Sonny Stitt

Edward "Sonny" Stitt (b. February 2, 1924, Boston, Massachusetts – d. July 22, 1982, Washington, D.C.) was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the most well-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime.

He was nicknamed the "Lone Wolf" by jazz critic Dan Morgenstern in tribute to his relentless touring and his devotion to jazz. He is considered the greatest disciple of Charlie Parker. Although his playing was at first heavily inspired by Charlie Parker and Lester Young, Stitt eventually developed his own style, one which influenced John Coltrane. Stitt was especially effective with blues and with ballad pieces such as "Skylark".
Stitt was born in Boston, Massachusetts and grew up in Saginaw, Michigan. Stitt had a musical background; his father was a college music professor, his brother was a classically trained pianist, and his mother was a piano teacher.
In 1943, Stitt first met Charlie Parker, and as he often later recalled, the two men found that their styles had an extraordinary similarity that was partly coincidental and not merely due to Stitt's emulation. Stitt's improvisations were more melodic/less dissonant than those of Parker. Stitt's earliest recordings were made in 1945 with Stan Getz and Dizzy Gillespie. He had also experienced playing in some swing bands, though he mainly played in bop bands. Stitt featured in Tiny Bradshaw's big band in the early forties. Stitt replaced Charlie Parker in Dizzy Gillespie's band in 1945.

Stitt played alto saxophone in Billy Eckstine's big band alongside future bop pioneers Dexter Gordon and Gene Ammons from 1945 until 1956, when he started to play tenor saxophone more frequently, in order to avoid being referred to as a Charlie Parker emulator. Later on, he notably played with Gene Ammons and Bud Powell. Stitt spent time in a Lexington prison between 1948–49 for selling narcotics.
Stitt, when playing tenor saxophone, seemed to break free from some of the criticism that he was imitating Charlie Parker's style, although it appears in the instance with Ammons above that the availability of the larger instrument was a factor. Indeed, Stitt began to develop a far more distinctive sound on tenor. He played with other bop musicians Bud Powell and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis, a fellow tenor with a distinctly tough tone in comparison to Stitt, in the 1950s and recorded a number of sides for Prestige Records label as well as albums for Argo, Verve and Roost. Stitt experimented with Afro-Cuban jazz in the late 1950s, and the results can be heard on his recordings for Roost and Verve, on which he teamed up with Thad Jones and Chick Corea for Latin versions of such standards as "Autumn Leaves."

Stitt joined Miles Davis briefly in 1960, and recordings with Davis' quintet can be found only in live settings on the tour of 1960. Concerts in Manchester and Paris are available commercially and also a number of concerts (which include sets by the earlier quintet with John Coltrane) on the record Live at Stockholm (Dragon), all of which featured Wynton Kelly, Jimmy Cobb and Paul Chambers. However, Miles fired Stitt due to the excessive drinking habit he had developed, and replaced him with fellow tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley. Stitt, later in the 1960s, paid homage to one of his main influences, Charlie Parker, on the album Stitt Plays Bird, which features Jim Hall on guitar and at Newport in 1964 with other bebop players including J.J. Johnson.

He recorded a number of memorable records with his friend and fellow saxophonist Gene Ammons, interrupted by Ammons' own imprisonment for narcotics possession. The records recorded by these two saxophonists are regarded by many as some of both Ammons and Stitt's best work, thus the Ammons/Stitt partnership went down in posterity as one of the best duelling partnerships in jazz, alongside Zoot Sims and Al Cohn, and Johnny Griffin with Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. Stitt would venture into soul jazz, and he recorded with fellow tenor saxophonist Booker Ervin in 1964 on the Soul People album. Stitt also recorded with Duke Ellington alumnus Paul Gonsalves in 1963 for Impulse! on the Salt And Pepper album in 1963. Around that time he also appeared regularly at Ronnie Scott's in London, a live 1964 encounter with Ronnie Scott, The Night Has A Thousand Eyes, eventually surfaced, and another in 1966 with resident guitarist Ernest Ranglin and British tenor saxophonist Dick Morrissey. Stitt was one of the first jazz musicians to experiment with an electric saxophone (the instrument was called a Varitone), as heard on the albums What's New in 1966 and Parallel-A-Stitt in 1967.

In the 1970s, Stitt slowed his recording output slightly, and in 1972, he produced another classic, Tune Up, which was and still is regarded by many jazz critics, such as Scott Yanow, as his definitive record. Indeed, his fiery and ebullient soloing was quite reminiscent of his earlier playing. He also recorded another album with Varitone, Just The Way It Was - Live At The Left Bank in 1971 which was released in 2000.
Stitt joined the all-star group Giants of Jazz, which also featured Art Blakey, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Kai Winding and bassist Al McKibbon) and made albums for Atlantic Records, Concord Records and Emarcy Records. His last recordings were made in Japan. In 1982, Stitt suffered a heart attack, and he died on July 22.



