| Jazzifying the staccato melody of Jimi Hendrix's acid-tinged come-on "Spanish Magic Castle," and taking a surging run through a tune by bassist Reid Anderson might well summon comparisons to The Bad Plus, but the cooperative trio Fly is far more than quirky rock songs turned inside out.
Unlike their piano trio breathen, Fly's sound is stripped down, capturing
the live-off-the floor recording approach, and affording a lot of room for
Mark Turner's unaccented, unhurried tenor sax playing. And, the Hendrix
cover aside, Fly has an aversion to working a groove to death, preferring
instead to explore variations and choose compositions with multiple parts.
At the heart of the band's approach is the long-standing relationship between
bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard. Musical soulmates since
their teens in California, they consistently find ways to complement and
enhance what the other is playing. This is true whether the tune is a busy
Ballard piece built around a Ghanian Rhythm with a big nod to Ed Blackwell
("Child's Play") or a hard-grooving Grenadier original dedicated to soul
bass giant Jerry Jemmott ("JJ").
Where many bands would be content creating cool ways of showcasing their
influences, Fly takes it a notch higher by reaching beyond the obvious to
create works as interesting as "Fly Mr. Freakjar," a true example of
collective composition, built on a complex Ballard rhythm, and Grenadier's
"Emergence/Resurgence," which shifts gears radically from a dark bass
clarinet line to an intense, upbeat middle section.
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— James Hale, Downbeat Magazine |
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| The back-to-school season is a good time to remember jazz's greatest pedagogue, pianist and composer Lennie Tristano (1919-78). Last week, Birdland presented a quintet led by saxophonist Charles Krachy, featuring Virg Dzurinko (one of Tristano's younger students) and an alto-tenor frontline performing Tristano-esque contrapuntal variations on standards. This week, tenor saxophonist Mark Turner—virtually the only younger well-known player to reflect the distinct influence of Tristano and Warne Marsh, brings his outstanding trio, Fly, to the Village Vanguard.
The group, which co-stars bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jeff Ballard, has also recently released their first CD, Fly (Savoy Jazz ). After years of thinking of Mr. Turner as the most prominent latter-day Tristano-ite, the first thing I noticed is that as he ages (he'll be 39 in November), he steadily absorbs more and more influences. In fact, when I first heard tracks from his new album on WBGO, I assumed they were by one of Joe Lovano's trios. (See full article.)
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— Will Friedwald, New York Sun |
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| Drummer Jeff Ballard, tenor saxophonist Mark Turner and bassist Larry Grenadier comprise Fly, one of the hottest new groups on the post-bop modern jazz scene. Their self-titled debut on the resuscitated Savoy Jazz imprint runs the voodoo down from free-style improvisations to more structured and melodic compositions.
As teenagers, Ballard and Grenadier cut their teeth on bandstands throughout Northern California before heading to the East Coast where they met Turner. Years later, the threesome became part of a Chick Corea recording project dubbed Originations, a forum that allowed individual members to contribute original material. From that, Fly was born.
And this is not your father's jazz trio. In Fly's world, the usual modus operandi of endless theme and variation or round-robin riffing has given way to an intimate three-way dialogue. The result is an expansive, illuminating palette of harmonies, tones and expressive counterpoint. (See full article.)
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— Tom Semioli, Amplifier |
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| Maybe it's the vaguely socialistic leanings of the jazz intelligentsia that has made the myth of the leaderless trio so persistent over the last 40 years. I've rarely found these claims of equality as convincing as I do with Fly, a newly formed ensemble with tenor saxophonist Mark Turner, bassist Larry Grenadier, and drummer Jeff Ballard.
Ballard's suggestion that this group functions "like gears instead of layers" describes the trio's most satisfying musical element. Leaderless is not to be confused with formless. If anything, there's more attention to the nuance of form here than on many contemporary jazz recordings. Rather than standard head-solo-head format, the songs blend two or three distinct sections together, placing more emphasis on the movement between structured passages than on soloists blowing over them. There are a lot of moments when, taken in isolation, the three seem to be spinning in entirely different directions, but the disparate parts somehow end up meshing rhythmically and harmonically in a way that feels precisely right.
Ballard and Grenadier each contribute three songs (an auspicious introduction to composing for both), Turner one, and they collaborate on another. Grenadier's work is deep and rich—from the somber lilt of "State of the Union" ("A simple love song for complex times," he calls it) to the polyrhythmic hop of "JJ" (a nod to funk session bassist Jerry Jemmott) to the abstraction of "Emergence/Resurgence." Turner plays tastefully and with great economy—part of why you're left feeling there's more to come. Even on the extended tracks "Fly Mr. Freakjar" and Reid Anderson's "Todas las cosas se van" there's room for more. Grenadier appears with the Brad Mehldau Trio, and Turner with his quartet, as part of the SFJazz Spring Season. Hopefully the trio will team up and perform here as well. |
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— Bruce Wallace, SF Guardian |
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