BLP 4122 (NR)

Stanley Turrentine - Jubilee Shout!

Released - 1986

Recording and Session Information

Van Gelder Studio, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, October 18, 1962
Tommy Turrentine, trumpet; Stanley Turrentine, tenor sax; Sonny Clark, piano; Kenny Burrell, guitar; Butch Warren, bass; Al Harewood, drums.

tk.9 You Said It
tk.14 Cotton Walk
tk.19 Little Girl Blue (mistitled as You Better Go Now)
tk.21 Brother Tom
tk.26 My Ship
tk.29 Jubilee Shout

Track Listing

Side One
Title	Author	Recording Date
Jubilee Shout	Stanley Turrentine	18 October 1962
My Ship	Ira Gershwin, Kurt Weill	18 October 1962
You Said It	Tommy Turrentine	18 October 1962
Side Two
Brother Tom	Stanley Turrentine	18 October 1962
Cotton Walk	Stanley Turrentine	18 October 1962
Little Girl Blue	Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers	18 October 1962

Liner Notes

Stanley Turrentine is the last of the "bosses." By this we don't mean that he is involved in big city politics or even that he has heavy mob connections. We are talking about a tradition that extends as far back as the 1930's; the tenor sax man who, regardless of the quality of his accompaniment, could lift an audience and stand it on its ear with the sheer force of his playing.

Kansas City was likely the location where this attitude developed. The legendary cutting contests involving Lester Young, Hershel Evans, Ben Webster, Dick Wilson, Coleman Hawkins and the like would have lent status to the man who could survive the competition. The ubiquitous jam sessions that existed on 52nd Street or in after hours clubs on the road provided more tests. The staged tenor bottles of At The Philharmonic were an example of the ritual reduced to its essentials.

At the same time that the cutting contests were fashionable another event was taking place: the post-war explosion of rhythm and blues. The trick-bag developed by Illinois Jacquet during his tenures with Lionel Hampton and Cab Calloway really took hold during his California period of 1944 and '45. Soon, there were tenor players all over the place who could shatter glasses their squeals, curl hair with their blasts, and honk an audience into instant hysteria. Of course, most of these guys were show-boaters, who were more concerned with the reaction to their playing rather than its content. But, the intelligent player realized that if he was going to hold his position, that he had to be able to work both sides of the street. If he could add some devices to his repertoire and integrate them into a style that emphasized creative playing, he could handle the action.

Such are the lessons of survival for a gunslinging tenor man. One of the unspoken rules among the bosses is that when sitting in with an equal there is never a winner. Gene Ammons and Sonny Stitt, perhaps the most famous of the two-tenor teams, knew this only well. Each man had his own distinctive style and was inevitable that Jug would cop on certain tunes while Sonny would be best on others. The ultimate winner was the patron sitting at the bar listening. The reason for this was elementary. News travels fast. If our boss tenor is moving, say, from Chicago to St. Louis it is not going to be good for business to have advance notice of how he got blown off the stand the preceding night!

That doesn't mean there are no tenor battles, in the true sense, anymore. There are always the contenders. Most often they are musicians with little national reputation. And despite the fact that leaders today work more from set routines and arrangements and are less inclined to jam during club dates, not all requests to sit in are refused. But once a challenge is accepted the champ must be careful. A Mickey Fields in Baltimore or a Red Tyler in New Orleans is capable of cooking an unsuspecting tenor man into bad health!

We heard Stanley Turrentine sit in with Gene Ammons at The Cadillac Club in Newark a few years ago. There was no winner that night! The mutual respect was obvious. Hanging out after the last set we got fo folking with Stanley about his early associations with Lowell Fulson and Earl Bostic. When asked if he ever got to play on any of Bostic's recordings, he replied, "Only the last note."

And it was very likely that way on the stand as well. Then as now, it was customary for the band members to warm up the audience with a couple of tunes before the star came on. After that it was show time and the solo opportunities for a sideman were few and far between. The passion and urgency that is present in everything Stanley Turrentine plays may well hark back to the days when he was warming up the bandstand for Earl Bostic!

If we have established Stanley's "macho tenor" credentials by this time, we should also mention his association with Max Roach during 1959 and '60. Roach has always maintained a book of very sophisticated, challenging material. And with Max you learn very quickly how to create at incredible tempos! Undoubtedly it was his work with the Roach group that brought him to the attention of Alfred Lion and Frank Wolff at Blue Note (probably via Ike Quebec who acted as aide-de-camp and chief talent scout).

Stanley's first Blue Note exposure came late in 1960, via two L.P.'s which were issued at roughly the some time. One was his own album. Look Out! (4039) and the other was Horace Parlan's Speakin' My Piece (4043). At the time of their release, there was a Los Angeles D.J, named Jack Cooke, who had a midnight show (Nightbeat) on KNOB-FM (a powerful all-jazz station) and for several months it was a rare night when one didn't hear Minor Chant from Stanley's L.P. or Wadin' from Parlan's, or both! After almost ten years as a professional musician, another "boss" tenor had arrived!

