Customer Reviews

Up at Minton's

5 star:		(3)
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If you are looking to hear Stanley Turrentine laced with strings, heavily produced with large arrangements, you will not find that here. The Sugar Man, along with Grant Green joined the Horace Parlan trio in February 1961, for an evening of smoking jazz at Minton's Playhouse in New York. Green, newly arrived in New York, has a gritty, distorted(on these albums) tone, that is not hard at all to hear that he may have influenced George Benson, during his formulative years. For me, volume 2 contains most of the highlights: Turentine, Green and company smoke on the slow improvisation "Later At Minton's" . Horace Parlan has a remarkable solo, playing very well thru an abnormal time switch by Al Harewood. Parlan is a remarkable player, by hearing these sides, one could not tell he suffered from an inability to use several fingers on his right hand. Turrentine catches fire on an nearly 15 minute version of "Love For Sale" which has a sweet latin introduction. Overall this is an incredible early Turrentine album. In my opinion, aside from his work with Jimmy Smith, Shirley Scott, and Kenny Burrell, nothing is as raw or satisfying as "Up At Minton's" which shows Stanley could play hard bop, blues and ballads as well as any tenor player at the time. A true classic

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Although Stanley is my absolute favourite among all sax players..I must admitt that I bought this one just to get my hands on a live recording with Grant Green from those early days in his career.This recording is "steaming" it is groove allover the place,,,and I am amazed how mature the playing by Stan and Grant is here ..they were only at their midtwenties when this was recorded...but most of all the music played by those 2 giants of souljazz indicates clearly that they were about to become 2 of the most soulful jazzplayers in the history of jazz..although very often neglected in jazzdictonaries from the time...Grant got the recognition by the big audience he so desperately sought ..after his death..while Stanley could enjoy being fmous during his lifetime.
This one is a must for all Turrentinre and/or Green fans or both.

I have heard only a fraction of Stan's Blue Note albums, so I don't know whether this album is unique, but it's definitely the most straight-ahead I've heard. Yeah, there's some funky and bluesy playing here, but entirely within a hard-bop context - no organ, no congas, no crossover-friendly material. (Not that there's anything wrong with those things.)

Instead we get chorus after chorus of gritty playing by Stan, Grant Green, and Horace Parlan, underpinned by the solid yet swinging combo or George Tucker and Al Harewood. We get some bebop-friendly standards like "But Not for Me" and "Broadway", beautiful ballad performances like "Summertime" and "Yesterdays", and of course lengthy blues jams. "Later at Minton's" is, as the other reviewer states, the highlight of the set.

One of the best Blue Note Stans I've heard. Check it out!