2, tracks #9-19 recorded at Bell Sound Studios, on August 8, 1960
Cover photography: Arnold Meyers
Original recordings produced by Teddy Reig
This compilation produced for CD reissue by Jordi Pujol and "Beethoven" Jean-Michel Reisser
© 2011 by Fresh Sound Records
Stereo · 24-Bit Digitally Remastered
Blue Moon Producciones Discograficas, S.L.
