Stanley Turrentine - In Memory of [Blue Note Tone Poet Edition]

In Memory Of sat unreleased for fifteen years before Blue Note finally put it out, and now Joe Harley's Tone Poet series gives it the audiophile treatment the original tapes always deserved.

Turrentine cut this session in 1964 with a genuinely stacked band, Herbie Hancock on piano, Blue Mitchell on trumpet, Curtis Fuller's trombone, Bob Cranshaw on bass, but Blue Note sat on it until 1979, one of those quietly maddening cases of a great record getting lost in a label's backlog rather than any flaw in the music itself. Turrentine's tenor has always split the difference between hard bop muscle and soul jazz warmth better than almost anyone of his generation, and this session catches him doing exactly that with a band capable of matching him note for note.

Fried Pies opens the record with real swagger, Hancock's comping already showing the harmonic sophistication that would soon make him a bandleader in his own right. The title track slows into something more contemplative, Turrentine's tone doing the emotional work without needing volume to get there. Niger Mambo brings genuine Latin rhythm into the session, and Sunday in New York closes things on a warm, unhurried standard reading.

Mastered by Kevin Gray from the original analog tapes, pressed at RTI, gatefold tip-on jacket. A lost Blue Note session, finally sounding as good as the personnel always promised.