On January 24, 1964, Stanley Turrentine and wife Shirley Scott returned to Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey for the first time since their October 21, 1963 session for the Basie-influenced Chip Off the Old Block album.
In the time since they last recorded, John F. Kennedy was fatally shot on November 22, 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas, and then, two days later, Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby on live t.v. New President Lyndon Johnson wasted no time confirming that the U.S. would continue military and economic support of South Vietnam, and Beatlemania officially began on December 26, 1963 with the release of I Want to Hold Your Hand and I Saw Her Standing There.
In addition to Turrentine and Scott, the lineup for the January 1964 session included Kenny Burrell on guitar, Bob Cranshaw on bass, and Otis Finch on drums. The session was released in 1965 as the LP Hustlin'. In addition to the usual jazz and R&B covers, the LP included one Turrentine composition, The Hustler, and one Scott composition, Ladyfingers, as consecutive tracks. The Hustler and Ladyfingers - Stanley and Shirley?
Around this time, the noted jazz critic Nat Hentoff (The Village Voice) wrote in Stereo Review, "Stanley Turrentine is a tenor saxophonist with a big sound, a firm beat, and in Cannonball Adderley's term, a 'modern mainstream' conception. While seldom markedly original, he platys with taste, and he is particularly fine (as in Midnight Blue) with sustaining a low-lit, after-hours mood . . . Shirley Scott (Mrs. Turrentine) is more mellow and lithe in her musical lines than most other jazz organists. Her skills include the ability to suggest varied orchestral effects, so that the quintet often sounds larger."
On AllMusic.com, Scott Yanow wrote that Turrentine "always had the skill of playing melodies fairly straight but with his own brand of soul . . . The Turrentine-Scott team never made an unworthy disc; all are easily recommended, including this one."
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