Dubbed the “Steel City” and famend as an vital industrial metropolis in twentieth century America, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was additionally a thriving hotbed of jazz expertise. It was dwelling to a number of the style’s best pianists – together with Mary Lou Williams, Erroll Garner, Ahmad Jamal, Sonny Clark, and Horace Parlan – and produced certainly one of its best drummers and bandleaders within the form of Artwork Blakey. It was additionally the place tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine, one of many best exponents of a post-bebop fashion referred to as soul jazz, was born and raised. Turrentine made his mark within the jazz world within the Nineteen Sixties at Blue Word Data with a sequence of excellent albums the place his husky horn sound mirrored his Pittsburgh roots. Throughout his first stint on the label, between 1960 and 1969, he was prolific, recording 24 albums as a pacesetter, together with Mr. Pure, an LP highlighting Turrentine’s rugged soulfulness and melodic fluency.
Taking part in the blues got here as naturally as respiratory to Stanley Turrentine, an intuitive musician with out formal music coaching. His first main gig was as a seventeen-year-old within the band of bluesman Lowell Fulson within the early 50s earlier than he changed John Coltrane in Earl Bostic’s group. After a stint within the US army, in 1959 he joined drummer Max Roach’s band. The next yr, a file date with organist Jimmy Smith for Blue Word resulted in Turrentine signing with the long-lasting New York-based jazz label.
At Blue Word, Turrentine shortly turned one of many label’s favourite musicians, taking part in as a sideman on albums for Jimmy Smith, Horace Parlan, Kenny Burrell, and Duke Jordan, in addition to making his personal data, some in tandem along with his spouse, organist Shirley Scott. After recording his tenth Blue Word album Hustlin’ in September 1964 the label’s co-founder and producer Alfred Lion summoned Turrentine to Van Gelder Studio – Blue Word’s go-to recording facility run by sound wizard Rudy Van Gelder – for what turned Mr. Pure.
Turrentine’s sidemen included the dazzling trumpeter Lee Morgan, bassist Bob Cranshaw, and on the primary three tracks, Latin conguero Ray Barretto. Extra considerably, the session marked Turrentine’s first time recording with pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones, then members of the influential John Coltrane Quartet, famend for pushing jazz ahead into modal and avant-garde territory.
Their affect could be felt on the opening monitor, “Wahoo (aka Stanley’s Blues),” which its author Duke Pearson later recorded with a radically totally different association because the title monitor of his 1965 Blue Word album. Because of Tyner and Jones’ affect, Turrentine’s model with its loping shuffle beat hints at modal jazz, although it doesn’t cease the saxophonist from doing what he does finest – blowing lengthy, soulful, blues-tinged melodies. “I might put my music in different settings,” he as soon as mentioned, “but I can’t change me.”
Named after Turrentine’s spouse, “Shirley” is a mid-tempo blues the place the saxophonist and Morgan blow rigorously woven harmonized horn traces over a simmering groove. “Tacos,” highlighting Barretto’s congas, has a pronounced Latin really feel, whereas the group transforms the usual “My Girl Is Just Enough Woman For Me” right into a fluid onerous bop swinger. In sharp distinction, the album’s satisfying finale finds Turrentine taking a detour into pop, serving up a cool bluesy tackle The Beatles’ 1964 chart-topper “Can’t Buy Me Love,” powered by Elvin Jones’ irresistible swing pulse.
In the end, Mr. Pure confirmed Turrentine’s innate musicality, resisting the progressive jazz traits of the early 60s for one thing extra accessible and rooted within the blues; music that was down-to-earth, unpretentious, and to borrow a phrase from Artwork Blakey, washed away the mud of on a regular basis life.
Store for Stanley Turrentine’s music on vinyl or CD now.
