Search - Sonny Stitt :: Soul People

The Beginning of a Great Love Affair

Dwight L. Wilson | Willingboro, NJ United States | 12/04/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"One Summer Sunday when I was 18 years old, I heard this recording at my Aunt Florence's home. I was astonished at the story line being told in "Sonny's Book." When I asked Aunt Florence, whose never-spoken-to-her-face nickname was Black Jesus, "What do you call that music?" She answered, "That's jazz, baby." 33 years and 7,000 albums and compact disks later, I confirm she was right. There is no finer blues interpretation in jazz history."

Home Sweet Home

Samuel Chell | Kenosha,, WI United States | 07/24/2007

(4 out of 5 stars)

"One might hope the match-up with Booker Ervin would inspire Sonny to play tenor like the Stitt of old, but he's content to remain quite conservative, perhaps sensing that Ervin's hard-charging, aggressive approach and raw heat and passion aren't where he wants to go on this particular day. At some point in the '50s and throughout the '60s, Sonny developed an apparent obsession for the tonic note, for closure, for rest, for uninterrupted repose--not once but repeatedly in the same chorus. The life, the fatigue, the booze, and the level of understanding of his audiences led him to give people what they wanted--the comforts of "home." He meets Ervin's challenges with finesse, playing smoother, more extended melodic lines but going back to the tonic note ad nauseum. It wouldn't be until the '70s that he would return, at least on some occasions, to the form of his best work in the '40s and '50s, when he was the Bird of the tenor.



Still, an enjoyable, swinging date with Sonny in the company of his favorite '60s team of Donald Patterson and Billy James. And it's good to hear a player like Ervin taking it to Sonny, even if, as was also the case on a date with Jimmy Heath, he's not willing or able to give it back. But Stitt, unlike Parker, had singular self-discipline when he chose to employ it. He was an ornery cuss, a tough hombre, a proud gunslinger who always possessed the capacity to come back. He lived by a systematic, unyielding code no less than he lived for the music. Give him credit for going through some tough and painful stretches to regain the powers he knew were his. He was not about to go down without fighting, and he went out a winner, playing beautifully while a virulent cancer was about to silence him, but not before he'd played that last tone--no doubt a tonic note."