When Sunny Gets Blue

mattkern

The Basie album this is from is called High Voltage(Basic Basie, Vol.2) on MPS recorded at A&R Studios Feb.1970. All arrangements by Chico O’Farrill. The band had just finished playing a 10-day cruise on the QE II and was undergoing some personnel changes so Adkins, Dodgion, Morrow, and Newman are here. Morrow was doing studio work in NYC around this time so I can see why he’d get the call.
Interesting line-up:
Alto Sax: Bill Adkins, Jerry Dodgion
Tenors: Eddie Davis, Eric Dixon
Baritone: Cecil Payne
Trombones: Buddy Morrow, Frank Hooks, Grover Mitchell, Bill Hughes
Trumpets: Joe Newman, Gene Goe, George Cohn, Wayman Reed
Freddie Green, George Duvivier, Harold Jones, and Basie.

One surprise is “Together,” with a gritty solo by Davis, which is strangely credited to 1960’s pop artist Harry Nilsson, though it is obviously the much older standard written by B. G. DeSylva, Lew Brown, and Ray Henderson.

Listening to “Sunny” I’m not hearing much in the way of bass bone. May well have been for 3 bones. The first few lines are unison………..someone with better ears could tell for sure.

Regards,

KJ