Search - Sonny Stitt :: Low Flame

Sonny Stitt was first and foremost among the Charlie Parker-inspired altoists, his bop even more blues suffused than Bird's, and he applied the same facility to tenor. As jazz fashions changed in the '60s, Stitt worked regularly with organ accompaniment, putting increased emphasis on blues and ballads. This CD combines LPs from 1962 and 1964, and they present Stitt with his working band. With Don Patterson on organ and Billy James on drums throughout, and Paul Weeden on guitar for the first session, it looks like a funk combo, but looks can be deceiving. While they play the deepest and slowest blues on "Low Flame" and "My New Baby" to start these sessions, there's little funk. The band favors clarity, straight-ahead 4/4 time, and some dexterous bop. Patterson's organ is fleet and restrained, providing Stitt with light punctuations and rock-steady bass lines. Stitt plays gorgeous alto on much of the first session, adding soaring cadenzas to original ballads like Weeden's "Cynthia Sue." He plays tenor throughout the later recording (contra the liner note), going from the warm and bouncing "Misty" to the heated "The Eternal One." This is populist jazz (Stitt adds a homespun vocal to "Mama Don't Allow"), swinging and emotionally direct, yet innately artful. --Stuart Broomer