Great Sonny Stitt

[AllenLowe]

at it's best Stitt's playing has a "let's just blow" quality that can be very exciting, On the other hand,,,,,I have to admit that I cannot really listen to him any more.

[AllenLowe]

by the way, it may (or may not) be interesting to know that Stitt had a very analytical approach to playing (based, basically, on the typical diatonic, 2minor, 3 minor, 4 major, 5 dominant, etc) approach to blowing - Bob Neloms told me about sitting in a hotel room with Stitt and some other musicians in Chicago one night and listening to Sonny go through his whole theory approach -

[Larry Kart]

* Sonny's much ballyhooed "energy" and "combativeness" is often impotent rage at Bird and Lester/Hawk et al.

Not impossible, but as William of Ockham once said, "Isn't there a simpler explanation that fits all the facts?"

[JSngry]

....transmute a bad attitude into brusque energy...useful but not impressive.

For example -

Ladies & Gentlemen:

re: the race issue, it is JSngry who snidely introduced it, please see post #8--

If I can take the liberty of reconpurposing "gin mill or strip club" into " blue collar Black social venues" (which I think I fairly can), then...there you have it.

Dude, you can't take the liberty-- you don't have the chops!

But like so so so much Sonny, your tongue/fingers move faster than your mind, both in the moment and later "repose."

Again, I assert

* Sonny's much ballyhooed "energy" and "combativeness" is often impotent rage at Bird and Lester/Hawk et al.

* That even if Mark Stryker is correct-- and I take his advisements seriously and will report back if chastened-- that exceptional but slim % of Sonny's too vast output doesn't merit the attention of the lesser known (with respect to their own careers) grottoes of Clifford Jordan, Richie Kamuca, Billy Harper et al.

* Tomorrow I'm going to see Ira Sullivan-- his album and that of Paul Geremia are the best white boy blues on Flying Fish

* Correction: Earl Hooker was a HUGE innovator!! Pls don't be confused by ** his imitators ** and a confusing solo discography.

* "The darker the berry, the sweeter the meat." -- Moms Mobley

Useful?

[JSngry]

by the way, it may (or may not) be interesting to know that Stitt had a very analytical approach to playing (based, basically, on the typical diatonic, 2minor, 3 minor, 4 major, 5 dominant, etc) approach to blowing - Bob Neloms told me about sitting in a hotel room with Stitt and some other musicians in Chicago one night and listening to Sonny go through his whole theory approach -

True.

The variable with Stitt wasn't what he was going to play, but how he was going to play it.

[Cali]

* "The darker the berry, the sweeter the meat." -- Moms Mobley

If you were Black you would know the expression is, "The darker/blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice".

[Chuck Nessa]

I wasn't aware / was in the Black vocabulary. How is it pronounced?

[.:.impossible]

Thank God Stitt WAS black. Otherwise, he'd be considered total shit!

[paul secor]

Perhaps apropos of nothing, but perhaps interesting in this context:

"Bernie was talking about Sonny Stitt's alto on "That's Earl, Brother." As good as Bird, he said. Arnie said, bullshit: he was a very hip young man from Washington Heights, wore mirrored sunglasses. A bop drummer in his senior year at the High School of Performing Arts."

From The Moon in It's Flight - Stories by Gilbert Sorrentino

[Cali]

I wasn't aware / was in the Black vocabulary. How is it pronounced?

Slash.

[JSngry]

[John L]

Earl Hooker, btw, was named by both Buddy Guy and BB King as the greatest guitarist they ever heard - there's some nice Hooker around, but I have a feeling none of it really reflects what he could really do, based on certain testimony. As a recording artist, he was somewhat deluded, always searching for gimmicks and hits, so that probably hurt his output.

And how many saxophone players have been in absolute awe of Sonny Stitt and what he could do on his horn?

Earl Hooker was truly great, but the larger part of his greatness was his technique (IMO). He could do what every other guitar player did, and more. He would cut everybody at Chicago blues jams. He had extraordinary articulation on the instrument. It is in that sense that he may have been the greatest. Although he based his slide guitar style almost entirely on Robert Nighthawk, he could do much more than Nighthawk every could in Nighthawk's own style. Still, I would say that Nighthawk was much more original than Hooker was in that regard.

[AllenLowe]

there's a bio of Earl Hooker which, I think, explains a lot of why his records don't quite match the reputation - as I mentioned previously, he was a bit self-destructive in the studio, and had that deluded sense that I encountered in certain older jazz musicians in the 70s and 80s - that rock and roll was just a teen fad and THEY could do just as well because they were playing rock and roll BEFORE it was called rock and roll. The result was not only a lot of the crap that came out on various jazz labels, or the Varitone, but also a lot of bad blues records.

