Kevin Sun

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,...

In preparation for the two-part essay on Mark Turner that I wrote for Music & Literature  (accessible here: Part One , Part Two ), I decided to transcribe some Mark.  Prior to researching and writing this piece, I had consciously avoided listening to Mark for the past couple years. Like Steve Coleman or Bird or Trane, Mark's stylistic gravity is immense; I knew that if I got too close too early, it'd be hard to extricate myself later on. But I thought it was time for me finally to confront this singular saxophonic voice. This nine-chorus solo over a G blues is worth comparing to Mark's solo on "Hesitation Blues" on 1997's The Two Tenors , the Warner Bros. release that paired a younger Mark with James Moody. That blues is also in G, also fairly medium-slow, and distinctively Turnerian in its delivery and intervallic-melodic vocabulary, but 16 years later, it's clear that Mark has refined his language while gaining more rhythmic intensity, whi...