Stanley's cohorts on Jubilee Shout (the disk at hand) are all Blue Note veterans. There is little need to discuss Kenny Burrell at great length. His long and distinguished career began on Blue Note in 1956 and, like Stanley, he had a new L.P. on the label during 1985.

Sonny Clark, who like Stanley, came from Pittsburgh, is one of the major jazz pianists of the post-war era. An early disciple of Bud Powell, he rarely played an uninspired note in a career that lasted only fen years, or so. Clark first came to prominence with Buddy DeFranco and "The Lighthouse All-Stars" (both in the mid-fifties). From 1957 to '62 he appeared frequently on Blue Note and made six L.P.'s as a leader for the label. Sonny died of a heroin overdose in January 1963, at the age of thirty-one.

Tommy Turrentine never fulfilled the promise he showed as a player during this period, but he continues to be a fine jazz composer and frequently contributes songs to Stanley's albums.

Al Harewood was a frequent sideman on Blue Note during the early 1960s and a member of the Horace Parlan trio of that period. He continues to be an active freelancer whose tasty timekeeping is always in demand.

Butch Warren has been off the scene for some time, but in the early sixties he teamed with Sonny Clark and Billy Higgins to form another of the great Blue Note rhythm teams. Of all the jazz labels, Blue Note usually had the best rhythm sections. Rarely was there a weak link.

Stanley's Jubilee Shout kicks off the date. The piece alternates a vamp with straight ahead blowing. Burrell, Tommy and Clark follow the leader.

Kurt Weill's My Ship is best known in the Miles Davis-Gil Evans Collaboration (although Rahsaan Roland Kirk also made a great version of it). Stanley ploys the melody fairly straight, but with characteristic warmth. Burrell and Tommy (muted) add fine solos as well.

You Said It swings from bar one, Stanley shouts it out here, backed by riffs and is followed, in turn, by Tommy, Burrell, Warren and Clark.

Stanley's tune, Brother Tom is a bebop line that opens with Tommy strolling over bass and drums. Sonny Clark follows trumpet and guitar with his finest solo of the date. He was a bebop master! Stanley gets the final innings in this spirited workout.

Bass and cymbals ride in Cotton Walk, another of Stanley's compositions, but which has something of a resemblance to Killer Joe. Here, Stanley is deep into the blues, backed by some strong riffs. Burrell and Tommy follow before Sonny Clark comes in to sustain the blue groove, playing what may have been his last solo on record. Shortly after this session, Sonny entered the hospital with a leg infection. In less than ninety days, he would be dead.

Although this music was previously issued as part of a double L.P. in (see below), included here for the first time is Stanley's rendition of You Better Go Now, which was recorded at the session for Jubilee Shout (in 1962), restoring to the album its original content.

By the time that this album was recorded, Stanley Turrentine was already working with his soon-to-be wife, Shirley Scott. Working as the only horn in an organ group further enhanced the boss-tenor image. He stayed with Blue Note into 1969 and with Shirley into 1970. Just after that, his career began to soar. Along the way, he has had a string of hit singles and albums and Stanley also picked up a nickname, "Mister T" (which has nothing to do with the guy on t.v. with the gold chains), that implies the respect that he deserves.

—BOB PORTER

Produced by ALFRED LION
Cover Photo by FRANCIS WOLFF
Cover Design by REID MILES
Recording by RUDY VAN GELDER

Recorded on October 18, 1962

Note: This material (except for You Better Go Now) was released in 1978 as part of a double album, Jubilee Shouts BN-LA-833-J2. It is now issued here, for the time, with the Cover Art and Catalogue Number, as originally intended by Blue Note.

Produced for Release by MICHAEL CUSCUNA
Digital Transfer by RON MCMASTER

Notes for the Blue Note 75th Anniversary Edition[edit]

From the time, Stanley Turrentine signed with Blue Note in 1960, he recorded in a variety of settings with a variety of concepts in terms of material. He recorded frequently with his brother Tommy and the Horace Parlan trio on "Comin' Your Way" he led albums on Blue Note with Grant Green and the Parlan trio live at Minton's, made his first sessions with wife Shirley Scott, collaborated with Les McCann and made a standards album with Green and Tommy Flanagan.

With his high rate of recording, no wonder so many wonderful albums of his got left behind in the vaults. "Jubilee Shout" was a wonderful album with an interesting cast. Kenny Burrell brings a very different flavor to a recording date than Grant Green does. Sonny Clark, Butch Warren and Al Harewood are all creative professionals who would bring versatility and creativity to any project that they participated in. The brothers Turrentine contribute the bulk of the material with "Little Girl Blue" and "My Ship" being the two standards.

This proved to be Sonny Clark's last recording session. He died on January 13, 1962, five days after Turrentine and Burrell would make history by recording Kenny's Midnight Blue 4123.

- MICHAEL CUSCUNA