Creed Taylor Produced

August 18th, 1973 marked the day that albums produced by Creed Taylor took over the Jazz charts, a run that extended for about 8-weeks, with ten albums in the charts. Here are just a few things going on in what would be a frenetic late summer for Creed Taylor, Inc. that included a bluegrass tribute! – I bet you were not expecting that!

Led by Grover Washington, Jr. with “Soul Box” #3, “Deodato 2” at #8; Airto’s “Fingers” at #9; Freddie Hubbard’s “First Light” at #11; “Blues Farm” by Ron Carter was at #17 with #18 Hubert Laws “At Carnegie Hall”; Deodato’s “Prelude” #32; and at #36 an under appreciated “Forecast” by Eric Gale (KUDU 11); with Freddie Hubbard’s “Sky Dive” rounding out the CTI takeover at #39.

Over on the album chart, where the landscape was dominated by Pink Floyd’s “Darker Side Of The Moon” and Chicago’s “Chicago IV”, the number-1 slot had been taken by Jethro Tull’s “A Passion Play” album. The only CTI album was Deodato’s “Deodato 2” which had moved from #75 to #65. On the R&B chart, “Soul Box” was the only presence.

April 20th would see Deodato’s CTI Space Concert at the Felt Forum at Madison Square Garden in New York City. ^[1] jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_7084_2_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_7084_2_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });">http://ctproduced.com/the-story-of-the-cti-all-stars-live/#1973)).

Jazz on the Rebound?

In an extensive interview over 3 pages, Gary Cohen discussed the state of music retailing with Bill Berger, the National Merchandising Manager for Disc Records, which had 32 stores open and another 7 lined up to open for the remainder of 1973. Their first store had been in downtown Cleveland.

When asked, somewhat dismissively by Cohen, about jazz recordings, Berger said:

“I see, lately, a fairly substantial increase in jazz sales based on companies like CTI. They’ve come back and because of that, the other companies are becoming a little more productive and are releasing albums with a lot more taste than they had before.” ^[2]Record World – August 18th, 1973.

Ron Carter & Friends

1973 was a big year for maestro Carter, not only was his “Blues Farm” album in the charts, but he had played on four of the other CTI chart albums – “Soul Box”, “First Light (recorded in 1971)”, “Sky Dive (recorded in 1972)” “Hubert Laws – Carnegie Hall”. For the first time, he was voted Best Acoustic Bassist in DownBeat’s Readers Poll of 1973.

“Blues Farm” was Carter’s first album as a leader and followed on from Creed Taylor being invited by Ron to a Village Vanguard set where Ron notes that “I was developing a new concept of leader without a horn player.” ^[3]Finding The Right Notes – By Dan Ouellette, Retrac Productions, Inc. ISBN: 978-0-9899825-1-1

In March that year Carter would be part of the Freddie Hubbard and Stanley Turrentine sets at the Chicago Opera House; Chicago, Illinois, and the next night, March 4th at the Ford Auditorium in Detroit, with Herbie Hancock (el-p); Eric Gale (el-g); Ron Carter (b); Jack DeJohnette (d). The recordings from those concerts were released as “In Concert – Volume 1” (CTI 6044) and “In Concert – Volume 2” (CTI 6049) ^[4]http://ctproduced.com/the-story-of-the-cti-all-stars-live/#1973.

In August of 1973, Ron did a series of four west coast concerts under the banner of “An Evening With Ron Carter & Friends”. The concerts were produced by Ron’s brother-in-law, Ken Higgins, and included dates at the Hollywood Bowl (8/31) and the Oakland Coliseum (9/2).

