Jug And Sonny - Gene Ammous & Sonny Stitt

 

Full Moon

Jug And Sonny

Gene Ammons & Sonny Stitt

Cover Photo: Don Bronstein

Chess LP 1445

1960

From the back cover: As is clear from the first, unequivocally swinging entrances of Gene Ammons on I',m Not The Kind Of Guy and Sonny Stitt on I Cover The Waterfront, these are not diffident performance. One criticism that has never been made of either Gene or Sonny is that they are unemotional or that their time is unsure.

Both are strongly in the tradition of jazz as one of the most directly legal ways to release feelings, no matter how explosive. And both have the stamina to end up swinging as hard as they start, and often harder.

Gene Ammons, called "Jug" by his colleagues as an abbreviation for "Jughead", has influence more young tenors than his standing in the various polls might indicate. Those, like Johnny Griffin, who were based in Chcabo where Gene has been for several years, have mentioned the considerable effect Jug has had on their work. And others, who heard him mainly on records in the late forties and early fifties, have often cited him as one of the musicians who reached them most forcefully.

It's not so much Ammons' inception that has earned him attention among musicians as the power of his playing. There is a sweep, an emotional going-for-broke in his work that can be stimulating in somewhat the same way as a roller coaster ride and that also indicates to musicians how much fire a horn can contain without blowing up.

Sonny Stitt also has this quality of uninhibited assurance in his playing. As with Jug, there is never any impression that Sonny has to worry about whether he's swinging or not, or that he hs to warm up to reach a wailing point. He's one of those jazzmen – Eddie Davis is another – who begins to cook instantly, even when there's hardly any substantial food on hand.

Stitt, whose remarkable fluency on the horn is evident in these performance, is another musical with more standing among other jazzmen than with the general jazz audience, although in recent years Sonny has begun to build a sizable following – in Europe as well as in America. Stitt, too, unmistakably has that "soul" in his playing that so many jazz secularists have been using so frequently as an endorsement in recent years.

Stitt is 34 and Ammons is a year younger. It's unlikely that there'll be any significant change in the style of ether in the years ahead. Both have found the way of playing that most satisfies their needs, and both are also almost certain to continue to play free-style, blowing jazz no matter what developments in composition occur. They are, in short, swingers and prefer uncomplicated back-grounds and plenty of room in which to stretch out, and that's whet happens in this set of performances that were recorded, for the most part, in 1950 and 1951.

This is not an album that will start debates on which way jazz may be heading. Th's about jazz as it is now – and has been for years – in many clubs around the country where a tenor player stands solidly in front of the microphone, rears back and lets everybody known what he feels right them.

And usually, no matter what he's playing, there's the feeling and sound of the blues in much of what comes out. Jug and Sonny many not always startle listeners with their ideas, but it's hard to remain unharmed by the heat they send out.

Also, there's nothing fragile about their playing. They've paid night club dues a long time, and I don't expect either would be intimidated by much of anything that might happen in front of the stand. There two can take care of business, as they say in Turkey, without any help. – Nat Hentoff

I'm Not The Kind Of Guy

I Cover The Waterfront

Full Moon

Jam For Boppers

Don't Do Me Wrong

Don't Worry About Me

Baby, Won't You Please Say Yes

Cha Bootie

Tenor Eleven

The Last Mile