Nightwings Stanley Turrentine

With Mosaic Records expanding its horizons over the past few years, fans of many different styles have had the opportunity to expand their collections and recent Mosaic honorees have included Mildred Bailey, Eddie Condon, Bobby Hackett, Chico Hamilton, and Anita O’Day. But to those long time followers, it continues to be the hard bop verities of the Blue Note label that have often been synonymous with Mosaic’s mail order dynasty. ~ AllAboutJazz

As the man who wrote the liner notes says, Stanley Turrentine may be the only Texas tenor player to come out of Pittsburgh - and you can hear several of the reasons why in this distillation of his Blue Note dates from 1960 to 1966, plus a grand leap all the way to 1984. Though his sound can be heard as early as the fairly conventional "Little Sheri," the real soulful Turrentine begins to emerge in "Since I Fell for You" with the 3 Sounds, and really explodes in the splendid "River's Invitation," thanks in large part to Oliver Nelson's great chart and Herbie Hancock's irresistible comping. "Smiley Stacy" is a Les McCann blues swinger that inspires a tough, characteristically pointed solo from Turrentine and some real burning from McCann and bassist Herbie Lewis - and he digs deeply into "God Bless the Child," with then-wife Shirley Scott acting cool and caressing on the Hammond organ…

Stanley Turrentine's stint with Creed Taylor's CTI label may not have produced any out-and-out classics on the level of the very best LPs by Freddie Hubbard, Hubert Laws, or George Benson, but the bluesy tenorist's output was consistently strong and worthwhile for all but the most stridently anti-fusion listeners. Salt Song was Turrentine's second album for CTI, and while it's perhaps just a small cut below his debut Sugar, it's another fine, eclectic outing that falls squarely into the signature CTI fusion sound: smooth but not slick, accessible but not simplistic…

Stanley Turrentine - A Bluish Bag (1967) {Blue Note 0946 3 85193 2 4 rel 2007}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 437 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 162 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 11 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1967, 2007 Blue Note | 0946 3 85193 2 4 | 24bit mastering
Jazz / Hard Bop / Soul Jazz / Saxophone

Stanley Turrentine's great blues-inflected tenor sax work for Blue Note Records in the 1960s helped build the template for what became known as soul-jazz, but Turrentine was always restless, and he recorded in a wide variety of formats, from trios to sextets, during his nine years at the label. This set, drawn from a pair of 1967 sessions, one in February that included Donald Byrd on trumpet, and the other in June with McCoy Tyner on piano, wasn't released by Blue Note at the time, although it is a smooth-running and varied album from start to finish, featuring several fine Turrentine sax solos over artfully arranged massed horn charts (eventually some of the tracks were released as Stanley Turrentine in 1975 and others as New Time Shuffle in 1979).