Mark Turner Quartet
Lathe of Heaven
ECM ***
Mark Turner is everywhere at the moment it seems and no wonder given the saxophonist’s range and artistry and wide appeal for the cool and hard bop panoply of styles he’s moulded into his own sound. The Ohio-born 48-year-old is on the forthcoming Tom Harrell record Trip, as well as displaying exuberant form on the well received Stefano Bollani album Joy in Spite of Everything. Earlier in the year Turner also appeared, possibly best of all on the jaw-dropping Billy Hart release One is the Other (and the third track of Lathe of Heaven, ‘Ethan’s Line’, refers to The Bad Plus’ Ethan Iverson who is also on that Hart record). There is a strong connection to the Hart record beside this link with ‘Sonnet for Stevie’, here the penultimate track of an album comprised of Turner compositions featuring too in a snug new version.
Lathe of Heaven finds Turner debuting as a leader for ECM, and here he’s with Vijay Iyer trio drummer Marcus Gilmore, bassist Joe Martin, who Turner has played with for years, and Avishai Cohen (the trumpeter not the bassist as it’s pretty vital to note). A studio album recorded at Avatar in New York in June last year the title track-naming relates to a 1970s sci-fi novel not by L. Ron incidentally (probably just as well!) but by the Tolkien-inspired Ursula K. Le Guin, and there’s also another sci-fi reference in the tune ‘The Edenist’.
Turner really digs deep on ‘Ethan’s Line’, and there’s a sense of huge exploration in his tenor playing by this point of the album, the open feel enabled (or impinged depending on your point of view) by chordal instrument freedom, very noticeable by here. Cohen’s slightly tart trumpet adds some useful play-it-down atmosphere, and Martin plays very softly at the beginning of ‘Sonnet for Stevie’ with lots of elasticity sliding up and down the fingerboard of his double bass as his solo intro develops, Gilmore dropping in with whispery brushes and then languorous sax from Turner. ‘Brother Sister 2’, the final track, finds Turner at his most emotional, and there’s a good deal of shifting around and different tempi running simultaneously from drums and bass set against sax, which all goes to provide interest and intriguingly overcast atmospheres.
The Mark Turner quartet… Joe Martin, above left, Mark Turner, Marcus Gilmore, and Avishai Cohen. Photo: John Rogers/ECM
Released on Monday 8 September