Stanley Turrentine: Rough 'n' Tumble (Blue Note)
Areissue of one of Turrentine's archetypal Blue Notes catches a master of the so-called "soul" movement in ebullient form, bringing his big, beefy meat 'n' potatoes tenor sound to bear on 1960s chart fodder by such as Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Burt Bacharach and Anthony Newley. It's better than this would suggest, mainly because Turrentine plays well and he has some blue riband jazzmen around him, including McCoy Tyner, Grant Green, Blue Mitchell and Pepper Adams. Duke Pearson's rather functional arrangements don't give them as much space as they deserve, but they take their opportunities in appropriate style - there's some pentecostal piano from Tyner, Mitchell is commanding, Green and Turrentine sanctified preachers, and the ensemble is crispness personified.
Ray Comiskey
Ravi Coltrane: From The Round Box (RCA Victor)
The problem with Coltrane is not that he's the son of a great saxophonist father; it's that he's a very competent saxophonist and no more. Here he takes a back seat, in terms of quality of invention, to an excellent rhythm section dominated - as is the album - by pianist Geri Allen, whose authoritative ideas and sheer class would make her shine anywhere; with the marvellously flexible James Genus (bass) and Eric Harland (drums) to help, she's outstanding. Sharing the front line with Coltrane is Ralph Alessi (trumpet/flugelhorn) whose solo work is better sustained than the leader's sometimes meandering lines. The saxophonist plays best on Shorter's Blues A La Carte, Monk's Mood and Alessi's Irony; perhaps significantly, these offer probably the disc's strongest basic material.
Ray Comiskey
