Stanley Turrentine - The Best of Stanley Turrentine (The Blue Note Years) (1989)

As the man who wrote the liner notes says, Stanley Turrentine may be the only Texas tenor player to come out of Pittsburgh -- and you can hear several of the reasons why in this distillation of his Blue Note dates from 1960 to 1966, plus a grand leap all the way to 1984. Though his sound can be heard as early as the fairly conventional "Little Sheri," the real soulful Turrentine begins to emerge in "Since I Fell for You" with the 3 Sounds, and really explodes in the splendid "River's Invitation," thanks in large part to Oliver Nelson's great chart and Herbie Hancock's irresistible comping. "Smiley Stacy" is a Les McCann blues swinger that inspires a tough, characteristically pointed solo from Turrentine and some real burning from McCann and bassist Herbie Lewis -- and he digs deeply into "God Bless the Child," with then-wife Shirley Scott acting cool and caressing on the Hammond organ. Compulsive completists will have to have the CD because it contains one unreleased track from the 1966 Turrentine octet, an uneventful cover of Max Roach's "Lonesome Lover" whose phantom status over the decades was probably just as well. The highly pleasing 1984 track "Plum" is a reunion with Jimmy Smith from the late '50s and George Benson from the CTI years; Turrentine's statement of the theme in unison with Benson creates a warm, funky Varitone-like effect. It's good to have that one in there to round out the collection.