Listening to Prestige 536: Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt, Jack McDuff

LISTEN TO ONE: Sleeping Susan

 It was a busy few days for Mr. Stitt, and a lot of trips out to Englewood Cliffs. On Friday, recording with Jack McDuff. On Sunday, a Verve recording session, as Norman Granz joined Sonny with Gene Ammons for a mainstream blowing session in Rudy Van Gelder's cathedral of recorded jazz. Then the two saxophonists might as well have booked a couple of rooms on the Jersey side of the river, as they were back in harness on Monday, joining "youngster" McDuff (actually all three were just about the same age, but McDuff was a new star in the jazz firmament, and the two tenormen were solidly established veterans).

These are three guys who really represent three different genres of jazz: Stitt the bebopper, Ammons the old school boppin' the blues, McDuff the soul jazz of the 1960s. So, although "Soul Summit" is a bit  of cliche, it's also an accurate description of this gathering. They are three kindred spirits who've meshed well in dyads, and mesh equally well here in a triad, with the propulsive assistance of Charlie Persip on drums. Persip and McDuff are the entire rhythm section, so Brother Jack is largely in a supporting role here, but he makes the most of it. He and Persip provide more than a cushion for the two soloists--their work is complex and provocative. 

The set is two standards, two originals by Ammons ("Tubby" and "Shuffle Twist"), one by Stitt ("Dumplin's"), and one more obscure tune from an underrated composer, Jimmy Mundy. Mundy is underrated partly because one of his most famous compositions, "Walkin'," the Miles Davis standard, is not credited to him. On the Library of Congress copyright certificate for the tune, the original title (and

the tune has been recorded under a number of different titles) is wiped out, and the name of Richard E. Carpenter is written in as composer. Carpenter was not a composer, and is best known for cheating and exploiting various jazz musicians. Mundy is credited as co-composer (with Johnny Mercer and Trummy Young) of a gold star standard, "Travlin' Light." And he is the composer, here, of "Sleeping Susan," which proves to be an excellent choice.

You might think that "Shuffle Twist" would have been earmarked as the single, just for the title alone. But instead an edited-down version of "Tubby" was the choice, on the flip side of "Love, I've Found You," from Ammons's 1961 session with Oliver Nelson. The 45 RPM single was issued under Ammons's name.

Esmond Edwards produced Soul Summit.