Album: Lathe of Heaven
Artist: Mark Turner Quartet
Release Date: September 2014
Label: ECM
This is the first recording since 2001 of Mark Turner as a leader. His chordless quartet adds trumpet, bass and drums to Turner’s tenor sax.
Dubbed by the New York Times as ‘possibly jazz’s premier player,’ this is Turner’s first album for the prestigious ECM label, although he’s been an important sideman for Kurt Rosenwinkel, Jeff Ballard, Enrico Rava, and many others. Turner’s approach is cerebral, but a soul infusion is always present. The pairing with Avishai Cohen on trumpet works extraordinarily well, both together and in the intricacies of their individual solos.
The opener and title track – all six are Turner originals – has the trumpet stating the theme as the sax moves underneath and gradually Joe Martin’s bass adds a couple of notes every two bars, until Marcus Gilmore’s drums join in as Turner vigorously lifts off. Ethan’s Line invokes pianist Ethan Iverson, from The Bad Plus, with whom Turner has collaborated, and its gracious theme gives both trumpet and sax space for inspired solos.
Martin’s thoughtful bass solo begins Sonnet for Stevie, a tribute to Stevie Wonder, imbued with a blues sensitivity that Turner explores characteristically utilising the entire range of the horn using expression minus exhibitionism. Cohen’s lengthy solo is reminiscent of Miles Davis’s iconic work on ‘Kind of Blue’. The duo theme playing on Year of The Rabbit is both sensitive and precise, and Cohen delivers a marvellously soaring solo ahead of Turner’s insightful and thought-provoking improvisations.
This is a collection in mostly medium tempos, always rhythmically flexible, where intelligent ideas are brilliantly interpreted.