A highly inventive saxophonist, Mark Turner found acclaim with his meticulous, harmonically rich approach to modern creative jazz. A native of Los Angeles born in Ohio Turner emerged in the early ’90s playing his cerebral, classical-influenced brand of jazz. He gained early notice on albums like 1994’s “Yam Yam”, “In This World” and 2001’s “Dharma Days”, “The Next Step”, MTB “Consenting Adults”, among others working alongside such similarly inclined contemporaries as Brad Mehldau, Kurt Rosenwinkel. Beginning with 2009’s “Sky and Country” and Enrico Rava’s “New York Days”, he built a close association with the ECM label, splitting his time between collaborating with Fly trio (with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard) and helming ambitious solo dates like 2014’s “Lathe of Heaven”, his 2018 duo session “Temporary Kings” with Ethan Iverson, and 2022’s Return from the Stars and 2023’s “Live at the Village Vanguard” with Mark Turner Quartet. Most recently he has played with The Wayne Shorter Legacy Band (John Patitucci, Danilo Perez, Brian Blade), and Kurt Rosenwinkel’s “Next Step Reunion”.
He has spent much of his time as a sideman playing alongside musicians like Billy Hart, Paul Motian, Jimmy Cobb, Joe La Barbera, Andrew Cyrille, Jeff Watts, Brian Blade, Eric Harland, Bill Stewart, Marcus Gilmore, Bill Frisell, Jakob Bro, Gilad Hekselman, Lage Lund, Rufus Ried, Buster Williams, Dave Holland, John Patitucci, Enrico Rava, Terence Blanchard, Tom Harrell, Danilo Perez, Joanne Brackeen, Fred Hersch, James Moody, Lee Konitz, Gary Foster, Oliver Lake, Josh Redman, Chris Potter, Miguel Zenon, Steve Lehman among others. He appears as a sideman on a few hundred recordings as well as eight of his own recordings.
In 2025, Turner will be releasing two brand new recordings. The first, on ECM, is called “Patternmaster” and is with his longstanding quartet of Jason Palmer (trumpet) Joe Martin (bass), Jonathan Pinson (drums). The 2nd recording, “Autobiography of the Ex-Colored Man”, features: Jason Palmer (trumpet), David Virelles (piano), Matt Brewer (bass) and Nasheet Waits on (drums).
