In Memory Of Herbie Hancock

Between the time of the March 31, 1994 Blue Flames session and June 3, the next time Stanley Turrentine recorded in the studio, Stanley turned 30 years old (his birthday was April 5). On April 12, Malcolm X delivered his "The Ballot or the Bullet" speech in Detroit, nd the next day, Sidney Poitier became the first African-American to win a Best Actor Academy Award for Lilies of the Field. 

On May 2, the first major student demonstration against the Vietnam War occurred in New York and San Francisco, with smaller marches in Boston, Seattle, and Madison, Wisconsin. On the 12th of May, 12 men publicly burned their draft cards in New York; the first such act of resistance to the war. 

On June 3, Turrentine returned once again to Van Gelder Studio with Blue Mitchell (trumpet), Curtis Fuller (trombone), Bob Cranshaw (bass), Otis Finch (drums), and Mickey Roker (congas).  The session also included pianist Herbie Hancock, with whom Stanley had previously recorded an unreleased session back on August 3, 1962.  Coincidentally and for reasons unknown, the 1964 session with Hancock was also not released at the time, but was later released in 1979 as the album In Memory Of.  That LP is also now out of print, but the tracks are available as part of the 2011 box set Blue Note Stanley Turrentine/Sextet Session.

I 'm not sure why the tracks weren't released at the time - to my ears, they sound like a fine session.  In fact, although I noted yesterday that the 1964 Stanley Turrentine/Shirley Scott soul-jazz sound was starting to sound a little dated and out of step for the time, the June 3 session contains some of the most forward-sounding tracks I've heard from Turrentine up to that point.  The tracks were all covers, including a Randy Wesson (In Memory Of) and a Wes Montgomery cover (Fried Pies), as well as a Bill Lee (father of Spike) tune and the usual standards and show tunes. 

Fried Pies starts off sounding almost like an outtake from Miles' Kind of Blue album, and in short sections near the beginning and end, Stanley plays some gospel-influenced blues over a sparse, minimal background. If he only added some hand-clapping, it would have sounded like Mingus' Better Get Hit In You Soul.  The song eventually turns into a more straight-forward hard-bop jam, but clearly shows that Stanley was listening to new music beyond the repertoire he was putting on vinyl. Herbie Hancock provides some tasty solos on the album, but you have to really listen for them - it sounds as if he were well aware that he was a sideman on this gig and mostly stays in the rhythm section.

There's a possibility that the session wasn't released at the time because Alfred Lion thought it was too forward-sounding for the Stanley Turrentine audience, and Lion didn't want to mix and match the product Blue Note was offering and confuse the public.  

As noted yesterday, Miles Davis didn't record or release anything in 1964, although he was in a transition to his second Quintet, which included Herbie Hancock.  Two weeks after Stanley's June 3 session, Hancock and the rest of the rhythm section of the future Quintet (Ron Carter, bass and Tony Williams, drums) returned to Van Gelder Studio with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard and recorded the classic Hancock album Empyrean Isles, notable for including the track Cantaloupe Island, one of Herbie's most loved compositions. AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that, on the album, "Hancock pushes at the borders of hard bop, finding a brilliantly evocative balance between traditional bop, soul-injected grooves, and experimental, post-modal jazz." 

Not that I find anything wrong with Stanley Turrentine's hard bop/soul-jazz approach - I initiated this whole review of his discography because I so enjoy that hard bop/soul-jazz sound -  but Herbie was anticipating the new directions jazz would take in the 1960s, while Stanley, although aware of the new thing, was at this point being required to stay in his lane.