Best CTI records

[Teasing the Korean]

This is my rule of thumb:

Any album on CTI pre-1975 without Bob James involvement is going to be at least good.

My favorites involve Deodato and Don Sebesky, usually the ones with two long, introspective, delirious tracks per side.  

For example, this:

 

Edited August 11, 2018 by Teasing the Korean

[Daniel A]

Some early CTI from the A&M days, like Paul Desmond's 'Summertime' was excellent. I agree with general Bob James rule, but there are exceptions, like Hubert Laws' 'Morning Star'. 

[Teasing the Korean]

2 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

Some early CTI from the A&M days, like Paul Desmond's 'Summertime' was excellent. I agree with general Bob James rule, but there are exceptions, like Hubert Laws' 'Morning Star'. 

Everything I've heard with Bob James is too "happy" and "peppy." Are there exceptions? What I love about CTI early 70s albums is the dark, introspective sound.  They are like the soundtracks to industrial films about ecology and solar energy.

[felser]

3 minutes ago, Daniel A said:

Some early CTI from the A&M days, like Paul Desmond's 'Summertime' was excellent. I agree with general Bob James rule, but there are exceptions, like Hubert Laws' 'Morning Star'. 

I basically agree, though even the Bob James-era ones were notably better than the David Matthews-era ones that followed.  

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Oh, I like Bob James on Kudu.

Dunno how he got where he got with Taylor from that LP on ESP, but he did.

MG

[felser]

1 minute ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Everything I've heard with Bob James is too "happy" and "peppy." Are there exceptions?

Not that I can think of.  Then Matthews pushed it towards the disco dance floor.  And I don't dislike good disco, but his weren't that...

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

18 minutes ago, Teasing the Korean said:

Everything I've heard with Bob James is too "happy" and "peppy." Are there exceptions? What I love about CTI early 70s albums is the dark, introspective sound.  They are like the soundtracks to industrial films about ecology and solar energy.

Not a CTI job, but do you know this one? It's not the same as what he was doing at about the same time (1973) for Kudu.

 

I think that's why it didn't sell particularly well.

MG

[Mark Stryker]

2 hours ago, mikeweil said:

Thanks for pointing these out, but I'm not the one who can afford one sonic upgrade after another .....

Forgot to mention Kenny Burrell's God Bless the Child - my favourite of them all, and the only one that gets regular play.

Oh, man. Not sure how I left that out. It's among the Burrell records I single out for praise in my chapter on him. Sorry, for the oversight Kenny!

[Daniel A]

I am hesitant to mention it here since I am unsure that it will really happen (I've also got three kids, a day job and a house to take care of) but a friend at Sony here in Sweden has invited me to do a Youtube show to market CTI recordings. I "only" have to come up with some good stores and select the music... 

[JSngry]

50 minutes ago, The Magnificent Goldberg said:

Dunno how he got where he got with Taylor from that LP on ESP, but he did.

Quincy Jones.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_James_(musician)

 

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

12 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Quincy Jones.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_James_(musician)

 

Oh, I see he was playing piano for Sarah Vaughan for years and made his ESP album in the middle of that, took time off to work with Qunicy Jones on hit albums like 'Walkin' in space' & 'Gula matari', which I never bothered with.

Now it makes sense. Thanks.

MG

[JSngry]

Walking  In Space was a big chart record (by the time I got around to buying a copy, it had that "Gold Record" sticker on it), surprised you've not checked it out yet! It's actually pretty good, imo, and "Killer Joe" is pretty much the definite version imo (I'll stand by that if anybody thinks I'm just profilin'). I don't know how thing were in your town, but I used to hear it on the radio quite a bit.

Hurt me slow, please Joe. That's some pimp fantasy lyrics for a song about a pimp, and check out Ray Brown, cool joe, mean joe. I mean, with the enlightenment we've had about female empowerments and pimp mental brutalities in the last half century or so, this thing is pretty brutally anachronistic, but you know, it was a hit and people liked it a lot.

And ok, talk about painting through music, the way this thing starts out in one way and then works its way into Eric Gale (and I think we all love Eric Gale to one degree or another) & then Hubert Laws' tenor solo (the Yang to his flute Yin) and then back again...talk about serving markets and keeping the standards hig, hey, CreedTaylor & Quincy Jones, a long history, and rightly so.

 

CTI

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

It didn't mean a thing over here - not even those Kudu albums sold big here until a few years later.

