STANLEY TURRENTINE — Sugar

Jazz music community with review and forums

STANLEY TURRENTINE - Sugar cover
3.00 | 3 ratings | 2 reviews
Buy this album from MMA partners

Album · 1971

Tracklist

A1 Sugar 10:00
A2 Sunshine Alley 11:00
B Impressions 15:30

CD reissue bonus track:
Sugar (Live) 14:29

Line-up/Musicians

- Stanley Turrentine / tenor saxophone
- Freddie Hubbard / trumpet
- George Benson / guitar
- Ron Carter / bass
- Lonnie Liston Smith / electric piano (track 1)
- Billy Kaye / drums (tracks 1-3)
- Butch Cornell / organ (tracks 2-3)
- Richard "Pablo" Landrum / congas (tracks 2-3)
- Hubert Laws / flute (track 4)
- Hank Crawford / alto saxophone (track 4)
- Johnny "Hammond" Smith / organ, electric piano (track 4)
- Billy Cobham / drums (track 4)
- Airto Moreira / percussion (track 4)

About this release

CTI Records – CTI 6005 (US)

Sony Reissue in 2002, 2010. Includes 1 bonus track.

Recorded at Van Gelder Studios, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, November, 1970

Thanks to snobb, dreadpirateroberts for the updates

Buy STANLEY TURRENTINE - SUGAR music

More places to buy jazz & STANLEY TURRENTINE music

STANLEY TURRENTINE SUGAR reviews

Specialists/collaborators reviews

js
Tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine spent most of his career mixing jazz with RnB on records that ranged from highly regarded soul jazz to outright pop and disco fluff. His 1971 release, “Sugar”, fortunately falls more in the former style than the latter and features some nice grooves for fans of the classic soul jazz sound. In a typical mix of styles from that period you get hard bop swing on the title track “Sugar”, jazzy proto funk on “Sunshine” and hard bop driven by groovy double time congas on “Impressions”. If you get the CD re-issue you also get a bonus live version of “Sugar” that rocks harder than the original and also breaks down into solo spots for superb performances by Freddie Hubbard and George Benson. All of the playing throughout this CD is excellent, and each track features lengthy solos that allow Turrentine and the others to really stretch out. The make or break for this album is its "CTI sound" which is a little more smooth in its extra reverb and compression than your more usual gritty sounding soul jazz outing. Whether this sound is cool 70s kitsch or just plain phony depends on your perspective.
dreadpirateroberts
On ‘Sugar’ Turrentine plays it smoother.

Too smooth? For me, it almost is. The album has a nice laid back feel, but it’s almost languid at times. The standard formula for many jazz albums, where solos are traded off between key players, is held to here, with the signature riff of the title track ‘Sugar’ revisited like bookends in the track. Turrentine’s first solo in the song is his most inspired, in what is probably the strongest cut on the record. Again, with much of CTI output from the early 1970s, the focus can be on ensemble playing and the impressive synergy between players and ‘Sugar’ is no different there, in that you have Hubbard, Benson and Carter as sidemen to name a few.

Soul Jazz is a nice genre for this album, as the focus is on that feel or sound, and Turrentine’s playing here is even sensual at times, perhaps no surprise considering the cover. ‘Sunshine Alley’ is a fair song, with a nice organ solo and some quintessential soloing from Hubbard toward the end, but doesn’t grab me. Perhaps the reasonably sedate, but by no means poor, drumming from Kaye adds to this feel.

‘Impressions’ is where things are kicked up a notch. You get more of a bop feel to Turrentine’s cover of the Coltrane song, and his soloing is more frenetic, the rest of the band feeding off this. Especially nice in this track is Carter’s bass, always solid but at times making his presence known by throwing in some interesting runs and flourishes.

Overall, it’s fine playing that offers a smooth, soul-inspired set of songs, with the standout ‘Sugar’ being the highpoint of an album that has no real flaws for me, save for being a little too smooth. While it doesn’t have strings of excessive overdubbing, the mood and playing doesn’t shift a lot between tracks and only the title track really stays with me. Three stars, a good album, with great playing, but not a favourite for me.

The reissue also includes a live cut of the title track, altering the line-up by adding Cobham on the kit and Hank Crawford on Alto, among others, and providing a harder, better version of the song.

Members reviews

No STANLEY TURRENTINE SUGAR reviews posted by members yet.

Ratings only

  • Fant0mas

Write/edit review

You must be logged in to write or edit review

JMA TOP 5 Jazz ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
A Love Supreme Post Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
Kind of Blue Cool Jazz
MILES DAVIS
Buy this album from our partners
The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady Progressive Big Band
CHARLES MINGUS
Buy this album from our partners
Blue Train Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners
My Favorite Things Hard Bop
JOHN COLTRANE
Buy this album from our partners

New Jazz Artists

New Jazz Releases

Green Puma / Tropical Dandy Jazz Related Rock
THE LINK QUARTET
Buy this album from MMA partners
Vinny Golia Quintet : Can You Outrun Them? 21st Century Modern
VINNY GOLIA
Buy this album from MMA partners
Bow Code Fusion
SAMPO HIUKKANEN
Buy this album from MMA partners
Anthem For No Man’s Land Jazz Related Improv/Composition
ANDREAS SCHAERER
Buy this album from MMA partners
Cabaret Eclectic Fusion
MARIUS NESET
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Jazz Online Videos

Paper Plane Pilot
MIKE DE SOUZA
js· 8 minutes ago
Green Puma
THE LINK QUARTET
js· 11 minutes ago
Heavy Cream
SAMPO HIUKKANEN
js· 2 hours ago
Sunday afternoon
FURIO DI CASTRI
snobb· 15 hours ago
Harmônicos
FABIANO DO NASCIMENTO
js· 1 day ago
More videos

New JMA Jazz Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Jazz News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us