Hardbopjazz Posted March 29, 2004 Report Share Posted March 29, 2004 (edited) He had a nice sound on the trumpet, then one day he was no longer on the scene. I don’t want to speculate, but did he have a drinking or drug habit? Could this have been the reason? I once saw him playing on a street corner in Manhattan in the early 90's and often wondered what went wrong. I didn't have the heart to go up and speak with him. I did through 2 bucks in the bucket he and the other musicians were using for collections. Edited March 29, 2004 by Hardbopjazz Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J.A.W. Posted March 29, 2004 Report Share Posted March 29, 2004 (edited) According to Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler's Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz (1999; Oxford University Press, NYC) Tommy Turrentine was sporadically active from the mid 1960s. In the 1970s and 1980s he was associated with the "University of the Streets" on NYC's Lower East Side, frequently performing there with saxophonist Clarence Sharpe. He appeared with Barry Harris at Symphony Space, NYC in the 1980s, and he played and recorded with Sun Ra in 1988. Although ill health forced him to stop playing in 1988, he continued to write and contribute compositions to recordings by Stanley Turrentine and others. He died in NYC on May 13, 1997. Edited March 29, 2004 by J.A.W. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hardbopjazz Posted March 29, 2004 Author Report Share Posted March 29, 2004 Then it must have been the late 80's when I saw him and not the 90's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnS Posted March 29, 2004 Report Share Posted March 29, 2004 Didn't he take part in a Blue Note tv programme, from Germany I think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Claude Posted March 29, 2004 Report Share Posted March 29, 2004 (edited) Yes. That must have been very shortly before his death. The interviews are in a variety of settings and include all the right folks such as Blue Note heroes Herbie Hancock and Horace Silver, session players Bob Cranshaw and Tommy Turrentine, industry figures Gil Melle and Michael Cuscuna, Alfred Lion's former wife Lorraine Gordon (interviewed while taking reservations at the Village Vanguard!)and his widow, Ruth Lion, plus several of Lion and Wolff's colleagues from Europe, who give a valuable perspective on the reception of jazz as high art. Blue Note - A Story of Modern Jazz (1997) Edited March 29, 2004 by Claude Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Gould Posted March 29, 2004 Report Share Posted March 29, 2004 His scenes are difficult to watch because he looks so prematurely aged. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidewinder Posted March 29, 2004 Report Share Posted March 29, 2004 His scenes are difficult to watch because he looks so prematurely aged. If I remember rightly, he is shown on this film looking at a Francis Wolff print of himself. Maybe this was one of the scenes filmed in the back of Mosaic's warehouse (with endless racks of black boxes in the background)? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catesta Posted March 29, 2004 Report Share Posted March 29, 2004 His scenes are difficult to watch because he looks so prematurely aged. I remember that, he did not look well at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSngry Posted March 29, 2004 Report Share Posted March 29, 2004 Tommy T. had an unstable personality, perhaps a chemical imbalance, which was exacerbated by various abuse issues. I get this from a very close friend who witnessed him "in action" in person in NYC in the early 1980s. It's a tragic story, from what I can gather. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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