I couldn’t resist sharing this piece I found on YouTube a while ago and have listened to many times. It’s amazing how many of my favourite jazz performances date from 1958, and here’s another. It’s the Dizzy Gillespie Quintet of that year featuring the great Sonny Stitt on tenor saxophone, given plenty of space by leader Dizzy Gillespie who takes the second solo on trumpet. The tune is called Blues Walk, although it is sometimes known by the alternative title Loose Walk and as such appeared on the classic film Jazz on a Summer’s Day which also featured Stitt on tenor, though with a quite different band. Note the presence of the great Ray Brown on bass and Lou Levy on piano. The drummer, Gus Johnson, is much less well known but plays very well on this.
If anyone could claim to be a direct musical descendant of Charlie Parker then it was Sonny Stitt, who demonstrates his amazing drive and technical ability in a tremendous solo on this tune, the last number performed at a concert in Belgium. Listen to the chorus that starts about 1:30. Wow! They don’t call this style “hard bop” for nothing!
