Tuesday, June 7, 2011

SO FINE...

Posted by David Berner at 8:32 AM

3 comments:

Gavin said...

Sonny Criss was one of the most shamefully underrated alto saxophonists in the history of Jazz. Born in Memphis and lived most of his life in L.A. where he struggled to make a living. Beautiful sound and execution. He left us at age 51 on Nov.19,1977 and died by his own hand.

June 7, 2011 at 1:23 PM
Dylan said...

Sonny was 50, not 51, but everything else Gavin said was right on.

June 9, 2011 at 11:56 AM
Dylan said...

Right on, Gavin - actually, Sonny was 50 when he took his life; a small detail and not nearly the most important one about Sonny. He lived for his alto and lived through his alto. He had a very hard, rough exterior about him but once you were his friend, he was as beautiful a soul as there could be...and it definitely came out through his music. For my money, there has never been an alto player like him; his sound was so rich and driving and penetrated through you; his technique, second to none; and his interpretation skills were superlative. This guy was an artist on the saxophone and very few of us are. By the way, Sonny "struggled to make a living" as you wrote by his own choice... he refused to sell out and play the game called the music business... I remember when his last recording came in the mail - I was at his house taking a lesson when "The Joy of Sax" arrived... quickly, the lesson was over, out came the Coors beer, and Sonny threw the record onto the turntable (hey, this was 1977 - we still had records and turntables then)... after the first song started playing, Sonny started laughing uproariously. "What's so funny?" I asked him. His response was pure Sonny: "No matter how much they try to cover me up, it's still ME, boy, it's still ME!" That was Sonny Criss, and I will cherish my time with him forever, as brief as it was...

June 9, 2011 at 12:06 PM

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