Listened to a CD-4 conversion from a fine gentleman in the London area (much thanks!)
This was released in 1974, and the Quads in 1975.
I first became aware of Stanley's music in the late 80's while listening to the radio show-
The Jazz Show with David Sanborn.
Sanborn had spoke of Turrentine as being an important influence for him, along with Hank Crawford.
And here's a clip of him on Sanborn's Night Music show:
This is a fairly lush sounding album with lots of string orchestration. I had to listen to it a second time to zero in better on the mix. The style is Smooth Jazz with a very soulful feel.
Musicians on this are:
Tenor Saxophone, Producer –
Stanley Turrentine
Percussion –
Gary Coleman
Keyboards –
John Miller &
Sonny Burke
Guitars –
David T. Walker,
Dean Parks,
Ray Parker, Jr.
Drums –
Ed Greene &
Ed Moore
Bass –
Ron Brown
Congas –
Joe Clayton
Backing Vocals –
Carolyn Willis,
Edna Wright,
Myrna Matthews
Keyboards, Arranged By, Conductor, Producer –
Gene Page
Producers-
Ron Granger &
Billy Page
The mix does seem to shift slightly from song to song, sometimes the orchestra is in the rears and sometimes the fronts. Turrentine's Sax is primarily in the left rear, to left. I wouldn't say it was super discrete but not bad by any standard. Sometimes though, I got the feeling I wanted to rotate the whole mix 90 deg. clockwise in order to get Stanley's Sax into the front, where I'd like to hear it from. I believe this would be very interesting to hear how it would turn out with new mastering (say a Michael Dutton treatment) and of course a high fidelity digital transfer.
A couple of the songs have a slightly Latin feel in them also, like
Deep in Love and also more fun and funky, as in
Midnight and You.
Midnight and You is my favorite track on the album, as it shifts style and mood effectively every minute or so from a very breezy feel to that funky Jazzy style.
On the song Evil, it opens up with a slow pounding piano, almost a funeral dirge to it with some synth sounds in the other channels, and then lightens up a little later to improve the mood.
Another highlight is the song
Blanket On The Beach, which opens with the sounds of waves on a beach and Seagulls. Then Turrentine comes in with syrupy slow and sexy Sax runs that sets the mood of the song. I believe he gets his point across well that the song is more of an "adult Blanket party" if you get my drift
The last song is
"I'm In Love", written by Bobby Womack and has a good drenching of female vocals, giving it a more Soul Jazz FM radio sound to it.
Overall the music holds up well enough for me, but some may feel it's stuck a little too much in that 70's smooth Jazz sound.
I'm going to give this one an
8.