Verve Vault Launches With ‘Sonny Side Up’ And Antonio Carlos Jobim Title
An acclaimed meeting of Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Rollins, and Sonny Stitt opens the new series.
Verve Label Group and UMe have just announced Verve Vault, a new audiophile vinyl reissue series highlighting iconic jazz albums as well as overlooked gems from Verve’s vast catalog. The series will feature two releases per month, with the first titles launching on October 10.
First up: Sonny Side Up, originally released in 1959 on Verve Records. It’s the only studio collaboration between trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and tenor saxophonists Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt. Recorded in December 1957 with producer Norman Granz, Sonny Side Up brings together three of modern jazz’s most distinctive voices in a rare frontline configuration. The album’s opening track — Sonny Stitt’s “The Eternal Triangle” — is frequently cited for its extended form and blistering tempo, standing as one of the definitive examples of the saxophone “cutting sessions” that defined the hard bop era.
Gillespie, already a pivotal architect of bebop, trades choruses with two tenor titans of contrasting approach: Rollins, with his thematic development and rhythmic elasticity, and Stitt, with his rapid-fire bebop fluency. The frontline is anchored by a crisp and propulsive rhythm section featuring Ray Bryant on piano, Tommy Bryant on bass, and Charlie Persip on drums — capturing the fire and precision of late-1950s small-group jazz at its peak.
Sonny Side Up opens up the Verve Vault series alongside Antonio Carlos Jobim’s The Composer Of Desafinado Plays. “With the success and popularity of our various vinyl reissue series, we continually receive requests for even more well-curated lines of the best titles from Verve, Impulse, Mercury, and other select catalogs we look after and so our team is thrilled to be rolling out the Verve Vault series,” said Jamie Krents, President & CEO of Verve Label Group. “We’ve spared no time or expense in making sure the audio quality and packaging live up to the brilliant music these titles contain and we are proud to bring this new series to jazz fans new and old.”
Mastered by Ryan K. Smith from the original analog tapes and pressed at Optimal, each release combines exceptional audio fidelity with meticulous attention to detail — from mastering to jacket reproduction. “We are excited to launch this new series to celebrate Verve’s extraordinary catalog and to offer definitive audiophile-grade pressings of some of the best and most influential jazz albums in history,” said Bruce Resnikoff, President & CEO of UMe. “Like many of our other vinyl series, these records will be of the utmost quality and sourced from the original analog tapes to offer an unparalleled listening experience.”
