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Daily articles carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. Read our popular and future articles.
CTI on BGO, Part 2

2018 proved to be a very good year for reissues of CTI-albums on the British label, BGO. They stepped up with an abundance of albums from the likes of guitarist Jim Hall, saxophonist Stanley Turrentine and flautist Hubert Laws (you can read about them here). So far, 2019 also looks promising and kicks off with releases from Brazilian percussion wizard Airto Moreira and Turrentine. Hubert Laws also returns, this time in a combined release with guitarist George Benson.
read moreStanley Turrentine and The 3 Sounds: Blue Hour – 1960

Every good record collection has music for many moods. Feeling frantic? Try Dizzy Gillespie or the Ramones. Feel like dancing? Definitely the big bands. Feeling wistful? Maybe Ben Webster or Frank Sinatra. But if you're feeling blue, you need Stanley Turrentine, and Blue Hour is exactly the right prescription. Stanley Turrentine is the very definition of jazzy blues, in almost any setting, with almost any backing band. His soulful sax features heavily on two of my ...
read moreStanley Turrentine: Don't Mess With Mister T.

When the CTI label originally released tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine's Don't Mess With Mister T. in 1973, it managed to bring music to the public that served as a sign of the times, while also helping to define the times. The soul within Turrentine's horn had been at the center of his earlier successes for the label--Sugar (CTI, 1970), Salt Song (CTI, 1971) and Cherry (CTI, 1972)--but it really rose to the surface and reached its peak with this release. ...
read moreStanley Turrentine: Salt Song

Stanley Turrentine's Sugar (CTI, 1970) has always stood out as the defining album in the tenor saxophonist's post-Blue Note discography, but that recording only marked the beginning of his beautiful relationship with Creed Taylor's CTI imprint. Turrentine's time with the label spanned the first half of the '70s and produced a few other winning albums that draped his thick, soulful sound in more modern aural fabrics of the times. Salt Song (CTI, 1971) was his follow-up to ...
read moreStanley Turrentine: Look Out!

This 1960 set is from a period which many consider to have been Stanley Turrentine's most creative. The saxophonist, who would have been 75 this month (March), was just coming out of an extended run with Max Roach's notably up-tempo orchestra. Backed here by a then-emerging powerhouse of sidemen, the set kicks off with the title track, a tersely phrased Turrentine blues composition. The straightforward rhythm sectionbassist George Tucker and drummer Al Harewoodmakes a perfect berth for some wide open ...
read moreStanley Turrentine: Dearly Beloved

If ever there was a horn that was a perfect pairing with the Hammond B-3, it was Stanley Turrentine's. His best work was always done in combination with an organ (usually that of his wife Shirley Scott) where he coaxed out purring, laid back melodies over simmering chords. The Prestige label would take the organ combo and run it into the ground with records destined for the jukebox, but Turrentine always kept one foot in the world of jazz, mixing ...
read moreStanley Turrentine

Webster's dictionary defines the word soul" as someone having a strong and positive feeling and having an intense sensitivity and emotional fervor. It also says that soul is characterized by an intensity of feeling and earthiness. It defines the word funky" similarly as someone having an earthy unsophisticated style and feeling. To me they would be wise to simply put the picture of Stanley Turrentine next to both of these words and a note to just listen to this man ...
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