Named after Polish writer
Stanislaw Lem
's 1961 sci-fi novel, 2022's
Return from the Stars
finds saxophonist
Mark Turner
reunited with his adventurously cerebral acoustic quartet. The record is a sequel to his 2014 quartet album
Lathe of Heaven
, itself named after
Ursula K. Le Guin
's heady sci-fi novel. Admittedly, it remains somewhat nebulous as to what aspects of
Lem
's story -- about an astronaut returning to Earth after an extended space voyage only to find society having transformed into a peaceful utopia -- most interest
Turner
. Still, his probing, harmonically open-ended jazz certainly evokes the arid, disorienting feeling of space travel. Once again joining
are his quartet bandmates, trumpeter
Jason Palmer
, bassist
Joe Martin
, and drummer
Jonathan Pinson
, the latter of whom takes over for
Marcus Gilmore
. Purposefully missing from
's group is a chordal instrument like piano or guitar, a choice that allows for a broader interpretation of each song's harmonic chordal center and gives plenty of room for the soloists to stretch out. It's an approach that has precedent in both the West Coast cool jazz of the
Gerry Mulligan Quartet
with the
Chet Baker
band, as well as the avant-garde free jazz of
Ornette Coleman
's '60s quartet with trumpeter
Don Cherry
.
largely splits the difference, pushing far beyond the warm lyricism of the
Mulligan
/
Baker
style, but never going as fully atonal as
Coleman
did. Both
and
Palmer
are deeply inventive improvisers, and their kinetic, skittering lines have a sculptural quality as if they are constructing unorthodox shapes in real time. Much of the time, as on "Terminus" and "Bridgetown," they state a song's melody up front before dissecting and interpolating the theme with ever more ear-bending lines. This deconstructionist aesthetic takes on wry humor with "It's Not Alright with Me," a spare reworking of the
Cole Porter
classic shot through with a frenetic, minor-key paranoia. Perhaps it's that sense of paranoia, and the creeping feeling that what was once familiar now seems alien, that makes
such a tantalizing and affecting experience. ~ Matt Collar