I have never considered Stanley Turrentine (1934-2000) to be in the upper echelon of saxophonists. Why?
Well, I did not consider him to be a ground breaker as a writer or as an instrumentalist.
like anyone else, I know John Coltrane makes Turrentine seem like an afterthought when you compare the two's critical legacies.
Other than Charlie Parker, and perhaps Lester Young, who doesn't Coltrane do that to?
I have spent the last few weeks re-accessing Stanley, and there is no doubt, I undervalued his playing and writing. Jubilee Shout is one of those grossly overlooked records. His larger band stuff like Joy Ride is also very interesting. I also like his 70's CTI fusion work, Sugar and Salt Song, they are very good records. The track "Minor Chant" from Back at the Chicken Shack sticks out to me as a fine example of Stanley's blues drenched soul jazz playing.
One of the greatest things about being a vinyl crate digger is finding hidden gems in the particular genre you have a passion for.
This pair of hidden 1960's gems from Stanley Turrentine are hard to complain about: Mr Natural from 1964, but not released until 198o with those shoddy pseudo-hipster album covers; that paid no mind to the proud Blue Note/Reid Miles designs of the 50's and 60's.
In fact, those covers I always thought were an embarrassment. The pictured Mr. Natural cover was the Japanese reissue on CD, which does a better job at living up to the Blue Note legacy in my opinion.
Accompanying Stanley on the album are Lee Morgan on trumpet, McCoy Tyner on piano, Bob Cranshaw on bass, with Elvin Jones in the drum chair.
Another Story was released in 1969, and features Thad Jones on flugelhorn, Cedar Walton on Piano, Mickey Roker on drums, and Buster Williams on bass.
Another sad casualty of demon addiction: Leo Parker (1925-1962) was a fine baritone saxophonist who created a pair of Blue Note records in 1961, less than 6 months before is untimely demise at the age of 36.
Rollin' With Leo Parker wasn't even released until 1980, not sure why, because it is a fine hard bop album firmly inside the best of the Blue Note Record label's tradition
Certainly the album is the equal of the lone Blue Note released during his brief lifetime Let Me Tell You About It .
"Bad Girl" is worth the price of the disc alone.
Dave Burns offers support on trumpet, Bill Swindell on tenor, John Acea on piano, Stan Conover or Al Lucas on bass, and Wilbert Hogan or Purnell Rice on drums.
Nothing extraordinary happens here, but I do like the overall traditional blues vibe on the album. I kept wishing Lester Young was still around and would drop by. That says a lot, and describes this record pretty well I think; a silky smooth and easy listen.
John Acea does a nice job with tasty piano throughout, well recorded of course too, other than the leader's baritone, he stands out the most to me, Acea tickles the ivories, that's a great way to describe his playing.
I had no idea Acea passed away so young as well, only a few month after Parker on July 23rd 1965 at the age of 45.
My thinking is, swing fans will also dig the record. It has a quality that seems to hearken back to the 30's. I do feel like Coleman Hawkins or Ben Webster are going to grab a solo at any moment. A fine record...I really enjoyed it this evening for my first post of 2016.
Wayne Shorter wrote in the liner notes: "Iska is the wind that passes, leaving no trace..."
I like that statement, it also aptly describe the mysterious quality in Shorter's sound, both as a writer and as instrumentalist.
Odyssey of Iska recorded in August of 1970 presages the work the work Wayne would do with Weather Report shortly there after.
It also has a heavy influence of Miles Davis' In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew, both of which Shorter participated on.
Iska is a suite in a sense: "Wind", "Storm", "Calm", "Depois do Amor, o Vazio" (After Love, Emptiness), and "Joy" chronicle a persons spiritual journey through trials and tribulation, then the gradual understanding and finding of truth along the way. Wayne points out some people never quite get there.
I believe the "journey" of trying to improve is actually finding God, "be still and know". Objectively observing your surrounding, without prejudice. Staying in control, and not reacting negatively to forces that try to control you is in a sense finding God.
Of all the jazz musicians I follow Wayne's thinking is pretty close to my own, I find his writing and interviews to be incredibly fulfilling. I have actually learned a few things from him beyond music.
I don't want to get bogged down in trying to describe this music track by track, an impossible task by the way.
Iska is a chamber jazz fusion album. Much more avant-garde than the rock element might make you suspect. "Depois do Amor, o Vazio" (After Love, Emptiness) is the most commercial track here, offering a lovely island dreaming bossa nove vibe.
The rest of the album is some rather challenging post-bop meets fusion styles, with ebbs and flows throughout. Never atonal to my ears, just different and unique. Other than Wayne's soprano sax and some tenor, guitarist Gene Bertoncini is the real standout. Bertoncini is not flashy at all here, but his playing is a compliment to the music.
Dave Freidman's Vibes and Marimba add to the mysterious "Shorter" sound. Ron Carter and Cecil McBee do things on bass, that well, I am not at all sure who's who.
These soundscapes are rewarding and demand repeated listens. My favorite track is the raucous propulsive "Joy" featured below.
Back 20 years ago or so when I first started getting into modern jazz:
It was always a shock to the system when I'd discover an artist and be into a certain style of music that was more commercially accepted, only to be turned upside down by a different more challenging sound.
I think the first Shorter album I checked out was Speak No Evil, then Adam's Apple. When I finally worked my way over to this complex masterpiece The All Seeing Eye, I was shocked.
