What was it about Stanley Turrentine's music that made you a fan for life?

7/27/2021

Stanley Turrentine had one of the fattest, richest and most colorful sounds of all of my favorite players of the saxophone. Along with that amazing sound was a very soulful and lyrical style of playing that pulls you right in. Many people don’t know that he was a great soloist on jazz standards. So lyrical and swinging and his music always makes you feel good.

I had the opportunity to see him up close in intimate bar settings and his music was always hip and high spirited with a lot of soul. His most popular period was probably his CTI period when he started to use the fusion jazz style in his music, featured the all stars, George Benson, Richard Tee, Bob James, Freddie Hubbard, Milt Jackson, Eric Gale, Grant Green, Idris Muhammed, and Ron Carter. During this period in 1970 he put out his biggest selling album, “Sugar”. Not only did the song “Sugar” become a hit but also a standard in the jazz repertoire. Also, he also plays Coltrane’s Impressions on this album and it’s a soulful and swinging version that is very hip!

Here’s a video of Stanley on one of my favorite live programs ever on TV. David Sanborn hosted a show called, “Night Music” which was aired about 1am and featured some of the best jazz musicians alive at that time. The show didn’t last long but if you want to see some great live jazz, check out this video and some of the other jazz musicians who were featured.

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