Steve Turre

Leaving his conch shells - and more offbeat ideas - home this time, Steve Turre's motive for this release was to honor the fountainhead of bop (and thus, modern jazz) trombone, J.J. Johnson, who had tragically taken his own life in 2001 in the face of a terminal illness. In doing so, Turre loads his front line with nothing but trombones - as many as six, but usually fewer. Besides himself, the other trombonists on the album are Robin Eubanks, Steve Davis, Andre Hayward, Douglas Purviance, and New York Philharmonic principal trombonist Joe Alessi (who also plays good jazz). It's a fairly conservative recording by Turre's standards, with an emphasis mostly on the straight-ahead bop that Johnson championed. Indeed, many of the duo-trombone charts sound like latter-day echoes of the famous K and J.J. (Kai Winding/J.J. Johnson) records of the 1950s and '60s…

Steve Turre has made a career out of creating and realizing projects that are firmly grounded in the jazz traditions, even when he's playing his conch shells. The Bones of Art may indeed be a first for jazz. Back in 1954, trombonists J.J. Johnson (Turre's greatest influence on the instrument) and Kai Winding recorded the first of five albums with a bone duo in the frontline. Here, Turre goes one better and features three in the frontline – with no other horns. His companions are the last three trombonists to play in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers: Robin Eubanks (on three tracks) Frank Lacy, and Peter Washington.

Trombonist Steve Turre has quietly become an eminence grise of mainstream jazz, a veteran with unerring instincts who brings elegance, bluesiness, and rhythmic sophistication to just about everything he touches. That shows clearly on his new album "Colors for the Masters" were he teams up with a dream rhythm section of legendary elders, each of whom shaped the trombonist’s distinctive voice: pianist Kenny Barron, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Jimmy Cobb.

This CD teams together two of the brightest young trombonists of the period, Robin Eubanks and Steve Turre. The music covers a wide area with "The New Breed" placing the horns over a complex 7/4 funk rhythm (with pianist Mulgrew Miller making his recording debut on synthesizer), "V.O." being a modern Latin original, "Red, Black & Green Blues" featuring the band jamming on a blues reminiscent of the Jazz Messengers and "Trance Dance" evolving from a free form introduction to a nearly impossible-to-play solo section (with 45 beats every four bars). The funky "Perpetual Groove" is succeded by a ballad dedicated to Woody Shaw, the straightahead "Koncepts" (similar to "Giant Steps") and the uptempo "Victory"…