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CTI Records 40th Anniversary Celebration Continues

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MASTERWORKS JAZZ continues the celebration of the 40th anniversary of CTI Records, the beloved jazz label founded in 1970 by producer Creed Taylor with the release of 4 more classic reissues available on April 12, 2011. They include: George Benson's Beyond the Blue Horizon, Freddie Hubbard's First Light, Don Sebesky's Giant Box and Stanley Turrentine's Salt Song. The reissues are packaged in eco-friendly softpack sleeves that replicate the original gatefold LP design and their iconic covers most with photos by Pete Turner.

George Benson's Beyond the Blue Horizon (1971) was his label debut with CTI. It is considered to be one of his best records. AllMusic.com calls it “a superb jazz session ... a must-hear for all aficionados of Benson's guitar."

Freddie Hubbard's First Light (1971) was the 1972 Grammy® winner for Best Jazz Performance by a Group, the first Grammy® to be won by a CTI artist. The acclaimed CTI arranger/orchestrator, Don Sebesky, was a nominee for Best Instrumental Arrangement for the album's “Lonely Town" track. Hubbard was subsequently named Trumpeter of the Year in the 1973 & 1974 DownBeat Readers Poll.

Three-time Grammy Award® winner Don Sebesky is in the spotlight with Giant Box (1973), a 1974 Grammy® nominee in two categories—Best Jazz Performance by a Big Band and Best Instrumental Arrangement (for the album's opening track “Firebird/Birds of Fire"). This ambitious project, originally a two-LP box set, showcases a who's-who of CTI greats—Airto Moreira, George Benson, Billy Cobham, Paul Desmond, Joe Farrell, Freddie Hubbard, Milt Jackson, Hubert Laws and Grover Washington, Jr.

Stanley Turrentine's Salt Song, with arrangements by the Grammy®-winning Eumir Deodato, is highly regarded for its eclectic and signature CTI fusion sound emphasizing Turrentine's soulful playing.

Sony MASTERWORKS Jazz kicked off the 40th anniversary celebration with the release of CTI Records: The Cool Revolution, a deluxe 4-CD multi-artist box set retrospective in the Fall. Receiving rave reviews The Associated Press dubbed it ..."the most comprehensive anthology to date" and NPR said it was ..." as striking a portrait of the Jazz World in the '70s as you'll find anywhere."

Also released in the Fall 2010 was the double-CD restoration of California Concert: The Hollywood Palladium (1971) which included 90-minutes of music rarely heard and never before available. It is the most complete version of the historic Hollywood Palladium all-star concert recorded July 18, 1971. It doubles the content of the original five-song LP release with five additional tracks—three of them previously unreleased—and restores the original concert sequence for the first time. Creed Taylor hand-picked a dream team of CTI artists for the occasion: Freddie Hubbard, Hubert Laws, Hank Crawford, Stanley Turrentine, George Benson, Johnny Hammond, Ron Carter, Billy Cobham and Airto Moreira. Liner notes are by multi-Grammy winning musician-producer Bob Belden who says California Concert: The Hollywood Palladium ..."ranks up there with the greatest jazz concerts of all time..."

In the 1970s, CTI, its music, its style and its discriminating quality transformed contemporary jazz. The roster worked almost like a repertory company, in which great musicians took turns in the spotlight and accompanying each other. The albums they and their colleagues created set new standards in their look as well as their sound. “[Creed Taylor's] plan was ingeniously simple, yet famously maverick: record top-tier musicians, keeping their artistic integrity intact while also making their art palatable to the people. CTI thus achieved that rare balance of jazz and commercialism," writes Dan Ouellette in the liner notes. CTI surpassed the majors and fellow indies to be named the #1 Jazz Label of 1974 by Billboard. The immediate success of CTI's recordings has echoed across the decades in a profound influence on jazz, pop, R&B and hip-hop.

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