I started taking stand up bass lessons. My teacher doesn't charge me because he's family. I decided to pay him in cds of jazz I like. I am a generation younger than my teacher. I am well aware of the fact that, if some young blood a generation younger than me gave me a cd and said, try this on for size, old man... I would be liable to say, 'listen tadpole, I've been feeling froggy free time since before you could lick a housefly, ya dig?' What I'm saying is that this presents a challenge, trying to elbow my way into a dialogue talking about records of greats - past and present - with someone who's older and much wiser than myself. One sure thing is to get your teacher anything released on the blue note label, particularly stuff from the 1960s. In the local record store digging in the crates seeing what I could find, I came across a used copy of this cd for $3.99. Turrentine is from Pittsburgh, so I shoulda shelled out the fiver for the cd just based on that. Still, I felt I needed to put it to the test, and I asked the friendly sales clerk to point me to the listening station where I could sample this cd to see if this collection of songs was legit. I only needed less than ten seconds to know, oh yea, this is legit alright. This is more than legit. This is, 'they don't make em like they used to' type of territory here. I went to my lesson the next day and we worked on playing bass along to the last track, which is a real beauty. They all are on this one. Dig it. Coltrane released a cd of all ballads in 1963, my teacher told me, and after the success of that, record execs strung together recordings from of greats doing ballads culled from different sessions along their careers and released em as stand alone cds. Miles D has a few to his name. This one of Turrentine's is truly lovely. 

_DJ Alibi