Sonny Side Up

Performer: Dizzy Gillespie
Artist: Charli Persip
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: /Sonny Rollins/Sonny Stitt. Personnel: Dizzy Gillespie (vocals, trumpet); Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt (tenor saxophone); Ray Bryant (piano); Tommy Bryant (bass); Charlie Persip (drums). Producer: Norman Granz. Reissue producer: Michael Lang. Recorded at Nola Recording Studio, New York, New York on December 19, 1957. Includes liner notes by Loren Schoenberg and Nat Hentoff. Digitally remastered by Suha Gur (Polygram Studios). This is part of the Verve Master Edition series. Recorded a little over a week after the sessions which produced DUETS, SONNY SIDE UP brings tenor saxophonists Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt together on the same bandstand so to speak, with trumpeter Gillespie acting as the brass referee. The chemistry between these two saxophone giants is most keenly felt on Stitt's swift, jabbing composition "The Eternal Triangle," where a series of Parkerish changes and melodic ideas forms the basis for one fiery solo after another. Gillespie is in a particularly feisty mood, concluding his racehorse solo with some melodic fireworks before giving way to pianist Bryant and engaging drummer Charlie Persip in a rhythmic duel. The standard "I Know That You Know" is a given a similarly rigorous workout, enlivened by Stitt's stop time intro, and Gillespie's upper-register flurries. The opening ballad "On The Sunny Side Of The Street" is the kind of relaxed vehicle that whets a jazzman's appetite to blow, while Avery Parish's classic "After Hours" provides a wonderful opportunity for great blues players to really dig down deep and strut their stuff. Dizzy's solo here is a stunning example of his blues mastery.

If Charlie Parker was the chief architect of the bop revolution of the 1940s, Dizzy Gillespie was its standard-bearer, an evangelist who battled public hostility and incomprehension with rapier wit. A trumpeter of dazzling virtuosity, he matched Parker's rhythmic innovations with deft harmonic ingenuity. He also functioned as teacher, putting his vast knowledge of harmony at the disposal of younger musicians like Miles Davis, who were trying to get a handle on the new sound. His historic big band featuring Chano Pozo was the first large-scale attempt to combine Latin music with jazz, and the unflagging excellence of his subsequent career was a tribute to the integrity of his original vision. He died in 1993.

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