Biography
Tommy Turrentine pursued a career that ran alongside that of his younger sibling Stanley for a number of years. Early in his professional life he worked with Benny Carter in 1946, spent the period from 1952 to 1955 alongside Earl Bostic, and joined Charles Mingus in 1956; he also performed in the big bands of Billy Eckstine, Dizzy Gillespie, and Count Basie. A measure of visibility came when he shared the bandstand with his brother in the well-documented Max Roach ensemble of 1959–1960. During the first years of the following decade he made his only date as a leader, issued on the Time label, and contributed to sessions fronted by Horace Parlan, Jackie McLean, Sonny Clark, Lou Donaldson, and Stanley Turrentine, after which he stepped away from music and slipped from public view. As a hard-bop trumpeter he possessed both skill and the potential for greater recognition.