Mark Turner
Ohio-born, Los Angeles-raised Mark Turner is one of the most admired saxophonists of his generation, renowned for his exploratory intellect and intimate expressivity on the full range of the tenor horn. In 2026, The New York Times and NPR journalist Nate Chinen stated, “every jazz musician strives to establish a voice. Some go so far as to create a language. Mark Turner is one of those: a tenor saxophonist with a vocabulary and syntax so personal that he’s recognizable within a single phrase. Now 60, he’s a modern master, and an artist whose influence on the tradition can hardly be overstated.”
For ECM, the Los Angeles-based musician has recorded over a dozen records, making his label-debut in 2009 as part of Enrico Rava’s band on New York Days. The same year saw the release of the first of two recordings with the cooperative [...]
Ohio-born, Los Angeles-raised Mark Turner is one of the most admired saxophonists of his generation, renowned for his exploratory intellect and intimate expressivity on the full range of the tenor horn. In 2026, The New York Times and NPR journalist Nate Chinen stated, “every jazz musician strives to establish a voice. Some go so far as to create a language. Mark Turner is one of those: a tenor saxophonist with a vocabulary and syntax so personal that he’s recognizable within a single phrase. Now 60, he’s a modern master, and an artist whose influence on the tradition can hardly be overstated.”
For ECM, the Los Angeles-based musician has recorded over a dozen records, making his label-debut in 2009 as part of Enrico Rava’s band on New York Days. The same year saw the release of the first of two recordings with the cooperative trio Fly with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard, Sky & Country. The second record, Year of the Snake, followed in 2012. Reviewing the album, Downbeat said: “Turner’s sound is unmistakable – yielding, vocal, a bit matte, with a beautiful lyricism and remarkable control above the natural range of the horn, he’s able to control the flow with precision and deep soul. He’s also a good composer, as the title track shows; here a gentle, fidgety driving rhythm section underpins a quietly hovering line, the saxophonist singing, the building momentum, engaging his cohorts directly, constructing a compelling statement over most of the nine minutes.”
Turner also appears on recordings by Billy Hart’s quartet (All Our Reasons, One Is The Other), with Stefano Bollani (Joy In Spite Of Everything, 2014) and in duo with Ethan Iverson (Temporary Kings, 2018). The line-up for his first quartet recording on the label, 2014’s Lathe of Heaven, included trumpeter Avishai Cohen, bassist Joe Martin and drummer Marcus Gilmore, with The Guardian describing the band appreciatively as “sounding like Birth of the Cool floated over a 21st-century rhythmic concept.”
He introduced a new quartet, still with Martin on bass but with Jason Palmer on trumpet and drummer Jonathan Pinson, on 2022’s Return From The Stars – The Weltwoche’s Peter Rüedi called it “the leanest, most concentrated, and most inspired improvised chamber music imaginable.” On the group’s second outing Patternmaster (2026), Turner further elaborates is special rapport with the same players and presents his idiosyncratic compositional and instrumental voice in the context of intricately wrought originals. Mark Turner: “The more you trust, the more chances you can take and the deeper you can go with people,” says the saxophonist, who feels that within this group’s chemistry he can go “beyond craft and gage into the art of music more in depth. You feel free to experiment more compositionally, without ever having to worry about what’s going to happen because you know it’s going to turn out great.”
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