Thursday, Feb. 20, 2014 | 06:37
Dizzy Gillespie-Sonny Stitt-Sonny Rollins - Sonny Side Up
going through jazz i find some cds i clearly remember as early additions to my catalog--some i can even remember buying. i got coltrane's "stellar regions" at the kenyon bookstore, probably when it came out. my dad put money in my bookstore account my freshman year to pay for books and i used what was left over to buy snacks and cds (later he would have me use a credit card for books to earn points and i was on my own for anything else, which curtailed my bookstore spending because best buy was six or seven dollars cheaper).
one early cd that i may have bought at the bookstore but just as easily could have purchased at best buy begins my day: sonny side up. dizzy gillespie, sonny rollins, and sonny stitt (in the fifties and sixties jazz was always ready for a pun or turn of phrase) lead a piano/bass/drums band through four songs, two of which are over twelve minutes. the first song, "on the sunny side of the street", features dizzy singing, and it's a fun song. the second one has the sonnys, both on tenor sax, trading riffs and solos. it's a joy to hear, exciting and never off track. to be fair, while this is a fantastic album, i always struggled to get into it. it's not really the same style of jazz as much of my other recordings and i think the limited number of songs made it less likely to get chosen for a listen. that and i only have one dizzy gillespie album, which causes it to fade into the noise of all the other cds i own. sometimes i need more than one album by an artist before i am able to remember to spend time with the music. i'm much more likely to pull out coltrane or miles than gillespie. i'll have to change those ratios sometime. all three of these artists deserve more space on my shelves.
i want to expand my jazz collection in general. this will necessitate the thinning of my other cds, but i think i can manage that. i have to keep them within their current shelving confines, which at this point means any additions must come with commensurate subtractions. this will slow my cd acquisitions drastically, which is rather the point. until we have a permanent space where i have virtually unlimited display/storage, i have to limit my ownership to items i truly want.
when i finish my current run through all my cds (box sets included), i will go back and listen to a select few cds i don't know. a few listens through a cd should provide me with enough information to know whether i'll want to listen to the album on cd, or if i'm content to let it shuffle through on digitally.