[Leeway]

RECIPE FOR A JAZZ ARGUMENT: Find a musician who is safely dead. Pronounce in the LOUDEST possible terms that this musician IS NOT GOD ALMIGHTY (for atheistical types, you can safely use Charlie Parker, Lester Young, or Coleman Hawkins). It helps your STREET CRED if you adopt a peculiar style of speaking (think too much whiskey and reefer voice). Tell a lot of WELL-WORN and SELF-CENTERED personal anecdotes to support your case. NAME-DROPPING is recommended. It helps if YOU are the HERO of all of these anecdotes. If the dead musician is black, and you are white, you might prefer to show how even as a nerdy nebbish kid, you were the MASTER of this musician. For the more advanced arguers, add in a side-argument that maintains that ANOTHER, VERY OBSCURE musician was MUCH BETTER, indeed, GREAT, than the dead musician. This other obscure musician preferably cut not more than 4 or 5 sides in his or her career, but expresses the TRUE POWER of the BLUES, JAZZ, COSMOS (your choice). Veteran arguers know that you can even make this musician someone who played ANOTHER INSTRUMENT! Will baffle your opponents. Your final product might involve some chest-bumping as to who is TOO WHITE. Beauty of this recipe is that it serves 1 to 1000. Afterwards, put on a record by the dead musician and ENJOY.

[MomsMobley]

Candy, who was Sonny Stiff the hero of? And not Lester, Hawk, Chu, Don Byas, Stan Getz, even Zoot (for white boys), Rollins, Coltrane, Nistico?

There are, regardless, right this second, kids in music who consider effin' Lovano (!!) a musical "hero."

What does that mean, besides the hope they can get (stultifying) work?

Now if you said there were musicians who envied some of Sonny technique-- i.e. with my brains and his brawn ...

Hell, son, with my brains and your Braun we can have a party, Moms been so busy she's getting a little unruly down there but tho' "comedy ain't pretty," I bet you could help me clean up real nice.

Edited October 9, 2011 by MomsMobley

[Mark Stryker]

Stepping gingerly back into the discussion and leaving aside implications and definition of the word "hero," a quick flip through various editions of the Encyclopedia of Jazz yields a number musicians who call Stitt one of their favorites. Among them:

Frank Foster (Stitt, Byas)

Coltrane (Dexter, Rollins, Stitt, Getz)

Joe Henderson (Bird, Tatum, Stitt, Powell, Bartok, Hindemith, Stravinsky -- Coltrane, Rollins, Ornette mentioned in entry too)

Doesn't really prove anything, other than these cats dug Sonny Stitt. Interesting to mull why that might be and what, if anything, they actually took from Stitt.

Edited October 10, 2011 by Mark Stryker

[Dan Gould]

Can we get a definitive statement about Moms' identity? If its the former Clementine/Brian whatever-the-fuck he is, who gives a rat's ass what he says?

If on the other hand he is Danny DEEP D'Imperio, then I at least have a little bit of interest in why he thinks respect and enjoyment (at least some) of Stitt's output is completely misplaced.

Seriously. Brian = worthless blowhard who brings nothing to the table but strong and oftentimes contrarian positions that are no more worthy of respect than anyone else's. Danny at least knows a little something about the music, having played it and lived it.

[Chuck Nessa]

He is the not danny.

Really interesting you need to know which irritating poster he was so you could have an opinion.

Edited October 10, 2011 by Chuck Nessa

[jazzbo]

Danny has not been here since he was summarily banished many moons ago.

[J.A.W.]

MM's posts do remind me of Clem's, same "style".

Edited October 10, 2011 by J.A.W.

[Dan Gould]

He is the not danny.

Really interesting you need to know which irritating poster he was so you could have an opinion.

I have my own opinion about Stitt, quite opposite of Clem's.

But there is a hierarchy of opinion here, and there are people I respect and people I don't. Its easier to tolerate and try to understand contrary opinions of those I respect. Like you, Larry, Sangrey and even Albertson when he speaks of things and people he had first-hand experience with. There are others.

Many others elicit a "meh" from me but I'll read what they say.

Then there is Clementine and a few others who I couldn't care less about.

[John L]

I seem to recall that Danny likes Stitt.

[crisp]

Stepping gingerly back into the discussion and leaving aside implications and definition of the word "hero," a quick flip through various editions of the Encyclopedia of Jazz yields a number musicians who call Stitt one of their favorites. Among them:

Frank Foster (Stitt, Byas)

Coltrane (Dexter, Rollins, Stitt, Getz)

Joe Henderson (Bird, Tatum, Stitt, Powell, Bartok, Hindemith, Stravinsky -- Coltrane, Rollins, Ornette mentioned in entry too)

Doesn't really prove anything, other than these cats dug Sonny Stitt. Interesting to mull why that might be and what, if anything, they actually took from Stitt.

And Hank Mobley. From Bob Blumenthal's liner notes to the Mobley Mosaic:

"On his uncle's advice, he listened initially to Lester Young and then to Don Byas, Dexter Gordon and Sonny Stitt. 'Anyone who can swing and get a message across,' as Mobley explained his influences to Leonard Feather in 1956."

[.:.impossible]

I didn't think there was any wonder who Moms was.

[jazzbo]

Me either. You can turn the variatone on but it doesn't hide much.