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| 1. | More Today Than Yesterday
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| 2. | Someday We'll Be Together
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| 3. | Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head
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| 4. | More Today Than Yesterday [Live]
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| 5. | Morgan
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| 6. | Leaving This Planet
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| 7. | Don't Let Me Lose This Dream
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Jazz
Charles Earland - Organ, Original Album Producer
Bernard "Pretty" Purdie - Drums
Billy Cobham - Drums
Billy Harper - Sax (Tenor)
Boogaloo Joe Jones - Guitar
Buddy Caldwell - Conga
Eddie Arkin - Guitar
Eddie Henderson - Trumpet
Gary Chandler - Trumpet
Grover Washington, Jr. - Sax (Tenor)
Harvey Mason, Sr. - Drums
Houston Person - Sax (Tenor)
Hubert Laws - Piccolo
Idris Muhammad - Drums
Jesse Kilpatrick - Drums
Jimmy Heath - Flute, Sax (Soprano)
Jimmy Lewis - Bass
Joe Henderson - Sax (Tenor)
Lawrence Killian - Percussion
Maynard Parker - Guitar
Melvin Sparks - Guitar
Rudy Copeland - Vocals
Rusty Bryant - Sax (Tenor)
Sonny Morgan - Conga
Virgil Jones - Trumpet
William Thorpe - Bass
* Bob Porter - Original Album Producer
* Gilles Margerin - Design
* Jamie Putnam - Art Direction
* Kirk Felton - Remastering
* Rudy Van Gelder - Engineer
Greatest Hits is not such a hot, or accurate, title for an album that has seven songs recorded between 1969-1974. Even if Earland's stint at Prestige during this time is reckoned to be his peak on record (as it usually is), that's not such a thorough overview of a period that saw him do about ten albums. That's particularly so as five of the seven songs here are covers of contemporary pop hits, including two versions of his renowned take on "More Today Than Yesterday" (the 1969 studio recording and a 1970 live one). "More Today Than Yesterday" is his most famous track, yet at several decades' remove it still seems as though his pop covers -- also including the Supremes' "Someday We'll Be Together" and "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" on this anthology -- do not challenge Earland's imagination as much as other material would. It's easy listening jazz, in the better sense, but not great jazz (or great pop-jazz), although a boatload of fine players help him out at various points, including guitarist Melvin Sparks, drummer Idris Muhammad, tenor saxophonist Houston Person, drummer Bernard Purdie, and (making his recording debut, according to the liner notes) Grover Washington, Jr. on the live "More Today Than Yesterday." In contrast, Earland's two originals, the cooking ten-minute "Morgan" (with Lee Morgan on trumpet, Hubert Laws on piccolo, and Billy Cobham on drums) and "Leaving This Planet" (with Joe Henderson on tenor sax), are more ear-stretching and satisfying. "Morgan"'s good straight-ahead jazz, while "Leaving This Planet" is a quirky yet interesting detour into Stevie Wonder-influenced fusion, complete with cosmic vocal philosophizing and moogs aplenty. The disc concludes with a good previously unreleased live 11-minute cover of "Don't Let Me Lose This Dream" (mainly known as an Aretha Franklin track) from 1970, again with Grover Washington, Jr. on sax. ~ Richie Unterberger , All Music Guide
Charles Earland
Active Decades: '60s, '70s, '80s and '90s
Born: May 24, 1941 in Philadelphia, PA
Died: Dec 11, 1999 in Kansas City, MO
Genre: Jazz
Styles: Jazz-Funk, Soul-Jazz, Hard Bop, Jazz Blues, Mainstream Jazz
Charles Earland came into his own at the tail end of the great 1960s wave of soul-jazz organists, gaining a large following and much airplay with a series of albums for the the Prestige label. While heavily indebted to Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff, Earland came armed with his own swinging, technically agile, light-textured sound on the keyboard and one of the best walking-bass pedal techniques in the business. Though not an innovative player in his field, Earland burned with the best of them when he was on.
Earland actually started his musical experiences surreptitiously on his father's alto sax as a kid, and when he was in high school, he played baritone in a band that also featured fellow Philadelphians Pat Martino on guitar, Lew Tabackin on tenor, and yes, Frankie Avalon on trumpet. After playing in the Temple University band, he toured as a tenor player with McGriff for three years, became infatuated with McGriff's organ playing, and started learning the Hammond B-3 at intermission breaks. When McGriff let him go, Earland switched to the organ permanently, forming a trio with Martino and drummer Bobby Durham. He made his first recordings for Choice in 1966, then joined Lou Donaldson for two years (1968-69) and two albums before being signed as a solo artist to Prestige. Earland's first album for Prestige, Black Talk!, became a best-selling classic of the soul-jazz genre; a surprisingly effective cover of the Spiral Starecase's pop/rock hit "More Today Than Yesterday" from that LP received saturation airplay on jazz radio in 1969. He recorded eight more albums for Prestige, one of which featured a young unknown Philadelphian named Grover Washington, Jr., then switched to Muse before landing contracts with Mercury and Columbia. By this time, the organ trio genre had gone into eclipse, and in the spirit of the times, Earland acquired some synthesizers and converted to pop/disco in collaboration with his wife, singer/songwriter Sheryl Kendrick. Kendrick's death from sickle-cell anemia in 1985 left Earland desolate, and he stopped playing for awhile, but a gig at the Chickrick House on Chicago's South Side in the late '80s brought him out of his grief and back to the Hammond B-3. Two excellent albums in the old soul-jazz groove for Milestone followed, and the '90s found him returning to the Muse label. Earland died of heart failure on December 11, 1999, the morning after playing a gig in Kansas City; he was 58.
--- Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide |
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