Listening to Prestige 603: Sonny Stitt, Jack McDuff

LISTEN TO ONE: Soul Shack

 Back in February of 1962, Prestige put Sonny Stitt and Jack McDuff together, that time along with Gene Ammons. Stitt was already considered one of the legends of jazz, going back to Charlie Parker and bebop's golden days in the 1940s. Ammons was probably Prestige's most consistent seller, and McDuff one of its hottest new stars. In a way, they represented three generations of jazz styles, although they were very close to the same age.

When Stitt and McDuff got together again in September, Ammons was already in prison on drug charges; but, as with the previous session, the

legend was the center, the hot new guy the support. McDuff had his own tight-knit group, with drummer Joe Dukes, considered by many to be the pulse of soul jazz, and a young George Benson, a future supernova in the jazz world. Instead, the quartet was filled out with two solid professionals--the versatile Leonard Gaskin, and the perhaps even more versatile Herbie Lovelle. Lovelle was becoming one of the drummers Prestige liked to call, with six previous sessions for the label. But calls for his sticks and brushes were far-flung, and by the time he was finished, he had played drums for everyone from Hot Lips Page to Teddy Wilson to Bob Dylan to the Monkees.

So this is essentially a Sonny Stitt album. Stitt is everything one looks for in a jazz legend--swinging, melodic, inventive, endlessly listenable. McDuff, even in his solos, is a part of that sound--tasteful, not overpowering, yet still individualistic.

And soulful. We can't forget soulful. The name of the album is Soul Shack, and the title track, composed by Stitt but certainly with McDuff in mind, is the soul highlight of the session, with the two of them getting free to get down, and never let up.

Three of the tunes chosen for the album are much-recorded standards dating back to the 1920s-30s, played by this group with fond familiarity, but given their own stamp. "Sunday" was written by Chester Conn in 1926, and has had 500-odd recordings, most often by vocalists, but with many pure jazz variations, from the original version by Jean Goldkette through Benny Carter, Gerry Mulligan and Ben Webster, Tommy Flanagan and Jaki Byard. "For You" comes from a Mack Sennett movie in 1930 and has also entered the lexicon of American song, from jazz vocalists to Ricky Nelson, as well as a few jazz interpretations. "Love Nest" also dates back to 1930, and as Dan Morgenstern comments in his liner notes, "most modernists race through this as though it were an establishment built for rabbits, but not so Sonny...he sets a calm yet springy pace...Jack McDuff waxes lyrical."

"Hairy" and "Shadows" were also written by Stitt, and "Shadows" is a blues and pure beauty, with lyrical playing by both Stitt and McDuff.

Soul Shack was a Prestige release, Ozzie Cadena producing. I can find no record of  A 45 RPM single,  unusual for a McDuff session of the time, but YouTube has a three minute edit of the track, so maybe there was a single.