Probably only R&B fans got them. I bought 'em as soon as they came out. But, as I keep saying, I don't like stuff that's too much like jazz

MG

[JSngry]

But you like Billboard charts!

This one, I don't know how they segregated their jazz charts and their R&B charts back then, but my anecdotal history suggests that that one crossed over both ways, both on the radio and on the turntable.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

30 minutes ago, JSngry said:

But you like Billboard charts!

This one, I don't know how they segregated their jazz charts and their R&B charts back then, but my anecdotal history suggests that that one crossed over both ways, both on the radio and on the turntable.

Yeah, but there were no UK music papers that published the Billboard R&B album charts. To see them, you'd have to buy imported copies of Billboard. I could afford it in the mid sixties, but later... it was the early eighties when the little place I used to order US CDs got the Billboard every week and gave it to me after he'd finished with it. So if you didn't hear about it... you saw it in the shops - yes, it WAS in the shops, without great queues trying to get it, but not played in shops or on any radio I listened to. So... passed me by.

With CTI and KUDU, they were putting out albums by people I already had a fair bit of - J H Smith, Grover on Prestige, Hank C, Gale & etc. No hesitation about getting them and without a listen first.

Yes 'Walkin in space' made #56 on the pop charts, #6 on R&B. I've a strong recollection based on no evidence I can find, that Billboard used different record shops for R&B, country, pop, Latin, classical and Gospel music. I think that's why Savoy & Malaco did so well in the gospel chart before they digitised data capture - you'd go into a Christian bookshop in New York or wherever and you'd see a load of K7s on Word, Light and other labels like that but little on Savoy - because Savoy & Malaco sold through record shops, because they were flogging other kinds of music, too, and had those connections since long before, but not bookshops, and Billboard didn't ask bookshops about record sales. My theory, anyway.

MG

[danasgoodstuff]

It should surprise no one here that I'm not a big fan of CTI generally, but I do like some - the aforementioned Outback, Moon Germs, Sunflower, Concerto, and I'm sure I've forgotten something.  Not FH or ST on the label generally, not horrid just kinda lifeless.

[GA Russell]

I like Gilberto with Turrentine and Stone Flower very much, but I don't often play the few others I have.

In regard to the A&Ms, I love both the Jobims.

[Teasing the Korean]

On August 11, 2018 at 10:53 AM, The Magnificent Goldberg said:

Not a CTI job, but do you know this one? It's not the same as what he was doing at about the same time (1973) for Kudu.

 

I think that's why it didn't sell particularly well.

MG

Not familiar with this one. I've never been a big fan of Kudu - the records I've heard are a little to commercial, for lack of a better word, even though I love plenty of "commercial" music.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

The Ponder is a Chess job, issued on Cadet, produced by Esmond Edwards.

MG

[JSngry]

Kudu had the best Esther Phillips records ever made, imo.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

26 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Kudu had the best Esther Phillips records ever made, imo.

Yes, though they're still not among my favourites.

MG

[Peter Friedman]

Truth be told, I found most of the CTI cover very unpleasant. Too bright and glaring and with nothing at all to do with the music. My taste in jazz covers leans to photo’s of the musicians or at least with a direct link to the music being played.

i suppose the covers on CTI albums share with the music inside that overproduced quality which fits well as an entire pqckage.

[Milestones]

I have since acquired Joe Farrell's Moon Germs.  Farrell is a highly under-valued saxophonist, and I mainly know him from work with Corea and Elvin.  It looks like he did some pretty impressive work on CTI, and you certainly can't fault the guys in his bands--in this this case, Hancock, Clarke, and DeJohnette. Bottom line, superb playing and composing by Joe.

 

[Teasing the Korean]

3 hours ago, Peter Friedman said:

My taste in jazz covers leans to photo’s of the musicians or at least with a direct link to the music being played.

Completely the opposite.  I don't want to see pictures of musicians on covers.  I want to see art, architecture, design, or beautiful young women.

1950s album covers ar the BEST.

Edited August 13, 2018 by Teasing the Korean

[Milestones]

Some interesting covers on Jim Hall records, especially when he was with Telarc.  Why not Matisse paintings?  When music or musicians were presented, they were abstract.

And how about the spooky eyeball gazing over geometric shapes on Farrell's Moon Germs?

 

Edited August 13, 2018 by Milestones