Stanley Turrentine is a jazz saxophonist whose 1970's hit ``Sugar'' established him in the popular mainstream and influenced musicians in many other genres.
Turrentine plays tenor saxophone, mixing jazz with blues, rock, rhythm and blues and pop.
``He has an astonishing impact on jazz'', his longtime Agent Robin Burgess said. ``He has had a such an enormous impact on fusion, electric jazz and organ trio music.''
Turrentine started his career playing with Ray Charles and Max Roach. His biggest hit came in 1970 with ``Sugar,'' which became something of a jazz standard, frequently performed and re-recorded by admirers.
He was raised in Pittsburgh, in a remarkabley talented muiscal family, and surrounded by music. The piano player Ahmad Jamal lived nearby, and often visited to practice on the Turrentines' upright piano. Stanley's mother played piano, his father played tenor sax and his brother Tommy played trumpet.
The Turrentine brothers played their first professional gig at the Perry Bar in Pittsburgh while still in high school, and they often performed together as adults.
Turrentine began traveling with a band when he was 16, and later joined one of Charles' early rhythm and blues groups.
He went on to play in a jazz band headed by Roach, later replacing the departing John Coltrane in Earl Bostic's band.
In the early 1960's Turrentine went solo. His blues-influenced riffs brought him commercial success with albums such as ``Stan 'The Man' Turrentine,'' ``Up at Minton's,'' and ``Never Let Me Go.''
Some fellow musicians accused himn of abandoning artistry for popular taste when ``Sugar'' brought him fame outside the jazz world.
Turrentine responded by saying he preferred mixing genres to being boxed in.
``One day, my stepson and I were alphabetizing my albums over the years, and I noticed that they categorized me as a rock and roll player on certain albums, a bee-bop player on other albums, a pop player, a fusion player,'' he once said. ``And I'm just saying... 'Gee, I'm just playing with different settings, but I'm still playing the same way.'''