Edward Stitt (Boston, 2 de febrero de 1924 - Washington, 22 de julio de 1982), conocido como Sonny Stitt, fue un saxofonista (alto y tenor) estadounidense de jazz. Se trata de uno de los principales seguidores de Charlie Parker, de cuya estela pudo empezar a separarse al empezar a usar el saxo tenor, momento en que la influencia de Parker fue compensada con la de Lester Young. A su vez, fue una relativa influencia para John Coltrane.

Nacido en una familia de músicos (su padre era compositor y profesor; su madre y su hermano tocaban el piano; sus hermanas eran cantantes), elige a los siete años el clarinete para iniciarse en el mundo de la música. Inspirado por Rudy Williams, se pasa al saxo.
A comienzos de los cuarenta, tocó en la orquesta de Tiny Bradshaw como saxo alto, y luego se unió a la primera big band de Billy Eckstine en 1945, tocando junto a emergentes estrellas del bebop como Gene Ammons y Dexter Gordon. Más tarde, Stitt tocó en la big band y en el sexteto de Dizzy Gillespie.
Adoptó el tenor y barítono en 1949, y en ocasiones tocó a dúo con Gene Ammons. Grabó con Bud Powell y J.J. Johnson para Prestige en 1949, y con otros para Prestige, Argo y Verve en los cincuenta y sesenta. Lideró muchos combos en los cincuenta y se reunió de nuevo con Gillespie durante un breve periodo de tiempo a finales de los cincuenta.

Tras una pequeña colaboración con Miles Davis en 1960, se juntó otra vez con Ammons y durante un tiempo tocó con él y con James Moody.
Durante los sesenta, Stitt grabó también para Atlantic; entre sus grabaciones más celebradas está Stitt Plays Bird. Continuó liderando orquestas, y a comienzos de los setenta se unió a los Giants of Jazz, grupo en el que tocaban Gillespie, Art Blakey, Kai Winding, Thelonious Monk y Al McKibbon. Stitt trabajó en los setenta para sellos como Cobblestone, Muse y otros, grabando otro disco importante, Tune Up.
Continuó grabando y tocando hasta comienzos de los ochenta, cuando murió de un ataque al corazón.

Art Blakey

Arthur "Art" Blakey (October 11, 1919 – October 16, 1990), known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.

Along with Kenny Clarke and Max Roach, he was one of the inventors of the modern bebop style of drumming. He is known as a powerful musician and a vital groover; his brand of bluesy, funky hard bop was and continues to be profoundly influential on mainstream jazz. For more than 30 years his band, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers included many young musicians who went on to become prominent names in jazz. The band's legacy is thus not only known for the often exceptionally fine music it produced, but as a proving ground for several generations of jazz musicians; Blakey's groups are matched only by those of Miles Davis in this regard.
Blakey was inducted into the Jazz Hall of Fame (in 1982), the Grammy Hall of Fame (in 2001), and was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.

Blakey was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. By the time he was a teenager, he was playing the piano full-time, leading a commercial band. Shortly afterwards, reputedly because he thought he would be unable to compete with the emerging pianist Erroll Garner, he taught himself to play the drums in the aggressive swing style of Chick Webb, Sid Catlett and Ray Bauduc. He joined Mary Lou Williams as a drummer for an engagement in New York in autumn 1942. He then toured with the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra (1939–1942). During his years with Billy Eckstine’s big band (1944–7), Blakey became associated with the bebop movement, along with his fellow band members Miles Davis, Dexter Gordon, Fats Navarro and others.
By the late forties and early fifties, Blakey was backing musicians such as Miles Davis, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk — he is often considered to have been Monk's most empathetic drummer, and he played on both Monk's first recording session as a leader (for Blue Note Records in 1947) and his final one (in London in 1971), as well as many in between.
He claimed that he then travelled to Africa during 1948–49; however, no documentation has been uncovered that supports this claim.[citation needed] He did though convert to Islam during this period and took the name Abdullah Ibn Buhaina (which led to the nickname "Bu"). In the early 1950s he performed and broadcast with such musicians as Charlie Parker and Miles Davis

From his earliest recording sessions with Eckstine, and particularly in his historic sessions with Monk in 1947, Blakey exuded power and originality, creating a dark cymbal sound punctuated by frequent loud snare- and bass-drum accents in triplets or cross-rhythms. Although Blakey discouraged comparison of his own music with African drumming, he adopted several African devices, including rapping on the side of the drum and using his elbow on the tom-tom to alter the pitch. His much-imitated trademark, the forceful closing of the hi-hat on every second and fourth beat, was part of his style from 1950 to '51. A loud and domineering drummer, Blakey also listened and responded to his soloists. His contribution to jazz as a discoverer and molder of young talent over three decades was no less significant than his very considerable innovations on his instrument.

