The Eternal Triangle

The penultimate tune brings back high-energy swing with Sonny Stitt's rhythm changes contrafact at 211 BPM, featuring all five musicians in the solo rotation. Weiner takes five choruses on tenor, Iida adds four on trumpet, Kreibich matches with five on keyboard, and both Otto and Jedynak contribute one chorus each on bass and drums. The sixteen combined choruses give the eleven-minute performance a building intensity as the tempo gradually pushes past 224 BPM by the drum solo. Stitt composed the piece for the legendary 1957 album Sonny Side Up with Dizzy Gillespie, where it became the vehicle for one of jazz's most famous tenor saxophone battles between Stitt and Sonny Rollins. The title refers to that competitive dynamic, and the quintet's two-horn frontline naturally evokes the same spirit. The set wraps up with a brief closing number.