The Modern Jazz Sextet did not take too much insight to realize that putting trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and altoist Sonny Stitt together with a strong rhythm section would result in some explosive music. ...Bebop at its best". The Modern Jazz Sextet The Modern Jazz Sextet is a jazz album featuring the combined talents of Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, John Lewis, Percy Heath, Skeeter Best and Charlie Persip. The album was conceived by producer Norman Granz for his own label, Norgran Records. Although no single album artist is credited as a bandleader for this album, Verve Records - which owns the Norgran catalogue - files
John Coltrane played together occasionally in the late 1940s. He was a member of groups led by Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Bostic, and Johnny Hodges in the early to mid-1950s. In the summer of 1955, Coltrane was freelancing in Philadelphia while studying with guitarist Dennis Sandole when he received a call from Davis. The trumpeter, whose success during the late forties had been followed by several years of decline in activity and reputation, due in part to his struggles with heroin, was again active and about to form a quintet. Coltrane was with this edition of the Davis band (known as the "First