Beautiful Sonny Stitt! Love Sonny Stitt. For me, perhaps the most fascinating and interestig mystery story in all of jazz history and lore:
Much (actually, not enough) has been discussed, postulated on and argued here about the issue of the evolution of jazz and, at the micro level, the influence of prominent players on younger players and on the direction of the music. It was Sonny Stitt’s contention that up until the time that he was "discovered", recorded and finally met Parker, that he had never previously heard Charlie Parker play; live or recorded. Yet, their styles were remarkably similar and given the firestorm that Bird was causing on the scene (not to mention that everyone was incorporating Bird’s style into their own; well, almost everyone) it would be assumed that the reason that Stitt sounded so much like Bird was, in fact, Bird’s influence on his playing style. There really is no verifiable reason to doubt Stitt’s claim, eventhough the matter has been looked into. This begs the question: how did this happen since the lineage of influence is easily traced in the majority of important players’ playing styles? To my way of thinking this points to the "inevitability" of the evolution of the music and how it’s like a force set in motion that can’t be stopped; it will always keep evolving whether we like it or not. Just some hopefully remotely interesting food for thought.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-vK_29ka1lc
Much (actually, not enough) has been discussed, postulated on and argued here about the issue of the evolution of jazz and, at the micro level, the influence of prominent players on younger players and on the direction of the music. It was Sonny Stitt’s contention that up until the time that he was "discovered", recorded and finally met Parker, that he had never previously heard Charlie Parker play; live or recorded. Yet, their styles were remarkably similar and given the firestorm that Bird was causing on the scene (not to mention that everyone was incorporating Bird’s style into their own; well, almost everyone) it would be assumed that the reason that Stitt sounded so much like Bird was, in fact, Bird’s influence on his playing style. There really is no verifiable reason to doubt Stitt’s claim, eventhough the matter has been looked into. This begs the question: how did this happen since the lineage of influence is easily traced in the majority of important players’ playing styles? To my way of thinking this points to the "inevitability" of the evolution of the music and how it’s like a force set in motion that can’t be stopped; it will always keep evolving whether we like it or not. Just some hopefully remotely interesting food for thought.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-vK_29ka1lc