Mark Turner - We Raise Them To Lift Their Heads (2025)

"In the early 2000s, I lived in Red Hook, Brooklyn, with bassist Ben Street. Mark Turner lived in Puerto Rico, but when he was in New York to play concerts, he also stayed with Ben. It was a railroad apartment where all the rooms were connected in a row. It wasn’t possible to isolate yourself. Mark was constantly practicing when he was home. All the time. For hours on end. His saxophone and his work on sound, harmonies, melodies, rhythm etc., became a kind of soundtrack to my life at the time. It’s common to use quiet music, electronic music, or ambient music as a backdrop to the things you do at home in everyday life—music that sets a mood, brings calm. Mark’s solo saxophone took on that role for me. Of course, you could dive into the things he was playing (sometimes, I secretly recorded his practice sessions on my MiniDisc from my room and tried to analyze and learn what he was working on). Other times, it was just background music, like when I listened to Bonnie Prince Billy, Brian Eno’s ambient music, etc. The horn has so much warmth and life, and then there’s a harmonic world that is entirely Mark’s own. My wish with the solo album is to recreate the mood I experienced when I lived with Mark. He’s sitting in the next room, searching for new paths in the music. Always." – Jakob Bro

Longtime collaborators Mark Turner and Jakob Bro play central roles in the feature-length documentary film “Music for Black Pigeons”, which premiered at the 79th Venice Biennale, played across film festivals worldwide and portrays the unique artistic processes of Paul Motian, Lee Konitz, Bill Frisell, Craig Taborn, Andrew Cyrille, Manfred Eicher and many others. Mark Turner is heard on three albums with Jakob Bro, all from Avatar Studios in New York, and enters the film in a session from Copenhagen working on his first solo studio album with Bro as producer.

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In a career that spans three decades and encompasses a broad array of musical ventures, tenor saxophonist Mark Turner (b. 1965) has proved himself as one of American jazz’s most original and influential musical thinkers. A New York Times profile of Turner titled “The Best Jazz Player You’ve Never Heard” called him “possibly jazz’s premier player,” noting his reputation amongst his peers and his influential stature in jazz.

From 1995 to 2001 Mark Turner recorded five albums of his own (with the likes of Brad Mehldau, Larry Grenadier, Brian Blade a.o., primarily on Warner) — while keeping busy as a sought-after collaborator and sideman. Despite his growing reputation and influence, Turner intentionally pulled back from working as a leader, although still composing for and co-leading the trio Fly, before returning with a series of albums on ECM a decade later. More recently Mark Turner is heard on “Misterioso” with Jeff Tain Watts and performing Wayne Shorter’s music live with his last quartet. His latest studio album “Return to the Stars” (ECM, 2022) was recorded less than a month prior to the session in Copenhagen working with Jakob Bro on music for “Music For Black Pigeons”.

That studio session is now materialized as Mark Turner’s first solo saxophone LP “We Raise Them To Lift Their Heads” on Jakob Bro’s label Loveland Music. It is as vulnerable and raw as it is powerful and something essential to Mark Turner, a document to his harmonic world and vision, which can only be conveyed through music, always finding a new way for putting the pieces together and constantly looking for new ground. He still does.