Search - Sonny Stitt :: Last Sessions 1 & 2

Worthy Goodbye

Samuel Chell | Kenosha,, WI United States | 04/20/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This was Sonny's last studio session (possibly his last recorded session, but check out "Sonny, Sweets, and Jaws"). He recorded it in June 1982 while he was waiting for the results of a biopsy, then became ill while on tour in Japan and, shortly after returning to the States in July, Sonny Stitt was no more.It's a characteristically solid outing by Sonny, with just slightly diminished tone quality and occasionally lagging articulations. Sonny, perhaps the most complete, the most "perfect" saxophonist in the history of jazz, has his way with, if not his final say on, each of the tune selections. "As Time Goes By" might be taken as a touchstone to Sonny Stitt, the consummate musician: he keeps the melody primary while using the space between notes, much like Art Tatum, to create separate, dazzling counter-melodies."Genius" is a miunderstood, overused, undderated term. In music there have been only a few geniuses--visionaries who have tapped into the original, vital stream that we might consider musical consciousness itself--Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Charlie Parker. Like Shakespeare, their gift was to be linked directly to the divine, spiritual source that elevates humans to the God-like and enables the rest of us to sense our human potential. Sonny Stitt was not one of the geniuses, not one of the innovators. Rather, he took the language of Charlie Parker, perfected it, codified it, and created a syntax and rhetoric that the rest of us could understand and even employ.Today, 20 years after his death, Sonny's music keeps resurfacing, showing up in unexpected places, providing an exemplary textbook for every aspiring musician and representing perhaps the singlemost accessible and persuasive vehicle for the enduring melodies of the the Great American Songbook."