April is Jazz Appreciation Month, designated by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History as a time to celebrate the legacy of jazz. April was designated Jazz Appreciation Month in part because so many legendary jazz artists were born in April.
To celebrate JAM, WDUQ will post a weekly music list celebrating a notable jazz artist born that week. This week: tenor sax legend Stanley Turrentine.
Turrentine was born into a musical family in Pittsburgh, Penn. — a city long noted for its rich jazz history and output of future jazz masters. His father played sax, his mother played piano, and his brother Tommy played trumpet. Turrentine had a deep, warm, soulful tone rooted in the blues. Over time, he moved from straight-ahead jazz to soul-jazz to R&B and pop-laced crossover tunes. No matter what style he played, a touch of the blues could always be found, and a note of pretension could never be heard.
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