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. ~ Thom Jurek