I didn't easily take to the avant-garde styled jazz, actually, ironically I did early on like free jazz of the Coltrane's Ascension variety, pure aggression some of that music is, and it just seemed to be easily understood to me.
Albums like Dolphy's Out to Lunch, Andrew Hill's Point of Departure are composed pieces in a purer sense, at least they sound that way to me. I had a harder time understanding the chamber jazz style. 1965's The All Seeing Eye is Definitely chamber jazz.
It would be asinine on my part to try to explain this music track by track, other than perhaps the moods and tempos. This is music that takes many listens to digest.
For what it's worth, this is the album I feel Wayne sounds the most like Coltrane, he digs into his solos with more earnestness, an less mystery perhaps?
This music is not that far removed from what Wayne was doing with Miles Davis at around this time. pianist Herbie Hancock and bassist Ron Carter offer support along with Joe Chambers on drums. The Music is definitely more experimental, and less melodic than the Davis quintet material.
What makes this album so special are the horns, Shorter, trombonist Grachan Moncur III, James Spauding on alto, and Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, they all get to stretch out here.
Then there's Allan Shorter, Wayne's older brother playing flugelhorn on his own composition "Mephistopheles". A bizarre monotonous droning track that settles into a drum beat that will pound your head to Excedrin headache number 9.
Ultimately this album is fantastic if you like cerebral avant-garde style jazz. I know some will think music like this is pretentious, but really, how can you fault an artist for creating music he wants to as an artistic statement and not necessarily as a pay day?
Shorter, in the liner notes for the album exclaimed that he had God in mind when creating this music. "Titles like "Genesis" "All Seeing Eye", and "Chaos" bring this to the forefront. Then his brother's "Mephistopheles", which brings in the devil and the struggles with that force, so you can see, this is thinking people's music, it's chamber jazz.
Andrew Hill's (1931-2007) 1963 debut for the Blue Note label is a modern jazz classic.
Amazing when you think about all the debuts on Blue Note that were stone classics.
John Coltrane's Blue Train, Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch, Wayne Shorter's Night Dreamer, and Johnny Coles' Little Johnny C. to name a few.
Andrew Hill is a clear Thelonious Monk disciple, but certainly more advanced and perhaps more quirky sounding?
I actually prefer Andrew Hill over Monk. Sacrilege perhaps, but I do enjoy the Hill's music more overall. I don't mean that as a slight to Monk.
Black Fire is a very fulfilling album, quartet and trio performances, with advances modal styles, with a hint of Afro-Cuban mixed in offering an exotic vibe.
Continually I marvel at how many great post bop Blue Note classics from the 60's tenor Saxophonist Joe Henderson played on. Black Fire is no exception, a muscular tone and searching.
You mustn't think of Black Fire as a pure avant-garde jazz record, I don't think it is all that "out" there. Sure it's in the neighborhood, but it is not even remotely free jazz.
Black Fire is structured and composed, hardly atonal... it's in the vein of the Miles Davis second quintet, POST BOP rather.
This music was recorded well before Wayne shorter joined that band; and 2 years before Miles Smiles was released. Imagine Hill with Davis instead of Hancock? I could dig it! Andrew can get a little funky too like Herbie.
The lead off track "Pumpkin" is very different, really gets a Miles Davis quintet vibe going, the Richard Davis bass line is very Ron Carter like, or Was Ron Carter Richard Davis like?
Andrew stretches out all over the map, this seems like free improvisation to me, very off the cuff, has a live vibe. The Roy Haynes drums are recorded remarkably well I might add, Stellar.
This RVG remaster I am listing to while writing this sounds very good, one of the best CD's I have heard lately. Admittedly some of these have had a tinny sound to me, sometimes distortion can bleed through, not this one.
I have a hard time believing that the vinyl would sound that much better, and I am a vinyl nut. Black Fire happens to be one of the few 60's Blue Notes that I don't own as an original or at least 70's reissue. Always seems like the price tag for near mint copy, even the Liberty issues are well over 50 dollars plus.
I dig the trio track "Subterfuge" Bassist Davis is doing some pretty remarkable playing on this track, even a nice little solo turn, underrated apparently is Davis, never focused on the track like this before, bassist Davis is pretty darned good.
"Cantarnos" is a nice minor key track, that shows Henderson playing in the vein of John Coltrane on the track "Teo" off of the Miles Davis classic Someday My Prince Will Come.
Henderson is seaching and probing, but perhaps not hell bent on destroying Hank Mobley, as it sounds like Coltrane was attempting, and succeeding on that album where Mobley also appeared.
Anyway, that's how it sounds to me on that particular album. Henderson doesn't over do it here, but the vibe did remind of "Teo".
Overall Black Fire really is a stellar post bop record, and proves to me Andrew Hill was an all time great. He should get more consideration as a one of the real advancers of the music at the same time John Coltrane's classic mid 60's band was taking shape.
As much as I like Davis and Coltrane, you could never convince me Andrew Hill's genius wasn't their equal. When I hear Black Fire, or Hill's Point of Departure for that matter, we are talking about some seriously groundbreaking jazz that today, 50 plus years later sounds like it has not aged at all. That fact, the music of modern jazz sounding fresh and sometimes completely new 50 years after it was developed, speaks volumes to me. It's timeless, as much as a 200 year old symphony is.
Herb Alpert's Music Should Be in Every Collection
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Alpert has crammed 2 lifetimes into one with his accomplishments
When you think of the greatest selling acts of the 1960's, artists like The
Beatles, El...
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