Sonny Stitt - Sonny Stitt Plays (1978 Japanese Roost Mono Vinyl LP)

Sonny Stitt - Sonny Stitt Plays | Vinyl LP - 1978 Japanese Royal Roost Mono Reissue (YW-7805-RO, originally Roost RLP 2208)

Sonny Stitt spent his career answering one question: was he anything more than a Charlie Parker copy? On alto saxophone the resemblance was uncanny, close enough that Stitt eventually leaned on the tenor to carve out his own identity. This 1955 Roost date, though, is Stitt on alto and unbothered by the comparison, playing a warm set of standards and blues with nothing to prove. He is joined by a rhythm section any leader would want: Hank Jones, whose piano is as elegant here as anywhere, the great Count Basie guitarist Freddie Green, Wendell Marshall on bass and Shadow Wilson on drums. The material is mostly standards, "There'll Never Be Another You", "The Nearness Of You", "Yesterdays" and "My Melancholy Baby", taken at a relaxed, singing pace, with a few Stitt originals for contrast. It is a blowing session in the best sense, built to show off the leader's fluency and tone, and it makes the case that whatever he owed to Parker, Stitt was a master in his own right.

Stitt was one of the most recorded saxophonists in jazz, a working musician who cut hundreds of sessions across four decades and rarely turned in a bad one. Records like this show why he lasted: a huge sound, an endless flow of ideas, and a swing that never faltered. The Parker question followed him to the end, but sets like this answer it on their own terms.

This copy is the 1978 Japanese mono reissue on Royal Roost, catalogue number YW-7805-RO, of the album usually listed as Sonny Stitt Plays, originally Roost RLP 2208.