Creed Taylor, Jazz Giant And Impulse! Founder Has Passed Away At The Age of 93

[GA Russell]

6 hours ago, JSngry said:

Those records were good for jazz in the sense that, yes, wider audience. 

It was my experience living in Pittsburgh in the '70s that CTI was by far the best distributed label for jazz.

[Milestones]

It took me a long time to find Blue Moses, even though it was supposedly Weston's bestselling record.  Weston, to say the least, had mixed feelings--but I'm glad I have it.  The title track is a good one (though not the best version), and I also like the closing "Marrakesh Blues."  There are exciting solos from Hubbard, Washington, and Laws (all major figures on CTI).

  

Edited August 24, 2022 by Milestones

[Rabshakeh]

8 hours ago, JSngry said:

Those records were good for jazz in the sense that, yes, wider audience. Larger audience doesn't mean that all music's audience grows equally, but it does mean that the water rose high enough so for a little while it was one nice big lake that all the fish swam in, instead of a collection of individual landlocked stock ponds. People will go to a lake for recreation. Stock ponds, not so much.

This is a good image. I may steal it.

12 hours ago, sgcim said:

plus Ed Bickert

Which record’s this?

12 hours ago, sgcim said:

the material he had Wes record

I think that, with time, those A&M Montgomerys have gotten better. I’m a big fan.

[felser]

49 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

Which record’s this?

Paul Desmond - Pure Desmond.  Great record.

[Rabshakeh]

6 minutes ago, felser said:

Paul Desmond - Pure Desmond.  Great record.

Oh. I assumed it was an unknown solo record. Still, an excuse to listen to it again.

[sgcim]

4 hours ago, Milestones said:

It took me a long time to find Blue Moses, even though it was supposedly Weston's bestselling record.  Weston, to say the least, had mixed feelings--but I'm glad I have it.  The title track is a good one (though not the best version), and I also like the closing "Marrakesh Blues."  There are exciting solos from Hubbard, Washington, and Laws (all major figures on CTI).

  

Yeah, Back when I had to have it, it wasn't on CD yet, so I got it through the mail on vinyl. I transcribed the whole thing and had my HS band play it.

They loved it! I never understood RW's hatred of it. I think it had to do with him playing the Rhodes on it, but it got such a great sound, and Freddie was smokin'.

CTI was a great gateway drug to get those kids from the church into jazz. We did Red Clay and as much Grover and Stanley T. as they could handle. One kid was transfixed by a Grover video I brought in and said,"Man, that's what I want to do with the rest of my life."

[Teasing the Korean]

In the late 1990s, those early-70s CTI albums felt very contemporary, and many of those tracks fit in so well with the downtempo electronica that seemed to be everywhere.  I remember many late nights putting on Hubert Laws' version of "Fire and Rain."  It felt like a current track.

Edited August 25, 2022 by Teasing the Korean

[Teasing the Korean]

Several years back, I e-mailed discographer Doug Payne and asked him about the color prints of the Pete Turner CTI album covers that were hyped on the inner sleeves of CTI LPs.  The price of these went from $19.50 on the earlier CTI albums to IIRC $1.50 on the later ones.  I told Doug that I had never, ever stumbled upon one of these prints in the wild, at any price, and asked him what the story was.  Doug replied that he never saw one either, and that when he interviewed Taylor, he claimed to have a storage unit full of them.  

[medjuck]

In some ways it's too bad that CTI overshadows his earlier work as a producer:  Genius + Jazz = Soul, Blues and the Abstract Truth, Out of the Cool, Africa Brass,  Jazz Samba.... 

[Teasing the Korean]

45 minutes ago, medjuck said:

In some ways it's too bad that CTI overshadows his earlier work as a producer:  Genius + Jazz = Soul, Blues and the Abstract Truth, Out of the Cool, Africa Brass,  Jazz Samba.... 

I don't think CTI overshadows Taylor's work at Verve.  Possibly impulse!, as he was involved for only a short time, and also ABC Paramount, because no one remembers that label anymore.  

So let's all enjoy a track from Lonelyville.

 

Edited August 25, 2022 by Teasing the Korean

[riddlemay]

An obit I read this morning mentions a documentary about Creed Taylor that will be coming out, financed partially by Herb Alpert. I'm excited about this. I loved so many of his records; and I say "his" because it seemed a record with his signature on it was always as much a Creed Taylor record as it was a work by the particular artist. I always hungered to know more about him than it was possible for a mere record-buying jazz fan to know.