On the Spur of the Moment

If you haven't figured it out by now, the Stanley Turrentine Quintet and the Horace Parlan Quintet are the same identical band.  Both bands consist of Horace Parlan on piano, Stanley Turrentine on tenor sax, Tommy Turrentine on trumpet; George Tucker on bass, and Al Harewood on drums.  Stanley and Horace alternate as bandleaders on successive recordings.  

Between June 1960 and February 1961, the band had recorded Look Out! as the Stanley Turrentine Quartet (without brother Tommy), Speakin' My Piece as the Horace Parlan Quintet, Comin' Your Way as the Stanley Turrentine Quartet, and Up At Minton's as the Stanley Turrentine Quintet (with the substitution of Grant Green on guitar for Tommy). 

These are essentially the same musicians playing in the same studio for the same label within a 9-month frame of time, so it all sounds pretty consistently similar.  There is really no fundamental difference between the Hoarace Parlan Quintet and the Stanley Turrentine Quintet of the early 60s, except for who's name is on the front cover.  The downside is that most discographies of Stanley Turrentine are incomplete because they don't list the Horace Parlan albums, and most discographies of Horace Parlan are likewise incomplete.

On March 18, 1961, less than a month after the Minton's date, the musicians returned to Van Gelder Studios in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey and recorded On the Spur of the Moment as The Horace Parlan Quintet.  The album is another fine effort by rhe band(s) and this time includes more original material and contemporary jazz covers (there are two Booker Ervin compositions) than the show tunes that  dominated the previous albums.  But that's not as big as a difference as you might expect - the band just used the titular melody, whether show tune or jazz cover, as a jumping-off point for improvisation and hard bop jamming.

Although some of the Turrentine brothers solos get quite exciting at times, overall, the album is a restrained and orderly affair.  Hey, it's 1961, what did you expect? Free jazz?  But the restraint and order allow everything to be clearly heard and for the listener to appreciate the playing.  It's a good recording. 

Blue Note released the track On the Spur of the Moment backed with Ray C. as a 45-rpm single, but my favorite track on the album is probably Booker Ervin's playful Skoo Chee.