Mark Martin

Mark Turner’s writing for his quartet on Return from the Stars (titled after Stanislav Lem’s science fiction novel) gives the players plenty of space in which to move, on an album both exhilarating and thoughtful in its arc of expression. Solos flow organically out of the arrangements and, beneath the often-dazzling interplay of Turner’s tenor and Jason Palmer’s trumpet, the rhythm section of Joe Martin and Jonathan Pinson roams freely. Although Turner has been a frequent presence on ECM in contexts including the Billy Hart Quartet, the Fly trio, and a duo with Ethan Iverson, Return from the Stars is his first quartet album since 2014’s Lathe of Heaven and an essential document of his artistry as a player and his conceptual thinking as a bandleader.

Well known for his tight, aggressively grooving brand of rhythm playing, whether in the service of the Grammy Award-winning band Snarky Puppy, the Fearless Flyers or on his six solo albums, guitarist Mark Lettieri has found the perfect algorithm for the funk. Merging the influences of '70s and '80s rhythm and rock guitar icons like Prince and Eddie Van Halen, along with inspiration from George Clinton and P-Funk, Chuckii Booker, Periphery, Stevie Wonder, Steely Dan, and others.

The 25 Preludes in all major and minor keys, Opus 31, appeared in 1847, designed for piano or organ, or, no doubt, for the instrument that Alkan particularly favoured, the pédalier or pianoforte with pedal-board, for which Schumann and Gounod, among others, also wrote. The Preludes go through all 24 keys, returning to a final Prayer in the affirmative original key of C major. The first set of nine opens meditatively and proceeds in a sequence of keys that moves alternately up a fourth and down a third, to F minor in the second and to D-flat major in the third, Dans le genre ancien, the old style in question being nothing more ancient than Bach, heard through the ears of Mendelssohn. Jewish tradition is at the root of the Prière du soir (“Evening Prayer”), the rejoicing of Psalm 150 and the Cantor’s chant of the Sixth Prelude.

Martin Barre is an English rock musician best known for his work with progressive rock band Jethro Tull, with whom he recorded and toured from their second album in 1969 to the band's initial dissolution in 2012. In the early 1990s he went solo, and has recorded four studio albums and made several guest appearances.