Rating: 4
For some reason, I own three records by tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine. In the early days of this blog, I reviewed his 1976 release Everybody Come On Out and (barely) decided it was worth keeping. Today, I feel not quite so sympathetic and am reconsidering my verdict on his other record as well. If I were more of a jazz connoisseur, I suspect I would be grievously offended by Turrentine's 70s schtick. The reason is that the music is heavily orchestrated, with saxophone solos played over the strings in a warm, inoffensive tone, never straying too far from the main melody. In other words, easy listening, dentist's office jazz.
I am not a jazz connoisseur, so it's hard for me to feel too outraged by this material. But I still found it to be, on the whole, boring. I'm sure it would work fine as the soundtrack to a TV show or as faintly heard background music riding in an elevator, but as active listening material, it failed to engage me. The only potential point of interest for me is that there is a version of Stevie Wonder's "Evil" on the second side, but when all Turrentine does is play the vocal melody on saxophone, it's hard to see the point. Sure, the chord changes are still cool, but Stevie's version is far more interesting. Blue bin!
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