In his Los Angeles Times review, Howard Lucraft said of the Hollywood Bowl appearance, they “employed their long-acclaimed technical dexterity and invention to produce a group empathy that was a fascination and a joy” and Herbie Hancock’s playing “performed exclusively at the acoustic piano (no electronics on this outing). His background phrases were a joy. His solo mood piece came slow and pensive with Delius-like reflections.” Lucraft extolled the virtues of the whole performance. ^[5]Los Angeles Times – Sept. 4th, 1973 Pg. 12 Part IV

Ron also moved home that year to West End Avenue, not far from Miles Davis’ West 73rd Street brownstone. Ron and Miles would visit regularly ^[6]Finding The Right Notes – By Dan Ouellette, Retrac Productions, Inc. ISBN: 978-0-9899825-1-1. Milestone would also release the Jim Hall, Ron Carter Duo live album “Alone Together,” recorded a year earlier at the “Jazz Adventures” concert at the Playboy Club, New York City. ^[7]https://www.discogs.com/master/265387-Jim-Hall-Ron-Carter-Duo-Alone-Together

CTI Promotes Rosica

John Rosica would start a PR Agency with wife Marilyn and Samm Kinnard, originally named RK&R, the agency would later become Rosica Communications, which is run today by his son Christopher Rosica. John was inducted into the PR Hall of Fame in the late 90’s ^[10]https://www.rosica.com/?s=%22John+Rosica%22.

The Blue Canadian

Also this week, 51 years ago, CTI started shipping the Lou Christie 45RPM/Single “Blue Canadian Rocky Dreams” to country and western radio stations with Lou Christie’s rendition of Ralph Landis’ track “Wilma Lee and Stoney,” on the flip side on Three Brothers ^[11]http://ctproduced.com/category/three-brothers/, distributed by CTI.

Interestingly, there are three known US pressings of this; only one has the “Wilma Lee and Stoney” track on the flip side ^[12]https://www.discogs.com/release/9897644-Lou-Christie-Blue-Canadian-Rocky-DreamWilma-Lee-Stoney. Lee and Stoney Cooper were a highly successful bluegrass duo who recorded some of the earliest bluegrass recordings in the 1940s ^[13]https://web.archive.org/web/20041213182428/https://www.spbgma.com/level2/wilmacooper.html. Christie would perform this and “America The Beautiful” at a Grand Ole Opry event in September ^[14]Harry Young liner notes “Lou Christie” CD reissue on Varèse Vintage (1998).

“Wilma Lee and Stoney” was a much more country-aligned cut compared to the A-side “Blue Canadian Rocky Dreams,” which was more pop-aligned. “Blue Canadian…” is such a great track though for that period and compares favorably with other country/folk-based chart successes such as America’s “A Horse With No Name” (1971), John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” and two Charlie Rich tracks also from 1973 – “Behind Closed Doors” and “The Most Beautiful Girl.”

The Lou Christie Three Brothers album contains the track “Beyond The Blue Horizon,” which turned into one of Lou Christie’s most enduring and most profitable tracks. As Lou has said, “It turned into his brownstone.” It was included in the Dustin Hoffman/Tom Cruise feature film “Rain Man” as well as others. The album was reissued in 1998 on the Varèse Vintage label and included four bonus tracks also produced by the effusive Tony Romeo ^[15]https://www.discogs.com/release/7604613-Lou-Christie-Lou-Christie-.

Blockbuster Year

As well as the albums in the charts, the various concerts including the CTI All-Stars and all the other activity, Creed Taylor, Inc. would release a number of other albums including Esther Phillips – “Black-Eyed Blues”, which featured Ron Carter on bass but also featured Tim Hinkley on piano. Hinkley and I spoke about this album a couple of years ago and I will be writing that up soon.

Also recorded in June 1973 was Hank Crawford’s “Wildflower” album, George Benson’s “Body Talk”, “Rambler” by Gabor Szabo in September; Hubbard’s “Keep Your Soul Together” in October, along with Joel Farrell’s “Penny Arcade” and the second Carter leader album “All Blues”. The pace of recording kept up for the remainder of the year.

I would give everything now to have been a fan camped out at the entrance to Rudy Van Gelder’s Englewood Cliffs studio that summer, what a year!

UPDATES:
April 4th, 2026 Updated TOC