Customer Reviews

Salt Song

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've liked Stanley Turrentine's work for years. With him, my attraction is the SOUND - uniquely his: big, bright, yet warm, with roots in soul and blues as well as mainstream jazz. His playing on this CD lives up to his usual high standard. He sounds great in a versatile selection of pieces. It's everything else that disappoints.

This album on Sony is a reissue of a CTI Album from 1971, with a bonus track added. It has the best and worst features typical of CTI recordings. Best: good players (Ron Carter and Billy Cobham are in the supporting cast, among others), good recording quality, for the most part. Worst: gratuitous arrangements chosen to sell records, strings, background voices, sound effects, generally short album durations - even with the bonus track it's barely 42 minutes.

There's a nice versatile mix of rhythms here: Gibralter shifts between latin and swing, latin (Salt Song and Vera Cruz), ballad, neo-gospel (I Told Jesus), urban blues (Storm).

Some arrangements mildly detract from the CD. Deodato's arrangement of I Told Jesus is the musical equivalent of "dumbing down" and moves away a bit from a true gospel feel. The strings detract from the ballad, I Haven't Got Anything Better To Do, and the storm noises and Stanley's reverb in Storm are each downright annoying.

The best track is the opener, a Freddie Hubbard tune called Gibralter.

This would be ok for someone who likes saxophone who doesn't have a cd of his. Plus, if you like Stanley's playing, you'll like this. Still, there are other recordings early in his career that are better: Easy Walker, Sugar and Don't Mess With Mr. T are a few that come to mind, along with a couple of Jimmy Smith recordings on Blue Note, Back to the Chicken Shack and Midnight Special. There are others, too, especially a live recording with Freddie Hubbard whose title escapes me.

So, 5 stars for the body of Stanley's work - he always comes to play and always sounds great. 1 star for the strings, noises, reverb and CTI arrangements. That averages to a 3. Some Stanley fans might consider this as a 4, but I like some of his other things a little better.

This music is beautiful, interesting, even a bit challenging to listen to because there is so much going on in these tracks. Turrentine is in top form here, playing with great confidence and feeling throughout. You definitely feel as if he's singing through his horn. The arrangements by Eumir Deodato are superb and varied (the man is simply a genius), and played by top-notch session players like Ron Carter, Airto Moierera, and Billy Cobham, each of whom is a superstar in their own right. This disc is a great journey through great melodies, layers of rhythm, and superb playing that you hope won't end. But that's why you have a "repeat" button on your remote.

WARNING: Except for the much lower price, I don't know why amazon peddles this as a new release. Salt Song Limited Edition 2008 turns out to be almost exactly the same as the previous limited edition, the only difference besides the price being a new barcode label slapped over the old one.
When this edition first appeared here and in my amazon recommendations, there was no posted product information so I could not compare it with what I already had. I expected some new tracks and the price made it a cheap gamble. I lost the bet, but someone else will gain as they will receive my extra copy as a gift. But now that there is posted information, it will be readily apparent to any other mark that there is nothing new to be heard.
Now I'll get down to the music. Salt Song was not only my introduction to Stanley Turrentine back in the mid-1970s, it was an album that sparked in me a still-burning interest in jazz in general. Many purists scoff at the CTI releases, but those records brought many people to jazz who may otherwise have never become interested. CTI recordings were nothing like some of today's lame "smooth jazz" offerings, in contrast they were chock-full of some of the greatest jazz musicians of that age and provided neophytes with a musical bridge from rock and roll to some of the more traditional and even avant-garde styles.
I still hear Salt Song with much the same delight I experienced on my first listen. To me, the best songs are Gibraltar, the title cut, and Storm. I Told Jesus is a little jivey for me but I never skip it. The other two cuts, one of which is the "bonus", are enjoyable as well but aren't as attention-grabbing as my favorites. Salt Song may not be Turrentine's best, but its a lot better than ninety percent of the music on the market!
For the price, there should be no complaints at all but I am still a little annoyed that I was misled into getting something I already had. By all means, I recommend this CD, just don't get the idea there is anything extra on this if you already happen to own an earlier edition.

Stanley Turrentine goes thru a lot of paces on this remastered release from the early 70s. Gospel inluence on "I Told Jesus", a lot of South American influence throughout, and some plain old fashioned sweet saxophone stylings. Great sound.

Salt Song is a very rare album by the late Jazz master and saxophonist, and it was first produced in 1972. This is when Stanley Turrentine was at the top of his game and was a jazz staple on most jazz radio stations across the nation. If you have never listened to Stanley Turrentine, then this would be an excellent place to start.

Stanley Turentine Sounds Great on this Set.the Music here was arranged&Produced to Relax your mind.the music here is Timeless&a Tribute to the Genius Mind Of MR.Turentine.

i have been a jazz fan for over fifty years. i have always prided myself in being able to know good jazz.i go back with Stanley since the late fifties. To me he has always demonstrated excellent abilities as a tenor sax man.the album sugar is certainly a reflection of this.

CD was in excellent condition, and it arrived within a few days. The sound quality is as clear as the album I purchased years ago when it was first produced. I will not hesitate to purchase additional items from this seller.

Stanley's great, here too. But ... We all know CTI records are not big deals generally. With few exceptions they came out in a confused period (the seventies) when jazz musicians were forced by record companies people to enter in a sort of middle ground between jazz and other things and to play borderline styles. The results considered with a long sighted eye were often awkward. The CTI artists were among the greatest musicians Jazz had to offer. George Benson, Milt Jackson, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Stanley Turrentine, Joe Farrell but CTI and Creed Taylor had strange visions about how they should play in that period. They should play more melodical and less Jazzy .. it's a strange thing to ask to jazz musicians .. do you agree? It would be like trying to limitate a marvellous painter. Think about it ... "Please Leonardo use only red for this painting because people nowadays love only red, don't use all the colours... " !!!! This approach obviously produced the worst records these great musicians has ever recorded. But ... the fact that these guys were so big in the end helped this records a lot. I mean that even if they were surrounded by bad arrangements they were so big that they even reached the almost impossible goal to record a good album. This is the case. Stanley was still in perfect shape, his sound, his ideas, his musicianship were still at the highest levels so even if some CTI musical choices were terribly wrong he delivered. The first tune is probably the best. It has two kinds of rhythm, a more rock oriented beat and straight ahead swing. It is a long tune and Stanley has the chance to blow here and there. The second tune "I told Jesus" it is a gospel wannabe, but in the end it is more similar to some Pink Floyd's stuff. I'm talking about "Shy on you crazy diamond" stuff. Ok, don't cry, try to resist. The rest of the album presents some good moments (the ballad "I didn't have nothing better to do" or whatever 's the title) and some weak ones. The stuff is always the same. A great bop musician (limitated in his playing by marketing purpouses) surrounded by strange pretentious seventies arrangements. Stanley is still great. At least you can still hear him if you don't pay to much attention to what surrounds him ... it's up to you. I bought it. I'm happy? So and so.