A “group portrait” of the performers on the album being discussed (courtesy of Braithwaite & Katz)
A little less than a month ago, Capri Records released a limited-edition album entitled Mark Turner Meets Gary Foster. Foster plays alto saxophone, and back in the late Sixties he had worked with tenor saxophonist Warne Marsh on sessions that would eventually show up on Marsh’s album Ne Plus Ultra. Marsh, in turn, was best known for his “Cool School” collaborations with another alto saxophonist, Lee Konitz, and pianist Lennie Tristano. Turner, on the other hand, is about 40 years younger than Foster; and his link to Turner somewhat parallels Turner’s link to Marsh, Konitz, and Tristano, who collaborated on some of the most adventurous jazz albums of the Fifties.
Back when I was beginning to get serious about collecting jazz recordings, one my most significant acquisitions was the Mosaic limited-edition box set entitled The Complete Atlantic Recordings of Lennie Tristano, Lee Konitz & Warne Marsh. To say that Tristano was ahead of his time is the height of understatement. When Tristano first began making recordings in the late Forties, Gunther Schuller described one as being “too far ahead of its time.” Given that Schuller was as much at home with the atonality of the Second Viennese School as he was with bebop at its most adventurous, his reaction to Tristano was seriously eyebrow-raising!
Mark Turner Meets Gary Foster thus amounts to a tribute album recognizing the many ways in which Tristano, Konitz, and Marsh “changed the rules” in unexpected ways that new generations of listeners would find inspiring. The album is a two-CD set that presents only seven compositions, each of which is given seriously inventive improvisations. For all of those performances, Turner and Foster are joined by Putter Smith on bass and Joe LaBarbera on drums.
Two of the tracks are composed by Tristano, “Lennie’s Pennies,” a far-out take on Arthur Johnston’s song “Pennies from Heaven,” and “317 East 32nd,” both of which were recorded by Tristano, Konitz, and Marsh during a concert in Toronto in July of 1952. Konitz and Marsh are each represented by a single track, the former by “Subconscious-Lee” (which may, or may not, be related to “Sound-Lee,” both of which date back to the late Forties) and the latter by “Background Music.” There is also “’Teef,” a track of similar vintage by Sonny Red (Sylvester Kyner). The remaining tracks are adventurous takes on two familiar standards, Harold Arlen’s “Come Rain or Come Shine” and Bob Haggart’s “What’s New?”
Those encountering the Tristano legacy for the first time are likely to react somewhat the way in which, at least in the script for Amadeus, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II first reacted to the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (“too many notes”). It takes a while for the ear to adjust itself to textures that are so thick that one can barely pick out the familiar tune behind them. Even those that have become accustomed to “parsing” Charlie Parker’s inventive flights are likely to be floored by first contact with Tristano. Not only is he all over the map, but also the map is far larger than one might have expected!
Nevertheless, as I have discovered through my own listening experiences, these are improvisations that gradually grow on you, if you are willing to let them do so. In that case Mark Turner Meets Gary Foster is likely to appeal as a significant bridge from the present to a past that is now over half a century distant. Personally, I enjoyed crossing that bridge; but I have always been fascinated with how the past informs the present!
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