CTI ALLTIME COLLECTION (60 Titles) March '25

[RiRiIII]

[CTI ALLTIME COLLECTION 1st Period (60 Titles)]

[60 masterpieces from the prestigious American jazz label CTI Records (including sub-labels KUDU and SALVATION) are now being released all at once. All titles come with a luxurious booklet that reprints the liner notes from the original Japanese LP releases.]

Including the 1st CTI record ever released: Kathy McCord

[HutchFan]

Some excellent titles in there.  Thanks for sharing the list. 

 

[felser]

Yes, nice for filling in some missing titles, thanks.  The McCord is not really jazz or even particularly close, but a nice enough album on its own terms.  More of a talented 17 year old greatly influenced by the likes of 1969-era Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins.

[RiRiIII]

You are welcome. I am trying to figure out which titles I am missing.

These are as follows:

1. Eric Gale - Forecast
2. Grant Green with Hubert Laws - The Main Attraction [Grant Green's only single leader album left on KUDU]
3. Joe Farrell - Canned Funk
4. Joe Farrell - Penny Arcade
5. Urbie Green - The Fox
6. George Benson, Joe Farrell - Benson & Farrell
7. Gerry Mulligan & Chet Baker - The Carnegie Hall Concert Vol.1 and 2
8. Kathy McCord / Kathy McCord
9. Jack Wilkins / Opal
10. George Benson / Pacific Fire
11. Johnny Hammond / The Prophet

What do you think?

Thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[HutchFan]

At some point, I hope they get around to reissuing this Roland Hanna rarity:

I've never heard it, but I would love to.

Maybe they'll get to it in the next batch?  Fingers crossed.   

 

[felser]

I was not aware of this one prior to today, can't wait to hear it.  Jackie McLean on a CTI album?  Yes please and thank you!

[bertrand]

On 2/4/2025 at 3:16 PM, felser said:

I was not aware of this one prior to today, can't wait to hear it.  Jackie McLean on a CTI album?  Yes please and thank you!

Finally!

[Kevin Bresnahan]

10 hours ago, bertrand said:

RE: Art Farmer "Live In Tokyo"

Finally!

This is up on YouTube and it's pretty good. It has a typical "large music hall" audio sound, which is not my favorite live recording venue & with this band, I was somehow expecting more musically.

[barnaba.siegel]

On 2/4/2025 at 5:24 PM, RiRiIII said:

These are as follows:

1. Eric Gale - Forecast
2. Grant Green with Hubert Laws - The Main Attraction [Grant Green's only single leader album left on KUDU]
3. Joe Farrell - Canned Funk
4. Joe Farrell - Penny Arcade
5. Urbie Green - The Fox
6. George Benson, Joe Farrell - Benson & Farrell
7. Gerry Mulligan & Chet Baker - The Carnegie Hall Concert Vol.1 and 2
8. Kathy McCord / Kathy McCord
9. Jack Wilkins / Opal
10. George Benson / Pacific Fire
11. Johnny Hammond / The Prophet

What do you think?

Those Farrell's albums are the bomb. Canned Funk is great, but Penny Arcade is 10/10 to me.

From that list "Forecast" by Eric Gale was always a disappoint one. Great crew, great year, but the music is weird - but in a good, tripy way.

[RiRiIII]

Thank you.

[Gheorghe]

I´m not very familiar with this label. We all had "Red Clay". It was THE RECORD....so great ! And I think "First Light" was also from that time. 

The other two I have is some Chet Baker with Gerry Mulligan. I didn´t have records from the first or the second on that bill, but bought it for that rhythm section with Ron Carter. Ron Carter in a rhythm section and it is "safe" for me. And Harvey Mason I knew from Hancock. Bob James is also great !!!!

[felser]

8 hours ago, Gheorghe said:

I´m not very familiar with this label. We all had "Red Clay". It was THE RECORD....so great ! And I think "First Light" was also from that time. 

The other two I have is some Chet Baker with Gerry Mulligan. I didn´t have records from the first or the second on that bill, but bought it for that rhythm section with Ron Carter. Ron Carter in a rhythm section and it is "safe" for me. And Harvey Mason I knew from Hancock. Bob James is also great !!!!

It was a very popular jazz label in the USA.  Stanley Turrentine's "Sugar" is another classic from the label.  Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, Joe Farrell, Milt Jackson and others all had good runs of albums on the label.  Many of the early albums have superior Don Sebesky arrangements on them.

[Rabshakeh]

26 minutes ago, felser said:

It was a very popular jazz label in the USA.  Stanley Turrentine's "Sugar" is another classic from the label.  

Salt Song for me. What a classic. Everything about it 

[HutchFan]

14 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

Salt Song for me. What a classic. Everything about it 

Oh yeah.

 

[JSngry]

Same 

[danasgoodstuff]

Salt Song, and Sugar for that matter, always left me cold.  And I own everything Turrentine did for BN so he's not the problem.  I kind of like the version of Speedball he did on Cherry with Milt.  My fav CTI albums are probably Outback & Moon Germs by Farrell, Concierto by Hall, and Sunflower by Milt w/Freddie.  Lots of great players on the label, but not really a fan of their overall thing.  FWIW, YMMV, etc.  Nonetheless, nice to see them available at reasonable prices for them that's interested.

Edited February 15 by danasgoodstuff

[felser]

Sunflower is a good one.  I quite like most of the Hubbard titles.  The Randy Weston is a favorite of mine.  The whole label output from the early 70's/Sebesky era grew on me as I have aged, and I own most of the titles from that era at this point, still missing most of the titles from the label from before and after that period, as the Bob James era represented a step down to me, and then the David Matthews/disco-ish era represented another big step down.  The 60's A&M titles are not easy to come by, so I don't have a lot of them.

[JSngry]

 

[Eric]

Big CTI fan.  No it's not Blue Note/Riverside/Prestige, but a 70s update to all those.  Some great artists. as mentioned above, with multiple solid albums, many of them fantastic - Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, Joe Farrell, George Benson and Milt Jackson.  Jim Hall, Paul Demond, Kenny Burrell and Randy Weston all have one-offs.  Hubert Laws and Ron Carter also have a bunch of albums, mostly straight ahead jazz (with a 70s vibe) but I am not as much a fan of these, YMMV.

Edited February 15 by Eric

[Rabshakeh]

Is Kudu getting the same treatment? Some great stuff on there, even with the rather weaker cover art and packaging. 

Some of that Benson stuff is top notch. I think Body Talk is the one for me. 

[jazzbo]

"Body Talk" is a CTI though.

[Rabshakeh]

4 minutes ago, jazzbo said:

"Body Talk" is a CTI though.

Yes. Sorry. Those two comments were intended separately.

[jazzbo]

I realize that now.

[GA Russell]

On 2/13/2025 at 10:13 AM, felser said:

It was a very popular jazz label in the USA.  

I lived in Pittsburgh at the time.  In my experience, it was by far the best distributed.

[felser]

8 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

Is Kudu getting the same treatment? Some great stuff on there, even with the rather weaker cover art and packaging.

Yes, there are Kudu titles such as the Johnny Hammond Smith and Esther Phillips.  I actually preferred the Kudu cover art overall, sometimes found the CTI cover art a little strange and creepy (or in the case of Turrentine's Sugar, more than a little strange and creepy), though the packaging was indeed lavish.  IIRC, the list price on CTI albums was a dollar higher than standard albums, no doubt to support the packaging and music production costs.