Recorded at the New York club Ornithology
Approach this as a document given that there are over 2 hours’ worth of music – it needs paring down to something more manageable.
Trumpeter Jason Palmer – whose progressive sound sits well with Ambrose Akinmusire or Dave Douglas – is here with saxophonist Mark Turner, bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Marcus Gilmore, all top US players whose work regular readers of marlbank will be familiar with. Gilmore is touring with Brad Mehldau next year. And Grenadier is on the Mehldau, Turner and Peter Bernstein album Solid Jackson which is our current album of the week.
Palmer, born in 1979, hails from Boston. In 2009 he won first place in the Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition and has taught at Berklee College of Music, New England Conservatory of Music and Harvard University. For 20 years, his quintet served as the house band at Boston’s Wally’s Jazz Café
Nine originals of Palmer’s
Some pieces are hugely long – for instance ‘Beware of Captain America (A Line for Wayne Shorter)’ clocks in at more than 21 minutes.
And with the best will in the world that is too much especially when some tracks are quite samey stylistically.
The style lands at the more probing avant side of hard bop so to its credit nobody coasts or resorts to overly neat solutions. So for that it is worth your while and it goes without saying the calibre of the instrumentalism convinces.
Serious music then with stark themes and a pristine clarity to the playing. ‘For the Freedom Fighters’ and ‘More in Common’ grabbed us most.
This new album out today was recorded at Brooklyn’s Ornithology club in August 2023. Inspirations include academic Dr. Cornel West, someone whose radicalism has also appealed to Terence Blanchard and who appeared with the great New Orleanian on 2009’s Choices which is, let’s be frank, a far better album.
