Rhyme and Reason, the stunning new double album by trumpeter
Jason Palmer and his quartet, features spirited playing from Palmer,
saxophonist Mark Turner, bassist Matt Brewer, and drummer Kendrick Scott.
Boasting nearly two hours of expansive, breathtaking original music, the
recording will be released March 1, 2019 thanks to the groundbreaking new
non-profit Giant Step Arts, led by noted photographer and recording engineer
Jimmy Katz.
Katz launched Giant Step Arts in January 2018 in order to
provide some of the music's most innovative players the artistic and financial
opportunity to create bold, adventurous new music free of commercial
pressure.
"Jason's project epitomizes the type of music that
Giant Step Arts is seeking to foster," Katz explains. "It's extremely
creative, it's emotionally intense, everybody's solos are extraordinary - it
represents the highest level of creativity and musicianship in jazz right now.
We're collaborating with musicians who are making big statements, not just
making records. Our goal is to allow
these artists the space to prove that they are important voices within the
history of jazz."
Rhyme and Reason provides vivid evidence of the adventurous
and original music that can be created when artists are provided such integral
support. Palmer assembled a dream band and composed bold new music that allows
each of these gifted players ample space and inspiration to explore. "I
tried to write music that really captured the spirits of the players in the
band that I was able to assemble," Palmer says. "Each of these guys
were my first call musicians for this project and I was really fortunate that
they all agreed to join me."
Palmer had worked extensively with each of the album's
sidemen, though never all together. The trumpeter has been a fixture of
Turner's working band for the last three years, while his association with
Brewer dates back to their formative years in saxophonist Greg Osby's band. His
friendship and musical hook-up with Scott has endured for two decades, on the bandstand
as well as the basketball court.
Katz has also been a close collaborator, having previously
recorded Palmer's Live at Wally's series of releases, recorded at the South End
jazz institution. "Jimmy came up to Boston four or five times over the span
of an entire year, so we already shared a good camaraderie," Palmer says.
"The records I made with him were the two where I really had enough time
to make the music I wanted to. I'm really grateful to Jimmy and Dena for
providing this opportunity. It's a really noble gesture and gave me a lot of
positive initiative to help uplift this new endeavor."
Palmer draws on a range of inspirations for his
compositions, reframing them through his own singular perspective and
transforming them into unexpected forms wholly his own. Many of the
compositions are built on the work of other artists: the rhythmic pattern on
opener "Herbs in a Glass" taken from a song by August Green, the
supergroup combining rapper Common, keyboardist Robert Glasper and
drummer/producer Karriem Riggins, melded with the chord structure of Herbie
Hancock's "Tell Me a Bedtime Story." Kurt Rosenwinkel's "Dream
of the Old" was the leaping-off point for "Waltz for Diana,"
while "Mark's Place" pays homage to bandmate Mark Turner. Other
pieces are more directly drawn from Palmer's personal experience: "Blue Grotto"
is named for a stunning locale in Malta that he discovered while touring with
saxophonist Osby, while "Kalispel Bay" paints a sonic picture of a
wintry landscape in Idaho.
In the coming months, Palmer's album will be followed by
stand-out new releases by Johnathan Blake, one of the most in-demand drummers
on the scene today, leading a trio with sax great Chris Potter and bassist
Linda May Han Oh; and a surprising departure by swinging tenor master Eric
Alexander with Blake and bassist Doug Weiss. These wide-ranging sessions point
the way to Giant Step's future, with another series of concert recordings
planned for 2019 and hopes to continue the organization's work indefinitely
with the support of the jazz community.
"I've seen the industry from lots of different angles:
from the musician's perspective, from the media perspective, and from the
record label perspective," Katz explains. "In the current political
climate, I feel it's really important to support positive ideas in the arts. As
artists, it's our role to stand for the greatest aspects of American culture.
This, after all, is what has always made America great."
Trumpeter/composer/educator Jason Palmer is becoming
recognized as one of the most inventive and in-demand musicians of his
generation. He has performed with such greats as Roy Haynes, Herbie Hancock,
Jimmy Smith, Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Kurt
Rosenwinkel, Ravi Coltrane, Common, and Roy Hargrove, among others. Palmer was
a recipient of the 2014 French American Cultural Exchange Jazz Fellowship and
was named a 2011 Fellow in Music Composition by the Massachusetts Cultural
Council. In addition to performing on over 40 albums as a sideman, Palmer has
recorded eight albums under his own name and has toured over 30 countries. Palmer's
quintet has been leading the house band every weekend at Boston's historic
Wally's Jazz Café for the past twelve years, and he maintains a busy schedule
as an educator and actor, as well as the Vice President of JazzBoston. He is
currently an Assistant Professor of Ensembles and Brass at Berklee College of
Music in Boston and a Visiting Professor at Harvard University.
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