In 1947 Blakey organized the Seventeen Messengers, a rehearsal band, and recorded with an octet called the Jazz Messengers. The use of the Messengers tag only stuck with the group co-led at first by both Blakey and pianist Horace Silver, though the name was not used on the earliest of their recordings. Blakey and Silver recorded together on several occasions, including live at Birdland with trumpeter Clifford Brown and alto-saxophonist Lou Donaldson in 1954 for Blue Note, having formed in 1953 a regular cooperative group with Hank Mobley and Kenny Dorham.

The "Jazz Messengers" name was first used for this group on a 1954 recording nominally led by Silver, with Blakey, Mobley, Dorham and Doug Watkins — the same quintet would record The Jazz Messengers at the Cafe Bohemia the following year, still functioning as a collective. Donald Byrd replaced Dorham, and the group recorded an album called simply The Jazz Messengers for Columbia Records in 1956. Blakey took over the group name when Silver left after the band's first year (taking Mobley, Byrd and Watkins with him to form a new quintet with a variety of drummers), and the band was known as "Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers" from then onwards with Blakey being the sole leader, and he remained associated with it for the rest of his life. It was the archetypal hard-bop group of the 1950s, playing a driving, aggressive extension of bop with pronounced blues roots. Towards the end of the 1950s, the saxophonists Johnny Griffin and Benny Golson were in turn briefly members of the group. Golson, as music director, wrote several jazz standards which began as part of the band book such as "I Remember Clifford", and "Blues March" was regularly revived by later editions of the group. "Along Came Betty" and "Are You Real" were other Golson compositions for Blakey.

From 1959 to 1961 the group featured Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone, Jymie Merritt, Lee Morgan, and Bobby Timmons. The second line-up (1961–1964) was a sextet that added trombonist Curtis Fuller and replaced Morgan and Timmons with Freddie Hubbard and Cedar Walton, respectively. Shorter was now the musical director of the group, and many of his original compositions such as "Lester Left Town" remained repertoire staples later on. (Other players over the years made permanent marks on Blakey's repertoire — Timmons, composer of "Dat Dere" and "Moanin'", and later, Bobby Watson.) Shorter's more experimental inclinations pushed the band at the time into an engagement with the 1960s "New Thing", as it was called: the influence of Coltrane's contemporary records on Impulse! is evident on Free For All (1964), often cited as the greatest document of the Shorter-era Messengers (and certainly one of the most fearsomely powerful examples of hard bop on record).

Up to the 1960s Blakey also recorded as a sideman with many other musicians: Jimmy Smith, Herbie Nichols, Cannonball Adderley, Grant Green, and Jazz Messengers graduates Lee Morgan and Hank Mobley, amongst many others. However, after the mid-1960s he mostly concentrated on his own work as a leader.Blakey also made a world tour in 1971–2 with the Giants of Jazz (with Dizzy Gillespie, Kai Winding, Sonny Stitt, Thelonious Monk and Al McKibbon).
Blakey went on to record dozens of albums with a constantly changing group of Jazz Messengers — he had a policy of encouraging young musicians: as he remarked on-mike during the live session which resulted in the A Night at Birdland albums in 1954: "I'm gonna stay with the youngsters. When these get too old I'll get some younger ones. Keeps the mind active."

After weathering the fusion era in the 1970s with some difficulty (recordings from this period are less plentiful and include attempts to incorporate instruments like electric piano), Blakey's band got revitalized in the early 1980s with the advent of neotraditionalist jazz. Wynton Marsalis was for a time the band's trumpeter and musical director, and even after Marsalis's departure Blakey's band continued as a proving ground for many "Young Lions" like Johnny O'Neal, Philip Harper, Terence Blanchard, Donald Harrison and Kenny Garrett.
Blakey continued performing and touring with the group into the late 1980s; Ron Wynn notes that Blakey had "played with such force and fury that he eventually lost much of his hearing, and at the end of his life, often played strictly by instinct." Some reports suggest Blakey had hearing problems as early as 1959. Blakey died in 1990 in New York City, leaving behind a vast legacy and approach to jazz which is still the model for countless hard-bop players.



Art Blakey (Pittsburgh, 11 de octubre de 1919 - Nueva York, 16 de octubre de 1990) fue un baterista estadounidense de jazz encuadrado en los estilos del bop y hardbop.
Lideró varios grupos, entre los que destaca el quinteto Jazz Messengers, del que tomó las riendas durante tres decenios tras la marcha de Horace Silver, actuando y grabando bajo el nombre de Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers. La formación fue cuna de algunos de los mejores artistas de jazz de la historia y se convirtió en la representación por antonomasia del estilo hard bop y funky jazz.

