Jazz Articles about Hank Crawford

About Hank Crawford

Liner Notes

Hank Crawford: Help Me Make It Through The Night

by Arnaldo DeSouteiro
July 17, 2025

One of the first artists signed by Creed Taylor for CTI's subsidiary Kudu label, Hank Crawford suffered violent criticism during the period (1971-1978) he recorded for the label, being accused of making mellow and commercial albums. On the other hand, Hank achieved a new level of popularity during his CTI/Kudu years. Some of the eight albums he cut for the label sold over 100,000 copies with almost no promotion. And his Kudu debut, Help Me Make It Through The Night, ...

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Album Review

Hank Crawford: Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing

Read "Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky

by Dan Bilawsky
November 30, 2011

Saxophonist Hank Crawford will forever be linked to his one-time employer, the great Ray Charles, in the minds of R&B lovers, but soul-fusion fans are likely to remember him for a string of albums he recorded on the Kudu label in the 1970s. Crawford and tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine proved to be the two pillars of potent saxophone soul in label head/producer Creed Taylor's stable during this era, but Crawford's work is often overlooked now, while Turrentine's albums still get ...

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Album Review

Johnny Hammond: Breakout

Read "Breakout" reviewed by Jim Santella

by Jim Santella
April 12, 2002

The CTI jazz catalog holds many surprises. This one features a strong 8-piece band led by organist Johnny Hammond (1933-1997), who was known earlier as Johnny “Hammond" Smith. Recorded in 1971, the album emphasized swinging mood music with a flair for popular sounds. It marked a turning point in the career of Grover Washington, Jr. He, Hank Crawford and Eric Gale are all over the place, alongside Hammond's B-3. It’s a party. A previously unissued track, recorded shortly after the ...

110

Album Review

Johnny Hammond: Breakout

Read "Breakout" reviewed by David Rickert

by David Rickert
April 12, 2002

A prime example of the CTI label’s indulgence in the commercial possibilities of jazz, Breakout gave Johnny Hammond the opportunity to escape from the long shadow cast by Jimmy Smith. Sticking with the Hammond B-3, by this time a bit old-fashioned as many had become enchanted with the Fender Rhodes, Hammond and his band contribute an album’s worth of soul jazz workouts. By this time, rock tunes had become the new would-be standards and Hammond proves that such unlikely candidates ...

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Album Review

Hank Crawford: Low Flame High Heat

by AAJ Staff
December 1, 2000

If Low Flame High Heat proves nothing else, it proves the consistency of Hank Crawford. Listen to his most recent CD, The World Of Hank Crawford on Milestone. Then listen to Label M's Low Flame High Heat from the early 1960's. Crawford's urgent tone and spiritual feel haven't changed in decades, proving that he was extremely good early in his career and that even today no one quite sounds like him. Low Flame High Heat compiles tracks from ...

286

Album Review

Hank Crawford: Memphis, Ray and a Touch of Moody

by Douglas Payne
March 1, 1998

director from 1958-64, already had his own sound on alto sax by 1960 when he started his own Atlantic recording career (quite a feat in the wake of Bird and the dawn of Cannonball). During the next decade, he produced a consistent catalog of soulful sets for Atlantic, almost all well worth hearing.This excellent two-disc set brings back four (!) of the best and earliest of Crawford's long out-of-print Atlantic LPs: his debut, More Soul (1960); his third, ...

182

Album Review

Hank Crawford: Down on the Deuce

by Douglas Payne
March 1, 1998

Although Hank Crawford's second Milestone LP was made in 1984, it's never been available on CD until this 1998 release. It's a welcome, enjoyable date that finds Hank digging into what he does best. There's a bit 'a funk ("Survival"), a bit 'a blues ("Used To Be Love" and “Down Home Blues"), some ballads (the yucky Kenny Rogers hit “Through The Years") and a little boogaloo (the title track). With producer Bob Porter at the helm, a first-rate cast of ...