Sonny Stitt was there at the dawn of what become known as modern jazz – bebop division. Come up with an original idea and five will get you ten that at that precise moment someone else is having the very same thought. To reiterate Kenny Clarke's now famous quote: “If there had never been a Bird there would have been a Sonny Stitt”. It's to Stitt's credit that he overcame persistent comparisons (not from fellow musicians it should be noted) to successfully arm wrestle the genre with power and inspiration even if it meant temporarily swapping his alto for a tenor. But whatever the situation he was always a first-call choice, temporarily replacing Trane in Miles' Quintet until Wayne signed on. Though Stitt and Hakim (Argonne Thornton) go way back, this documents the first time they recorded together. Apart from a couple of self-explanatory tunes they co-wrote for the occasion (‘Christopher Street Jump' and ‘South Georgie Blues’), the remaining material is made up of familiar standards that individually they must have performed on hundreds of one night stands. Aside from sharing piano duties with Dizzy Gillespie on Bird's ‘Ko-Ko’, Hakim appears to have mainly existed on the margins briefly resurfacing to perform ‘’Round Midnight’ at Monk's funeral. The final word on Stitt, who again demonstrates that he is no shadow, but very much his own dynamic man. Fact: the only two musicians ever offered an open invitation by Ronnie Scott to play his club were Zoot Sims and Sonny Stitt. Nuff said.