Trumpeter Jason Palmer Set to Release New Live Album
Giant Step Arts continues Modern Masters and New Horizons series with new live album by trumpeter Jason Palmer
Out December 6, 2024, The Cross Over: Live in Brooklyn is the fourth in a series of acclaimed albums from trumpeter Jason Palmer
“Jason’s ability to express in his own personal voice an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the jazz trumpet vocabulary, without being possessed by it, is truly rare.” – Russ Musto, NYCJR
With The Cross Over: Live in Brooklyn, trumpeter Jason Palmer continues his compelling output for Giant Step Arts, on a double album with over two hours of live music featuring a first-call band. Nine originals with tenor saxophonist Mark Turner, bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Marcus Gilmore demonstrate why Palmer is one of his generation’s most celebrated players and composers.
In jazz history, certain labels immediately bring to mind key players, whether Lee Morgan and Blue Note, Miles Davis and Columbia or Enrico Rava and ECM. During its nearly seven-year existence, Palmer has become Giant Step Arts’ signature artist, exemplifying the synergy of a prolific artist and a sympathetic label.
Palmer has been accumulating accolades over the past two decades, from winning First Prize at the 2009 Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition and receiving numerous four to four-and-a-half star reviews from DownBeat Magazine to being a 2018 Boston Cultural Council Artist Fellow and having “Herbs in a Glass” from the 2018 Giant Step Arts release Rhyme & Reason make The New York Times Playlist.
The Cross Over: Live in Brooklyn was recorded at Brooklyn’s Ornithology Club in August 2023. Though it captures a moment in time, the album was also the endpoint of a long process. As Palmer recounts, “I spent about a year leading up to the session getting music together to present and my schedule made it difficult for me to get the music that I wrote played enough to get all of the kinks out. In the late spring and early summer of 2023, I was touring and teaching at the jazz seminar in Siena. I had a few holes in my calendar so I rounded up some great musicians that I knew in Lisbon, where I had a day off, and put together a reading session and did the same in Siena, where I rounded up some students at the seminar and we played through some of the music. It was during those sessions where it became a bit clearer how possible it would be to have the set of compositions that I put together to flow in a coherent, palatable manner for the band and an audience.”
Palmer and company took full advantage of the comfortable environs and enthusiastic listeners at Ornithology—Giant Step Arts’ home away from home—to explore his compositions deeply. The shortest track at a little over 11 minutes, “Do You Know Who You Are? (A Line for Dr. C West)” was inspired by a meeting with the fiery academic Dr. Cornel West and is just as probing as the individual, while “Beware of Captain America (A Line for Wayne Shorter),” similarly begat from a meeting with and based on a piece by the dedicatee, crests 21 minutes and fêtes one of jazz’ most revered composers.
The band brings together various pieces of Palmer’s history, contributing to the dynamism of the resultant music. Palmer has been working with Turner for the past decade and calls him “one (if not the) single most imitated, never duplicated tenor saxophonists in this music. His tone is immediately recognizable and the depth of his melodicism, soulfulness, and virtuosity all come together to create an endless fountain of inspiration for all artists in my generation and younger.” And this was the latest encounter with both Gilmore, whom he lauds for his “his acute musical maturity,” and Grenadier, “noble stalwart on the bass,” the pair combining into a fluid and expansive foundation for Palmer’s vision.
Apart from his masterful control of his instrument and profound listening skills on the bandstand, Palmer is a cerebral yet emotive composer. Some of his pieces found their genesis in history, whether the fortitude heard in “One for Fannie Lou,” a paean to the famed activist, or hopeful commitment of “For the Freedom Fighters,” a contrafact of “You Stepped Out of a Dream” and dedicated to “all of the brave people who have fought for freedom of all types throughout modern history.” There are reflections of the state of modern society: the album’s title track, imploring humanity not to abandon that which makes us human; “Same Bird?”, a musing on the sometimes-irreconcilable wings of our political spectrum; and “More in Common,” what Palmer says is “a reminder that we all more in common than not. There’s something divine in that thought and I thought it would be fitting to gather inspiration from sources of music that have a three-tonic system, à la ‘Giant Steps’, which are divine and holy in nature. I then reminded myself of how much I love the composing of reedman Myron Walden. I revisited his composition ‘Of 3 Worlds’ and composed my song based on inspiration from that harmonic movement.”
Palmer said of the music, “I challenged myself to compose songs that weren’t too difficult to prepare for the band but also intricate enough to hold the interest of the player and listener’s ear.” He more than succeeds with an album that reveals more and more of its depth and spirit with each listen.
The Cross Over: Live in Brooklyn is the latest entry in Giant Step’s new series Modern Masters and New Horizons. Specially curated by trumpeter Jason Palmer and drummer Nasheet Waits, the series features artists who have helped shape the modern jazz landscape along with rising voices doing the same for the next generation. Artists currently slated to contribute include saxophonists Mark Turner, Neta Raanan, Rico Jones, drummer Eric McPherson, “The Fury” quartet of Mark Turner, Tyshawn Sorey, Lage Lund and Matt Brewer, and the Edward Pérez/Michael Thomas Band.
Giant Step Arts
Founded by Jimmy and Dena Katz in January 2018, Giant Step Arts is an innovative, artist-focused non-profit organization dedicated to commissioning and showcasing the work of some of modern jazz’s most innovative artists. In an era where it is increasingly difficult for musicians to earn a living, Giant Step Arts offers artists the creative and financial resources to create bold music free of commercial pressure and with total control of their artistic projects.
For the musicians it chooses to work with, by invitation only, Giant Step Arts:
– presents premiere performances
– records these performances for independent release
– provides the artists with digital downloads and CDs to sell; artists retain complete ownership of their masters
– provides the artists with photos for promotional use
– provides PR support for the recordings
Katz says: “Giant Step Arts exists to aid musicians in realizing their artistic dreams. It does not sell music and artists retain full rights to their music. We work tirelessly to raise funds with the goal of helping more musicians.”
Jimmy Katz
Through his award-winning photography with wife Dena Katz and his esteemed work as a recording engineer, Katz has spent nearly 30 years helping to shape the way audiences see and hear jazz musicians. Katz has been part of more than 600 recording projects—many historic—and has photographed more than 200 magazine covers. Whether taken in the studio, in the clubs, on the streets or in the musicians’ homes, his photographs offer intimate portraits of the artists at work and in repose and capture the collaborative and improvisatory process of jazz itself. Recipient of the Jazz Journalists Association award for jazz photography in both 2006 and 2011, Katz’s work has been exhibited in Germany, Italy and Japan. Among the world-renowned artists he has photographed are Sonny Rollins, Keith Jarrett, Ornette Coleman, Freddie Hubbard, Roy Haynes, Cassandra Wilson, Ray Charles, Dave Brubeck, Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, John Zorn, Pat Metheny, and Dizzy Gillespie. His recording credits include such artists as David S. Ware, Joe Lovano, Harold Mabern, William Parker, Benny Golson, Chris Potter, Mark Turner, George Coleman and Jason Palmer, among others.
Jason Palmer – The Cross Over: Live in Brooklyn
Giant Step Arts – GSA 16 – Recorded August 2023 at Ornithology in Brooklyn, NY Release date December 6, 2024
giantsteparts.org
Source: Ann Braithwaite/Braithwaite & Katz Communications
