**** Sonny Stitt

ENDGAME BRILLIANCE

(32 Jazz)

Sonny Stitt (1924-1982) was one of many great players who bounced back from '60s disenfranchisement to hit second-career peaks in the '70s. This double-CD reissue catches him both before and after revivifying world tours with the Giants of Jazz, working with producer Don Schlitten and a simpático acoustic trio of Barry Harris, Sam Jones, and Roy Brooks or Alan Dawson. Stitt offers unctuous yet riveting ballads with emotive precision and firm unanimity of style for the backing musicians. He cherrypicks and then merrily pits bop beauties (Bird's "Constellation," Bud Powell's "Webb City," Ray Brown's "Ray's Idea," Tadd Dameron's "Casbah"), pens his own blues, and switches between tenor and alto on a pair of beautiful ballads.

-- Fred Bouchard