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Compare & Contrast
Sonny Criss: Go Man! (1956) and Out Of Nowhere (1975)
In the company of a rhythm section headed by Dolo Coker, his first-choice pianist at the time, Criss works his way through a program of standards and blues. "The Dreamer", a blues from his own pen, is simply functional at the same time as it features some of his most effective playing. By comparison with his work in earlier decades, which was scarcely anything less than heated, his incendiary playing here panders to nothing, and retains a fierce integrity.
Sonny Criss was one of countless musicians who didn't learn much of his craft in a formal educational setting. Instead he experienced the vagaries of the Afro-American musician's life, and through the paradoxically simple yet complex act of putting that life out through a saxophone he left us with a body of work both personal and profound.
1. West Coast Jazz. Modern Jazz In California, 1945-1960. p.122 -Ted Gioia (1992)
