Dexter Gordon Sonny Stitt

[Hardbopjazz]

Anyone have the Blue Discography that can tell me the date of the rejected Dexter Gordon Sonny Stitt session?

[Jim R]

May 14, 1962. "Unissued" (not "rejected"), at least in my edition. And of course one track ("Lady be good") was included in the Dexter BN box.

[brownie]

The Stitt/Gordon 'Lady Be Good' was also included in the 'The Lost Sessions' (BN 21484) CD album. That was its initial appearance.

Edited November 15, 2004 by brownie

[Brad]

Do you have the Dex box. It's got the full details there. If not, I can try to post it tonight when I got home.

[jazzbo]

Was it (as were a few other sessions) changed from "unissued" to "rejected" in the most recent discography?

[Michael Fitzgerald]

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Date: May 14, 1962

Location: Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ

Label: Blue Note

Sonny Stitt (ldr), Sonny Stitt (as, ts), Dexter Gordon (ts), Paul Weeden (g), Don Patterson (org), Billy James (d)

a. tk 4 Oh, Lady Be Good - 08:04 (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin)

Blue Note CD: 7243 5 21484 2 4 - The Lost Sessions (1999)

b. tk 6 or 7 Unknown Title No. 1

c. tk 10 There Will Never Be Another You (Mack Gordon, Harry Warren)

d. tk 11 Unknown Title No. 1

e. tk 12 or 13 Unknown Title No. 2 (Charleston)

f. tk 14 Bye Bye Blackbird (Mort Dixon, Ray Henderson)

Omit Sonny Stitt (as) on a, d, e. Omit Dexter Gordon (ts) on b, c, f. Omit Sonny Stitt (ts) on b, c, f.

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b. through f. are listed as "rejected" in Cuscuna/Ruppli 2 - but that doesn't mean much.

Mike

[Bill Fenohr]

As you probably know that was the session where Sonny and Dex got so drunk Al Lion lost his temper and called off the date. I think he was upset because they were calling tunes that they had recorded for other labels.

[Brad]

Further to Bill's point, Sonny was planning just to record the old hackneyed standards that he'd recorded before and Alfred flipped out. As Dan Morgenstern said in his excellent Mosaic-like notes for the Dex box, "Sonny Stitt's approach to making records was diamterically opposed to that of Alfred Lion and Blue Note."

[couw]

from those liners:

Sonny Stitt's style of making records (pick some standards, make up some blues and play your ass off) was antithetical to the Blue Note system of planning, composing, rehearsing and refining. It was no surprise that he recorded for just about every label but Blue Note. It turns out that he did, in fact, do a session for the label, but with generally disastrous results. "Lady Be Good," which first appeared in a Dexter Gordon boxed set of his complete sixties Blue Note sessions, is the single salvageable performance. Dexter remembered this session as one of the more amusing events in his professional life. Everyone was a little juiced and getting more so as the date went on. A nervous Alfred Lion was getting more and more stressed by the loose approach of Stitt and his working band. Dexter was there to play on three tunes, but after the first one, everything went down hill fast. Dex remembered, "Alfred was a wreck. When Sonny started playing "Bye Bye Blackbird," I knew that was it. Alfred jumped up, yelling 'who needs another version of this? What is he doing?' I was laughing too hard to say anything." Session over.

[mikeweil]

Here's an excerpt from an inteview with guitarist Paul Weeden, who played on the session (he founded the trio with Don Patterson and Billy James):

Yeah, I remember this session now. Honestly I don't want to remember it at all, because it was a disastrous one. In those days the Paul Weeden Trio was gaining a name and Alfred Lion contacted me to do a recording session for Blue Note. It should be one with two tenor players -a kind of tenor-battle idea - because that was very fashionable in those days. He invited us to record with Dexter and Sonny with whom we had played in various combinations. We came to the Rudy van Gelder's recording studio in Englewood Cliffs and were eager to record. The trio was ready for a good recording date. We were at point. That's not what I can tell about Dexter and Sonny. They were also at point but on a different level. They were pissed off. Incredibly. I can't imagine that they could save even one track from this session. We did three or four tracks and then Alfred Lion aborted the session. The two horn-blowers weren't able to perform anymore. It made me mad, because I saw it as a great opportunity to establish the name of the Paul Weeden Trio.

[Brad]

from those liners:

Sonny Stitt's style of making records (pick some standards, make up some blues and play your ass off) was antithetical to the Blue Note system of planning, composing, rehearsing and refining. It was no surprise that he recorded for just about every label but Blue Note. It turns out that he did, in fact, do a session for the label, but with generally disastrous results. "Lady Be Good," which first appeared in a Dexter Gordon boxed set of his complete sixties Blue Note sessions, is the single salvageable performance. Dexter remembered this session as one of the more amusing events in his professional life. Everyone was a little juiced and getting more so as the date went on. A nervous Alfred Lion was getting more and more stressed by the loose approach of Stitt and his working band. Dexter was there to play on three tunes, but after the first one, everything went down hill fast. Dex remembered, "Alfred was a wreck. When Sonny started playing "Bye Bye Blackbird," I knew that was it. Alfred jumped up, yelling 'who needs another version of this? What is he doing?' I was laughing too hard to say anything." Session over.

This may be a little unfair but wasn't that the difference between Blue Note and a lot of other labels, that Alfred had his musicians prepared while others weren't as prepared. I know that Chris doesn't agree with this and since he was there, he's probably right. But that's the perception today (or the myth).