In a career that spans four decades and encompasses a broad array of musical ventures, saxophonist Mark Turner has emerged as a towering presence in the jazz community. With a distinctive, personal tone, singular improvisational skills and an innovative, challenging compositional approach, he’s earned a far-reaching reputation as one of jazz’s most original and influential musical forces.
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 among his peers and his influential stature in the jazz world.
Turner’s diverse discography includes collaborations with many of jazz’s leading lights, including Kurt Rosenwinkel, Lee Konitz, James Moody, Dave Holland, Joshua Redman, Delfeayo Marsalis, Brad Mehldau, Reid Anderson, Omer Avital, Diego Barber, David Binney, Brian Blade, Seamus Blake, Chris Cheek, George Colligan, Gary Foster, Jon Gordon, Aaron Goldberg, Ethan Iverson, Jonny King, Ryan Kisor, Guillermo Klein, Matthias Lupri, OAM Trio, Mikkel Ploug, Enrico Rava, Jochen Rueckert, Jaleel Shaw, Edward Simon and the SF Jazz Collective.
Born in 1965 in Ohio and raised in Southern California, Turner grew up surrounded by music. “There was always a lot of R&B and jazz and soul and gospel going on in the house all the time,” he recalled. “This was in the early ’70s, when the whole integration and civil rights thing had begun to go mainstream, and my mother and stepfather were in the first wave of young black professionals and intellectuals who moved to upper-middle-class white neighborhoods. They and their friends were always going out to see live jazz. I was intrigued by that, and I was intrigued by the whole history of jazz music and African-American culture, as well as the music itself. And my father, who died when I was a baby, had played saxophone, so maybe I was looking for a connection with him, too.”
After starting out on clarinet in elementary school, Turner gravitated toward saxophone in high school, while also exploring his talent for the visual arts. Although he briefly studied design and illustration at Long Beach State University, his passion for jazz ultimately led him to pursue a career in music. Turner’s meticulous work ethic led him to study and dissect the work of such saxophone giants as John Coltrane, Joe Henderson, Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Warne Marsh and Lester Young in the pursuit his own musical voice.
After graduating from Boston’s Berklee College of Music in 1990, Turner moved to New York, where his rapidly developing talents were quickly recognized. Between 1995 and 2001, he recorded five albums of his own, while keeping busy as a sought-after collaborator and sideman.
“It was around 1992 that I began to notice or feel that what I was doing was uniquely mine,” Turner said. “It had been two and a half years of struggle, but the summer of 1992 was the period where I was finally able to hear it. Maybe no one else would notice, but that’s where I could see how things were gonna go.”
Despite his growing reputation and influence, Turner intentionally pulled back from working as a leader after “Dharma Days” (2001), focusing much of his energy on parenthood while channeling his creativity into numerous collaborative projects.
“The last record I made was right when our first child was born, and that had a lot to do with me pulling back from being a leader for a while,” Turner said. “Being a leader is so intense, and you really have to put your whole self into it, and I just felt like I wanted to be there for my kids. When you’re a leader, you’re carrying a lot of weight and responsible for a lot of things that have nothing with music. Being a sideman, you basically just have to worry about being there and doing a good job.”
Despite his return to recording as a leader, Turner still values his collaborative work and has no plans to cut back.
“I would never want to solely be a leader, and if someone handed me the chance to do that, I’d say no,” he said. “I like to interpret other people’s music. I learn from doing that, and it’s a big part of what I’ve become as a musician. In the situations where I’m the leader and writing the music, it’s a combination of everything I’ve heard and everything I’ve done. The way that I write and the way that I play and the bands that I bring together are all a representation of all of the musical situations that I’ve been in, and I’d never want to give that up.”
With an impressive musical history already under his belt and more on the way, Turner is clearly on the verge of a creative renaissance. As the New York Times noted, “His best work is clearly still ahead of him.”
Please note: Biographies are based on information provided to the CSOA by the artists or their representatives. More current information may be available on websites of the artists or their management.
