Creed Taylor / CTI / Ron Carter

[Funkateer]

I read somewhere that Creed Taylor built CTI around Ron Carter, and revisiting some of the great old records (Hubbard's Red Clay, Turrentine's Sugar) as a bass player, I gotta give the man huge kudos. The great players he routinely got for his records - Herbie, Cobham, Hubert Laws, George Benson, ..., and then the incredible recording quality. A lot of the classic jazz records on Blue Note, etc are frustrating to listen to as a bass player, as the bass is buried so deep. When I think about it, all of the CTI records have a great groove; guess we can thank Ron for that !

[JimK]

The 1st-ever 'Jazz' album I bought was CTI's Bad Benson...
The band-
Benson, Steve Gadd, Phil Upchurch, Kenny Barron, & Carter.

Come to think of it, a lot of my early Jazz albums were on CTI.
In one swoop, my uncle gave me Spanish Blue, All Blues, & Blues Farm.

[jerry]

Stanley Clarke also played on a lot of early CTI recordings, later on you could find a lot of early Will Lee too.

[JimK]

Joe Farrell's Moon Germs w/ Clarke, DeJohnette, & Herbie is very cool.
I also liked Clarke on Deodato's Prelude & The California Concert.

...I'm drawing a blank on the early Will Lee CTI stuff. Jerry?