Army Times
Tom Scanlan : 07/14/1956

Dizzy Gillespie, alto saxophonist Sonny Stitt, and a rhythm section including John Lewis make up the “Modern Jazz Sextet” on a 12-inch LP that will interest jazz enthusiasts on a modern kick.

Stitt’s tone is too strident for me and guitarist Skeeter Best has his amp on much too high for rhythm work. However, Dizzy is in good form on How Deep Is The Ocean and Mean To Me. If you like Diz, you’ll like this one.

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Playboy Magazine : August, 1956

A delicious contrast is presented by The Modern Jazz Sextet (Norgran 1076), which presents Diz, Percy Heath, Sonny Stitt, Skeeter Best, John Lewis and Charlie Persip. This is Class A, post-graduate modern jazz, with performers who could be prima donnas if they wished, happily suppressing their natural ebullience to the good of the cause – and no phony phrasing or deep-bows to Bach. Here we have only two undistinguished tunes, Dizzy Meets Sonny, which is fast and tricky but empty; and Old Folks. By contrast, there are such happy events as Mean to Me, Blues for Bird and How Deep is the Ocean. The last two are classic examples of Diz in his ensemble mood, feet firmly on the ground but head way up in the clouds.

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Saturday Review
Whitney Balliett : 08/11/1956

A welcome session that features D. Gillespie, S. Stitt, John Lewis, Percy Heath, S. Best, and C. Persip. Gillespie is brusque and tender, Stitt tough and facile, and Lewis, as usual, bewitching both as a soloist and accompanist. Compare the slow blues here, dedicated to Bird, with that on Lights Out. Five standards (three are solo ballads) and two originals.

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Down Beat : 08/08/1956
Nat Hentoff : 4.5 stars

The Modern Jazz Sextet, a recording date title only, consists of Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, Percy Heath, John Lewis, Skeeter Best, and Charlie Persip. The session is loose, hot, and swinging. The first two tunes take up the first side with Tour medium tempo and Dizzy Meets Sonny more of a sizzler. Next three are ballad monologs by Stitt, Lewis, and Gillespie respectively. Everybody blows on the last two. Dizzy wrote the lines for the first two and co-thought Blues for Bird with Stitt. The set contains some of Dizzy’s most cohesively driving, intense, building trumpet in several years. Stitt is vehemently powerful straight down Bird’s line. Skeeter’s guitar is warm and strong.

Lewis, away from the more integrated MJQ context, improvises with force and flow. Lewis in the blues my surprise some of you who have not been listening carefully to the MJQ. Lewis’ solos constantly reflect his feeling for logical development, and a disinclination for unnecessary ornamentation. The ballad medley is eloquent. The other three are a ball, but the key track is the blues. Footnote: listen to the way Lewis, apparently not too fond of fast tempos as such, takes his functional ease on Dizzy Meets Sonny while losing no time. Strongly recommended.

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Liner Notes by Unknown

Here is a jazz unit that includes the basic ingredients of the Down Beat award-winning Modern Jazz Quartet – and more besides. What is added, essentially, is a strong sense of vitality contributed by the trumpet of Dizzy Gillespie and the alto saxophone of Sonny Stitt. You might call this a super-imposition as well as a blend since the addition of Gillespie and Stitt in no way alters what has already been set down by the quartet, namely an inventive, tasteful approach to jazz as well as an unfailingly swinging approach. With Dizzy and Sonny on hand there’s no loss in any of these vital departments and much to be gained besides.

What piano-and-rhythm-section quartet wouldn’t be bolstered, after all, by Dizzy Gillespie and Sonny Stitt? Unity clearly was no problem since pianist John Lewis and Dizzy Gillespie are associates of many years standing. In fact, it was Lewis who helped Dizzy’s big band in the late 1940s as arranger and pianist. Although he is ranked high as a pianist, Lewis’ forte is arranging and he has arranged considerable in the past for Dizzy – and one of Lewis’ important works, Tocata for Trumpet and Orchestra was introduced to a Carnegie Hall audience in 1947 by none other than John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie. Stitt has always worked previously with John Lewis, mainly in the same Gillespie big band.

In this album the group devotes the A side to two Dizzy Gillespie originals, Tour de Force, which is aptly named for it is precisely that, and Dizzy Meets Sonny, a musical introduction, as it were, with appropriate byplay between the two artists. The B side Ballad Medley finds the three soloists in expressive form, each in a separate ballad – Stitt takes Old Folks while Lewis is heard on What’s New and Gillespie on another standard, How Deep Is the Ocean? In addition to a sprightly version of the standard Mean to Me, there’s also a tribute to Charlie “Yardbird” Parker entitled Blues for Bird, co-authored by Gillespie and Stitt. Through it all, of course, there is the rhythmic anchor of Percy Heath‘s bass as well as Skeeter Best‘s guitar and the drums of Charlie Persip.