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Stanley Turrentine


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I feel like I've been sleeping on Stanley Turrentine. I've known him mostly in the context of small groups with Jimmy Smith--stuff I've enjoyed, but not work I would call stunningly great. I really enjoy his contribution to Burrell's fabulous Midnight Blue.

I'm not so big on the organ records with Shirley Scott, nor am I enamored of the big band record Joyride.

However, I've been listening to quintet/sextet stuff on Blue Note, a little less funky and more in a straight-ahead bag (usually no organ). Maybe part of it has to do with the company: Lee Morgan, Elvin Jones, McCoy Tyner, Curtis Fuller, Herbie Hancock, Blue Mitchell, Grant Green, etc. Seems like really good stuff, especially my main focus so far--the record In Memory Of.

Feel free to add your views on the original Mr. T.

Edited by Jim R
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It has what I think is GG's loveliest solo ever (on 'More than you know'). Stan's solo on this cut is particularly lovely. He often starts a phrase an octave (I assume) above the written note with the rest of the line tending in a downwards direction, rather than upwards, which I always find very lovely. Compared with Hawk's version (on 'The Hawk relaxes'), Stan's PLAYING the song, rather than doing a lot of improvisation around it, giving us not an interpretation but THE SONG, seeming to sing the words through his sax.

Course, I know all you jazz fans like improvisation :g

MG

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Apparently, Turrentine was very popular with the original modernists/mods in the UK, back in the early 60s. I like his Blue Note stuff, extremely accessible to the non-jazz fan.

I often hear people rapture lyrically about the best album to introduce people to the joys of jazz to, generally they opt for Miles's E.S.P. or Kind of Blue, but I would tempt them with a little sugar from Turrentine in the mid-60s.

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I've been digging bit more into the Shirley Scott stuff and feeling I've been too dismissive. I think my next Mr. T. will be Hustlin' with Shirley Scott and Kenny Burrell.

I enjoy the stuff with Jimmy Smith, both early and late.

I'm also liking the gospel song posted here. Yeah, Turrentine is naturally suited to this kind of thing.

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For all the talk about "real jazz", the first time I heard Sugar I was struck by how much more straight-ahead it was than some of the later, more commercial BN stuff.

If you're talking 'bout Always Something There or The Look of Love, sure, but the other late BN stuff, not really, but then what's 'straight ahead' depends on where you think you're going...

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And truthfully, Sugar is my least favorite of the CTIs. The title cut is a gem, of course, and was a jazz-radio & juke-box hit like nobody's business, a tune that still gets played in all kinds of spaces and all kinds of places, but the rest of the album sounds a little hollow to me. But then here comes Salt Song, and then Don't Mess With Mister T, and hey, there's your Stanley Turrentine zeitgeist, right there with those two, I think. And then he went to Fantasy...and whatever zeitgeist that might have been was largely attained away from mine (although in retrospect, etc.).

Going from Queen Of The Organ *agreed, a must-have!), The Scott/Turrentine dates on Prestige seem just a little bit less-than-perfect to me, but the other Impulse! recordings don't...there's versions of "Time After Time" & "The Lamp Is Low" to be had there that could be labeled "definitive" without any disagreement from me. Nothing like that on Prestige, and I wonder why.

Anyway, if the hippest hip and/ot the swingest swing is that which is so merely by being itself, then here we go...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7pVRzbawX8

He didn't need to wear that sweater. But he did. Kudos!

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I've a couple of the Fantasy albums - 'Everybody come on out' which is a bit poppy but nonetheless has some really nice stuff in it, and 'Use the stairs' which is a straight big band album, arranged by Wade Marcus and has some very splendid stuff, though I'd have preferred more standards like 'Jordu' and 'On a misty night'. Glad to be reminded, will get this out and listen later.

MG

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