Stanley Turrentine - That's Where It's At 1962

A Blue Note release with Les McCann on piano, Herbie Lewis on bass, and Otis Finch on drums. Small group format. Excellent (and exciting) soul-jazz session with Turrentine blowing hot. AMG.

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Stanley Turrentine - Sugar 1971

If ever there were a record that both fit perfectly and stood outside the CTI Records' stable sound, it is Sugar by Stanley Turrentine. Recorded in 1970, only three tracks appear on the original album (on the reissue there's a bonus live version of the title track, which nearly outshines the original and is 50 percent longer). Turrentine, a veteran of the soul-jazz scene since the '50s, was accompanied by a who's who of groove players, including guitarist George Benson, Lonnie Liston Smith on electric piano, Freddie Hubbard on trumpet, bassist Ron Carter, organist Butch Cornell, and drummer Billy Kaye, among others. (The live version adds Airto, flutist Hubert Laws, drummer Billy Cobham, and organist Johnny Hammond.) The title track is a deep soul blues workout with a swinging backbeat and the rhythm section fluidly streaming through fours and eights as Benson, Hubbard, and Turrentine begin slowly and crank up the heat, making the pace and stride of the cut simmer then pop -- especially in Hubbard's solo. This is truly midnight blue, and the party's at the point of getting really serious or about to break up. By the time Benson picks up his break, full of slick, shiny, warm arpeggios, the seams are bursting and couples are edging into corners. Butch Cornell's "Sunshine Alley" is a solid, funky groover, paced by organ and double fours by Kaye. Turrentine and Hubbard stride into the melody and keep the vamp in the pocket, riding out past the blues line into a tag that just revs the thing up even further. But the big surprise is in the final track, one of the most solidly swinging, from-the-gut emotional rides of John Coltrane's "Impressions" ever taken. Turrentine is deep inside his horn, ringing out in legato with everything he has -- and it is considerable. Ron Carter's bass playing flows through the modal interludes, creating a basis for some beautifully intervallic invention by Benson and Smith by building a series of harmonic bridges through the mode to solos. It's hard to believe this is Turrentine, yet is could be no one else. If jazz fans are interested in Turrentine beyond the Blue Note period -- and they should be -- this is a heck of a place to listen for satisfaction. AMG.

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Astrud Gilberto With Stanley Turrentine - Gilberto With Turrentine 1971

The honey-toned chanteuse on the surprise Brazilian crossover hit "The Girl From Ipanema," Astrud Gilberto parlayed her previously unscheduled appearance (and professional singing debut) on the song into a lengthy career that resulted in nearly a dozen albums for Verve and a successful performing career that lasted into the '90s. Though her appearance at the studio to record "The Girl From Ipanema" was due only to her husband João, one of the most famed Brazilian artists of the century, Gilberto's singular, quavery tone and undisguised naïveté propelled the song into the charts and influenced a variety of sources in worldwide pop music.

Born in Bahia, Gilberto moved to Rio de Janeiro at an early age. She'd had no professional musical experience of any kind until 1963, the year of her visit to New York with her husband, João Gilberto, in a recording session headed by Stan Getz. Getz had already recorded several albums influenced by Brazilian rhythms, and Verve teamed him with the cream of Brazilian music, Antonio Carlos Jobim and João Gilberto, for his next album. Producer Creed Taylor wanted a few English vocals for maximum crossover potential, and as it turned out, Astrud was the only Brazilian present with any grasp of the language. After her husband laid down his Portuguese vocals for the first verse of his and Jobim's composition, "The Girl From Ipanema," Astrud provided a hesitant, heavily accented second verse in English.

Not even credited on the resulting LP, Getz/Gilberto, Astrud finally gained fame over a year later, when "The Girl From Ipanema" became a number five hit in mid-1964. The album became the best-selling jazz album up to that point, and made Gilberto a star across America. Before the end of the year, Verve capitalized on the smash with the release of Getz Au Go Go, featuring a Getz live date with Gilberto's vocals added later. Her first actual solo album, The Astrud Gilberto Album, was released in May 1965. Though it barely missed the Top 40, the LP's blend of Brazilian classics and ballad standards proving quite infectious with easy listening audiences.

Though she never returned to the pop charts in America, Verve proved to be quite understanding for Astrud Gilberto's career, pairing her with ace arranger Gil Evans for 1966's Look to the Rainbow and Brazilian organist/arranger Walter Wanderley for the dreamy A Certain Smile, a Certain Sadness, released later that year. She remained a huge pop star in Brazil for the rest of the 1960s and '70s, but gradually disappeared in America after her final album for Verve in 1969. In 1971, she released a lone album for CTI (with Stanley Turrentine) but was mostly forgotten in the U.S. until 1984, when "Girl From Ipanema" recharted in Britain on the tails of a neo-bossa craze. Gilberto gained worldwide distribution for 1987's Astrud Gilberto Plus the James Last Orchestra and 2002's Jungle.

This one with Stanley Turrentine. 1988 reissue of 1971 set that had some mildly entertaining moments. AMG.

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