Happy New Year? They impeached the so-called "president" yesterday, the second time that human Cheeto's been impeached. Other than that, what else is new? The global covid pandemic is still raging, and here in the United States it's now worse than ever, at least in terms of death and new cases per day.
Last spring, to help me pass the self-isolation days spent alone in my house socially distancing myself from others, I listened to the extensive discography of the French drone band Natural Snow Buildings in its entirety. That project lasted from March to June of last year, but the pandemic has kept on raging. I need a new band to get me through this current and hopefully final leg of the pandemic.
I've settled on the discography of the jazz musician Stanley Turrentine. His recordings span a 30-year period of 1960 to 1990, and while he had a period in the late 70s and early 80s where he really watered down his sound for some very commercial-sounding but highly successful albums, for the most part his recordings have been outstanding. It seems a worthy project.
The album Stan "The Man" Turrentine was released in 1963 but recorded back in early 1960, and represents the very first session with Turrentine as band leader. Prior to that, he had been playing and recording mainly as a member of Earl Bostic's band, replacing John Coltrane as the group's tenor sax, and on a handful of recordings by the legendary drummer extraordinaire Max Roach.
He's accompanied on this debut session by Tommy Flannagan and Sonny Clark on piano (that's Flannagan on the opening cut, Let's Groove), George Duvivier on bass, and Roach on drums.
Although recorded in 1960, the album was released by Time Records while Turrentine was under contract to Blue Note. In 1964, it was re-released by Fontana Records as Tiger Tail and by Realm Jazz as Much Max. Not that it doesn't deserve it, but I find it somewhat surprising that today this 1963 album is still in print, in both CD and LP formats.
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