Search - Mark Turner, Tad Shull :: Two Tenor Ballads

Two tenors Round Midnight - a lost classic !

rash67 | USA | 07/05/2000

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Where has this CD been hiding? This is a great performance which, as far as I can determine, has been sitting on the shelf for the last six years! I haven't been able to stop listening. Not a bad cut on the album. A whole set of jazz standard ballads with two tenor saxes weaving patterns around each other without ever bumping into one another. Both with great sound and sweet tone! Tad Shull's sound is deeper and darker. His tenor growls in a lush boozey way like Ben Webster. Mark Turner's sound is higher and a little reedier. Although this session just sort of fell together with litle preparation, these two play like they have been together for a lifetime. Contains a number of Bill Evans tunes transcribed to the two sax arrangement, "Blue in Green," "Turn Out the Stars," "Very Early." A great rythym section lets the two tenors weave their magic. If the "Jazz Around Midnight" title hadn't been taken and used by another label, it would be an excellent title. Deep felt, melancholy, thick bluesy, boozy, late at night, hypnotic. It draws you in to listen again and again!I'd love to hear more of these two guys. There is a great deal of hype around about Joshua Redman as the hot new tenor, but for my money people should be listening to Mark Turner. I am. 4 & 1/2 stars for a classic performance by a young and an older master. (the only reason this doesn't get five is that it's not yet a best-seller)."