Sonny_Side_Up

<i>Sonny Side Up</i>

Sonny Side Up

1959 studio album by Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt and Sonny Rollins

This article is about the 1959 album by Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt. For the 1960 album by Sonny Stitt, see Sonny Side Up (Roost album).

Sonny Side Up is an album by trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie, and the tenor saxophonists Sonny Stitt and Sonny Rollins, recorded in December 1957 in New York City. It was released in 1959 on producer Norman Granz's newly launched Verve label.

Quick Facts Sonny Side Up, Released ...
More information Review scores, Source ...

Reception

As Thomas Cunniffe has written, "The pairing of Rollins and Stitt was highly inspired. More important than their common nicknames (and the punning album title), tenor saxophonists Rollins and Stitt were both influenced by Charlie Parker, but each took a vastly different approach to improvisation. Stitt transferred Parker's white-hot intensity to the tenor after several fans and critics pointed out the tonal similarity of their alto sounds. Rollins was a more thoughtful player who expanded the vocabulary of bop improvisation by incorporating thematic elements into his solos and by experimenting with different melodic shapes and unusual phrase lengths."[4]

Pianist Ray Bryant, bassist Tommy Bryant, and drummer Charlie Persip form the rhythm section.[2] Stephen Cook of AllMusic described the album as "one of the most exciting 'jam session' records in the jazz catalog. ...both a highly enjoyable jazz set and something of an approximation of the music's once-revered live cutting session".[2]

Track listing

  1. "On the Sunny Side of the Street" (Jimmy McHugh, Dorothy Fields) – 5:41
  2. "The Eternal Triangle" (Stitt) – 14:10
  3. "After Hours" (Avery Parrish) – 12:19
  4. "I Know That You Know" (Vincent Youmans, Anne Caldwell) – 5:27

Personnel

Additional personnel

  • Burt Goldblatt – cover photography
  • Nat Hentoff – liner notes

References

  1. [1]
    Billboard, February 9, 1959.
  2. [2]
    Stephen Cook, Sonny Side Up – AllMusic Review
  3. [3]
    Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings (9th ed.). Penguin. p. 533. ISBN 978-0-141-03401-0.
  4. [4]
    "Dizzy Gillespie:'Sonny Side Up' (Verve 314 521 426)/'Duets' (Verve 835 253)", Retro Reviews - Jazz History Online.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Sonny_Side_Up, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.