La primera educación musical recibida por Blakey fue en forma de lecciones de piano; empezó a tocar profesionalmente muy joven, en su propia banda. Se pasó pronto a la batería, aprendiendo a tocar al estilo fuerte de Chick Webb y Sid Catlett.
En 1942, tocó con la pianista Mary Lou Williams en Nueva York. Recorrió el sur de Estados Unidos en una gira con la banda de Fletcher Henderson durante los años 1943 y 1944. Luego lideró en Boston una big band antes de unirse al nuevo grupo formado por el cantante Billy Eckstine, con el que estaría entre 1944 y 1947. La big band de Eckstine fue la famosa "cradle of modern jazz" e incluyó, en diferentes ocasiones, a figuras de enorme relevancia en el futuro como Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis y Charlie Parker.
Cuando el grupo se disolvió, Blakey formó su propia banda llamada los Seventeen Messengers. Grabó también con un octeto, la primera de sus bandas que recibió el nombre de Jazz Messengers.
A comienzos de la década de los cincuenta, Blakey comenzó una asociación con el pianista Horace Silver. En 1955, formaron un grupo con Hank Mobley y Kenny Dorham, llamado "Horace Silver and the Jazz Messengers". Los Messengers materializaron en forma de grupo el naciente movimiento del hard bop, enfatizando los ritmos primarios de la música y la esencia armónica. Un año después, Silver abandonó el grupo y Blakey se convirtió en su líder.

Desde ese momento, los Messengers fueron el vehículo expresivo habitual de Blakey, aunque continuase colaborando individualmente con otros artistas. Son destacables, en este sentido, su colaboración de 1963 para la compañía Impulse con McCoy Tyner, Sonny Stitt y Art Davis; una gira mundial en la que participó durante 1971-1972 con "the Giants of Jazz", un grupo de grandes estrellas entre las que se encontraban Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt y Al McKibbon; y una extraordinaria actuación con otros tres grandes baterías (Max Roach, Elvin Jones y Buddy Rich) en el Newport Jazz Festival de 1964.

Lucky Thompson

Eli "Lucky" Thompson (June 16, 1924, Columbia, South Carolina — July 30, 2005, Seattle, Washington) was a United States jazz tenor and soprano saxophonist. While John Coltrane usually receives the most credit for bringing the soprano saxophone out of obsolescence in the early 60s, Lucky Thompson, along with Steve Lacy, played it in a more advanced bebop format.

After playing with the swing orchestras of Lionel Hampton, Don Redman, Billy Eckstine, Lucky Millinder, and Count Basie, he worked in rhythm and blues and then established a career in bop and hard bop, working with Kenny Clarke, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Milt Jackson. Thompson was an inspired soloist capable of a very personal style in which the tradition of Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster and Don Byas was intelligently mixed with a modern grasp of harmony. He showed these capabilities as sideman on many albums recorded during the mid-1950s, such as Stan Kenton's Cuban Fire!, and those under his own name. He appeared on Charlie Parker's Los Angeles Dial Records sessions and on Miles Davis’s hard bop Walkin' session. Thompson recorded albums as leader for ABC Paramount and Prestige and as a sideman on records for Savoy Records with Milt Jackson as leader.

He lived in Lausanne, Switzerland in the late 1960s and recorded several albums there including A Lucky Songbook in Europe. He was married to Thelma Thompson, who died in 1963. He taught at Dartmouth College in 1973 and 1974, then left the music business completely, because of the racist treatment he received from record companies and clubs. In his last years he lived in the Pacific Northwest and suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. His son, guitarist Daryl Thompson, played with Peter Tosh and Black Uhuru before embarking on a jazz career in the late 1980s.



Eli "Lucky" Thompson (16 de junio de 1924 -30 de julio de 2005) fue un saxofonista estadounidense de jazz, vinculado estilísticamente al bebop. Tocó tanto el tenor como el soprano.

Tras tocar en las bandas de swing de Lionel Hampton, Slam Stewart,1 Don Redman, Lucky Millinder, y Count Basie. Asimismo, fue miembro de la banda de Billy Eckstine que también incluía a Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie y Art Blakey. Thompson tocó rhythm and blues antes de desenvolverse en el bop y hard bop con Kenny Clarke, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie y Milt Jackson.

Además de sus grabaciones como líder para ABC Paramount y Prestige, como sideman aparece en el Cuban Fire de Stan Kenton', las grabaciones de Charlie Parker para Dial Records, el Walkin' de Miles Davis, y los álbumes de Milt Jackson para Savoy Records.