Trombonist
and composer Steve Turre shows off his full spectrum of sounds on his latest
album, Colors for the Masters. The album's ten songs, evenly split between jazz
standards and original tunes that carry the torch for the tradition, offer a
dazzling array of hues played in tribute to and alongside some of the elders
that have inspired Turre. The leader's own trombone virtuosity is only one
color in a palette that also includes a variety of mutes and his wholly
original conch shell artistry.
Colors for
the Masters, due out August 26 on Smoke Sessions Records, teams Turre with a
rhythm section of legendary elders, each of whom shaped the trombonist's
distinctive voice: pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Jimmy
Cobb. On four tunes the band is joined by saxophonist Javon Jackson, like Turre
an alumni of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers; and for the album's final tune, a
stirring rendition of Jobim's "Corcovado" on which Turre shows off
his innovative shell playing, virtuoso percussionist Cyro Baptista also joins
in. Together, they pay electrifying homage to other, departed luminaries like
John Coltrane, J.J. Johnson, and Thelonious Monk.
"These
are masters that I've always wanted to play with," Turre explains. While
he has shared the stage with each of them over the years in various bands and
all-star configurations, he says, "I've never had them play my music to
hear what their mastery would bring to it. I wanted to hear how their
interpretations would open up new avenues of expression to me."
The results
shine through in the individual and collective playing throughout Colors for
the Masters. Those avenues open up through the grooving, funky swing that the
whole band brings to the album's opening tracks, "Taylor Made," which
Turre wrote under the blues-drenched influence of two of his mentors, Ray
Charles and Art Blakey. They're evident in the heart-wrenchingly emotive
soloing of Barron on Turre's gorgeous, aching ballad "Quietude," or
Ron Carter's stentorian, bass-register solo on Wayne Shorter's frenetic
"United."
The
opportunity for expressiveness that Turre was searching for is seized through
Cobb's whispering, delicate brushwork on Monk's "Reflections" as well
as on the full-throttle swing and brisk, rapid-fire soloing he unleashes on
J.J. Johnson's "Coffee Pot." You can hear it in Jackson's fluid,
cascading lines on "JoCo Blue," a simmering blues that Turre wrote in
tribute to the great John Coltrane.
Though he
knew this veteran group would bring their magic to any music that he set in
front of them, a few of the pieces were specially written or chosen for the
occasion. "Coffee Pot" was on the program of a J.J. Johnson tribute
that Turre led at the Indianapolis Jazz Festival in 2014, which also included
Jackson in the band. Most obviously, there's "Mellow D for R.C.," a
bold mid-tempo tune penned with Carter's familiar gifts in mind. "What
needs to be said about Ron?" Turre asks rhetorically. "He's a grand
master. I was delighted and thrilled and at the same time humbled to play with
him. He gives you such a foundation."
Turre heaps
similar praise upon his other bandmates. "Jimmy's beat is timeless,"
he says of Cobb, best known for his stint with Miles Davis that included the
recording of the landmark Kind of Blue. He also marvels at "Kenny's touch,
sensitivity and nuance, and the colors that he plays."
While he
modestly deflects praise onto his collaborators for the session, Turre himself
has long been lauded as one of the modern champions of his instrument, whether
accompanying Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Woody Shaw and Lester Bowie or playing
between the laughs through his 30-plus year stint as part of the Saturday Night
Live band. On this album he pays homage to one of his idols, J.J. Johnson
("to the trombone what Charlie Parker is to the saxophone") and shows
off his own wide-ranging virtuosity and depth of feeling, wringing touching
melodicism from "When Sunny Gets Blue," navigating intricate modal
playing on the title track, or spinning off darting, barbed licks on
"United" -- a song he recorded with Woody Shaw, but without the solo
spot he typically had on live dates.
Turre's
plunger solo on "When Sunny Gets Blue" not only shows off one of the
most beautiful colors in his vivid musical crayon box, it is in a way another
nod to the continuum of the jazz tradition. While a member of the Thad
Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, Turre found himself playing next to Quentin
"Butter" Jackson, who had taken over the plunger chair in Duke
Ellington's Orchestra from Tricky Sam Nanton. Turre also shows off his Harmon
mute playing on the melody of "Corcovado" and the solo on "Mellow
D for R..C;" his solo on the latter features the cup mute.
Then there's
the conch shells, the instrument that Turre calls "the most ancient of
horns" and that he largely introduced to the jazz idiom. He shows off his
ability to moan the blues on the seashells on Jobim's classic
"Corcovado" to close the album -- even playing two shells at once,
echoing the show-stopping antics of his earliest mentor, Rahsaan Roland Kirk.
"I'm
still trying to grow," Turre concludes. "I'm very particular about
how I present my music. I have a certain feeling and a certain direction in
mind, and everybody on this record is in the same frame of mind about what jazz
is and what this music means to them."
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