Stanley Meets Herbie Hancock

One of the pleasures of listening to jazz music is that if you listen long and hard enough, you'll discover that eventually everybody seemingly plays with everyone else at some point or another.  You'll also learn that pianist Herbie Hancock, the Zelig of jazz, managed to somehow be in the room during every milestone session and has played with virtually everyone.

Case in point:  On August 3, 1962, seven months after the Ike Quebec session, Stanley Turrentine laid down some tracks at Van Gelder Studio with his brother Tommy on trumpet, Kenny Burrell on guitar, Butch Warren on bass, and Roger Humphries on drums.  The pianist for this session was Herbie Hancock,

What did it sound like?  Well, no one knows because for reasons equally unknown, the tracks were rejected by Blue Note.  The music has been lost to the foggy mists of time.

Two months later, the ensemble returned to the studio and re-recorded the tracks, this time without that hack Herbie Hancock on piano (just kidding - that's a joke, son!).  Sonny Clark filled in for Herbie on piano and Stanley's long-time drummer, Al Harewood, filled in on drums.  The session was ultimately released in 1978 as part of the Jubilee Shouts album, along with some 1961 tracks that were later separately released as the Comin' Your Way LP.  The 1962 session was later individually released under the title Jubilee Shout!!! (additional exclamation marks are as per the title).

Jubilee Shouts, then, was actually two different early '60s Turrentine sessions with two different line-ups, recorded over a year apart.  Both session were initially rejected by Blue Note for reasons unknown, re-recorded shortly later, and still not released until 1978.

For the record, Jubilee Shout!!! contains three Stanley Turrentine compositions, including one titled Brother Tom ostensibly for his brother Tommy, one Tommy T. composition (You Said It), and a pair of show-tune covers.  Nothing on Jubilee Shout!!! nor the earlier Comin' Your Way LP is exactly ground-breaking, but there's nothing inherently wrong with either set to my ears.  I have absolutely no idea why the sessions had such a rocky road to release.

Sonny Clark, the pianist on this session, passed away in January 1963 at the age of 32, three months after recording Jubilee Shout!!!, which turned out be his last recording.  The official cause of death was listed as a heart attack, but the more likely cause was probably a heroin overdose.

Anyway, for what it's worth, Stanley successfully recorded with Herbie Hancock at least eight different subsequent times, including dates with both Stanley- and Herbie-led combos, and with Freddie Hubbard and Donald Byrd.