You know, I used to debate about this with myself, whether it was my weakness for liking such a blatantly limited vocabulary, or if it was Earland's credit for being able to make it work.
Finally, I just said fuck it. It is what it is, I dig it, good enough, let's groove. If/when that's not what I want to hear, I just don't listen to it. But I don't lnow that there's ever been a time when I've heard an Earland cut come on the radio that I didn't turn the volume up and hunker down for some good grooveness.
Thing about Earland in his recording prime though, even moreso that most organist-led groups, this cat always had badass tenor players. Not always "great" mind you, but always badass. It was on an Earland side that I first got hipped to Bootsie Barnes. Now, Bootsie Barnes is not a "great" tenor player, but he damn sure is a badass tenor player.
And actually, considering the turf, that's really the object of the game, as was pretty much everything else about Charles Earland.