Not Even The Sky Is The Limit article @ All About Jazz

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data-original-title=”” title=””>Lage Lund,

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data-original-title=”” title=””>Matt Brewer and percussion prodigy

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data-original-title=”” title=””>Tyshawn Sorey.

Each player here brings a different note to this live session, recorded at the Ornithology club in Brooklyn, in the late summer of 2023. Lund’s is a coolly sophisticated but not unemotional approach to comping, with a guitar tone that subtly works itself into the group fabric through percussive fragments, melodic whispers and frequent expressive solos. Brewer’s bass is lithe and bendable, but firm and reassuring when the music demands it, and Sorey seems to be in a swinging mood throughout the seven lengthy tracks.

Opening the record is the only non-original of the set: “Like A Flower Seeking The Sun,” penned by saxophonist Myron Walden. The song’s author came up on the scene at a similar period as Mark Turner and, ironically, his quartet recording of the tune from 1999 also featured the previous Turner collaborator Rosenwinkel. Turner and the group do not re-invent the obliquely shaped composition beyond recognition, but opt for a simple revisitation of the familiar melody with a sweeping pulse and a keen sense of timing in a homage-like tip of the hat to Walden. The saxophonist had already previously been the dedicatee of one of Turner’s compositions off Dharma Days, aptly titled “Myron’s World” (Turner later returned to the song with

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data-original-title=”” title=””>Ethan Iverson on their duo album Temporary Kings (ECM, 2018)).

Lund is author of three of the remaining six songs, Turner contributes two originals and Brewer one. But their compositional signatures comingle seamlessly, generating a single flowing idiom that inhabits the record. Brewer’s offering “Of Our Time” has a patient, balladic tendency at first but switches it up with fiery solos by Turner and Lund. Turner’s “Ender’s Game” is a swinging post-bop affair, driven by the type of steadfast head that Turner has perfected over the past two decades, most recently in partnership with Jason Palmer on Return From The Stars (ECM, 2022) and that album’s live iteration on Giant Step Arts, Live At The Village Vanguard (2023). Here and elsewhere, Brewer states his solos with a gift for melody and determination, propelled by Sorey’s unwavering percussion groove—never simply straight ahead, but always searching for meaningful interaction.

Bluesy undertones and an at least Americana-adjacent spirit wrap the guitarist’s “Couch” in a warm and comforting aura—true to its title. “Jimbo,” on the other hand, comes off in a frenzy with a staccato-led head that unwinds like a riddle. Here, and on “Vignette,” Lund provides inspiring changes and grooves for his cohorts to savor in expansive solo passages that shift between episodes of traditional walking bass swing and more cutting-edge types of idiomatic twists.

Brewer delivers the opening statement of “Sonnet For Stevie,” the Turner-penned album conclusion. A classy swing-number at its core, here Brewer and Sorey demonstrate the rare rhythm alchemy developed in the recent past as part of the drummer’s own trio endeavors, anticipating—with magic trick-like accuracy—Turner and Lund’s every move. It is a late highlight featuring some of the saxophonist and guitarist’s most evocative playing on the album as they bring it to a close with a bang.

Jason Palmer
The Cross Over: Live In Brooklyn
Giant Step Arts
2024

Talking about a bang; Jason Palmer’s double-disc live set The Cross Over Live In Brooklyn is a roaring tour-de-force that runs the modern jazz gamut with a total length of over two hours. In the company of Mark Turner,

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data-original-title=”” title=””>Larry Grenadier and

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data-original-title=”” title=””>Marcus Gilmore, Palmer again proves that he is one of the most cunning trumpeters on the scene today and delivers modern hard-and post-bop originals that always seem to have a trick up their sleeve.

This is old news though. Not the music, but Palmer’s rare prowess, documented again and again over a run of albums on the Giant Step Arts label from Rhyme and Reason (2019), 12 Musings For Isabella (2020) and Live From Summit Rock in Seneca Village (2022) and on to this impeccable entry. The label has proclaimed him its “signature artist”—for good reason.

