Mark Turner on "Moment's Notice"

BHQ at the Jazz Standard, mid-aughts (also the cover of "Quartet," 2006).
As far as I know, the Billy Hart Quartet's first release, Quartet (2006, HighNote), isn't available anywhere yet as a digital download, so if you want to get your hands on this music, you'll have to actually get your hands on physical copy (I bought mine on Amazon). 

I heard about this record and this particular solo on "Moment's Notice" from Ethan Heyenga, a young altoist and fellow Bostonian whom I informally interviewed early on during preparation for The Mark Turner Essay. He told me that when he first heard it, he started cracking up, thinking it was a joke or something, but then realized that Mark was deadly serious as the solo developed toward its chromatic, fourth-octave climax in the final chorus. 

After I heard it, I had to learn more about the circumstances of this solo, which at first seems uncharacteristic of Mark's other recorded work: a big, growling blat held through the solo break? What is that? What's going on?

Ethan Iverson was there when it happened, and clued me in to how this take came to be:
He played a bunch of terrible breaks. That’s a perfect example. I heard so many 'fails' on that break, because you’re sort of supposed to do something, right? But he played, I don’t know, half notes and they were all dumb and didn’t make any sense. I mean, so many times I’m waiting for the chainsaw to come out, because the first couple choruses of Mark Turner can be really weird sometimes.  
But then, the thing is, if I played a break that worked on “Moment’s Notice,” I’d definitely do it again. He’s not going to do it again. He’s this other kind of warrior and that’s just the way this goes ... that moment I’m really glad is on tape because it’s a great solo from top to bottom—and it’s the only time that happened.
Plus the qualifier: 
I mean, it’s always pretty good. I’m exaggerating, obviously, because Mark Turner’s playing is always pretty killing, but I think he’s maybe closing the gap on that, my impression playing with him the last year or two. He’s getting more into that Coltrane zone where Coltrane was just on all the time, but also had the vulnerability.
So there you have it. I also mentioned this particular solo to Walter Smith III, who knew it and pointed out how it could have gone in other directions, but ended up going in the Mark Turner direction, of course:

And he starts on a low B or a low Bb or whatever, but in a way, that’s different ... It wasn’t like the start of a diminished thing going up four octaves. It was something else. Like an idea from out there, and see what happens, but no pressure to make that into a big deal.





C
Bb
Eb

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