Like Turner, Palmer has a knack for a brilliant composition-head, fusing the memorable and catchy with the complex, and it sounds best when the pair conspire over its execution together. This album is jam-packed with these heads. At lightning speed, Turner and Palmer harmonize over question-and-answer themes that beg for careful observation and thorough development. In close embrace with each other and backed by an interactive rhythm section that accompanies with melodic savvy, the trumpeter and saxophonist travel through the bars with determination, riding what feels like a Latin-tinged wave on “B.A.M.D.,” building more patient momentum on the mid-tempo number “Same Bird” and stacking scales in intervals of thirds and fourths on the intricately wrought “One For Fannie Lou.”

Occasionally Palmer will introduce a piece with an extended solo of up to four minutes, both as a conjuration of energies like in an invocation and as a forecast of the music to come in a summary-like overture. It is a terrific dynamic tool that separates the extended passages of highly alert and energetic quartet interplay with much-needed monophony but also showcases the trumpeter’s ability to construct a powerful narrative all on his own. “B.A.M.D.” is given such an introductory preamble, as is “One For Fannie Lou.” But for “Beware Of Captain America” Marcus Gilmore assumes this precursory role on drums, building percussive momentum before inviting Palmer to join in a narrative to take flight. Duo becomes trio with Grenadier’s bass cue just before the nine-minute mark. Speaking of Mark: Turner does not join in for the fun until after about 15 minutes, though the final six mostly belong to him and his playful but commanding saxophone articulations.

Saxophone and trumpet remain flung around one another’s lines on “For The Freedom Fighters,” first alone, then accompanied by the rhythm section. Until they separate and go their own ways, expanding in driven solo improvisation, interspersed with a bass statement, before finding their ways back to each other to interlock in another full-hearted embrace. An embrace, which —if one were looking for any room for… variation (improvement is arguably a thing of the impossible when confronted with these revelatory performances) —, could sometimes last longer or be hinted at on various occasions between the main thematic sections.

Grenadier too has a go at the prefixed monologue, on the title track “The Cross Over”—a shrewd chart essentially characterized by a motif of a dotted note and two subsequent rows of 16ths. What follows resembles the previously outlined blueprint of solo exchanges. Finally, the album culminates in the tricky juggle with a pulse alternating between rallentando and accelerando, deceptively shifting the time signature again and again on “It Very Well May Be So.” The tune sounds like something off one of the more futurist Blue Note hard bop sessions from the late ’60s, all fiery and beaming with swagger and flair.

If there is one take-away from this double album that might not have been abundantly manifest to some before, it is that Mark Turner and Jason Palmer are one of the most important double-horn sections of this jazz-age, and path-makers in their own right, much like

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data-original-title=”” title=””>Don Cherry and

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data-original-title=”” title=””>Dewey Redman of Old And New Dreams before them, and others before them. If The Cross Over is but an extended glimpse at what they can do with handful of crafty compositions at one moment in time, then there is no saying how far they can push their boundaries. For them, not even the sky seems to be the limit.

Tracks and Personnel

Live In Brooklyn

Tracks: Like A Flower Seeking The Sun (Myron Walden); Of Our Time (Matt Brewer); Ender’s Game (Mark Turner); Couch (Lage Lund); Jimbo (Lage Lund); Vignette (Lage Lund); Sonnet For Stevie (Mark Turner).

Personnel: Mark Turner: tenor saxophone; Lage Lund: guitar; Matt Brewer: double bass; Tyshawn Sorey: drums.

The Cross Over: Live In Brooklyn

Tracks: (First Set): B.A.M.D.; Same Bird; Do you Know Who YOU Are?; One for Fannie Lou; (Second Set): Beware of Captain America; For the Freedom Fighters; The Cross Over; It Very Well May Be So; More in Common.

Personnel: Jason Palmer: trumpet; Mark Turner: tenor saxophone; Larry Grenadier: bass; Marcus Gilmore: drums.

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