# The protagonists are two quartets led by two musicians: Mark Turner – Immanuel Wilkins: Videos, Photos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2025/08/30/the-protagonists-are-two-quartets-led-by-two-musicians-mark-turner-immanuel-wilkins-videos-photos/
- Published: 2025-08-30T18:32:44+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**“Streams” was the title of a fine album by Sam Rivers from the 1970s, now a collector’s
rarity, alas.**

Unfortunately, the cover doesn’t match the title, hence the choice of the more appropriate
cover of another fine Bill Evans album.

![](https://i0.wp.com/traccedijazz.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/r-2376685-1500114573-
4773.jpg?resize=640%2C640&ssl=1)

But beyond the refreshing effect, what do moving waters have to do with the chronicles
of the Italian jazz summer? Yes, they do, as demonstrated by two hot afternoons 
at the Teatro Morlacchi, the Altra Umbria Jazz.

The protagonists are two quartets led by two musicians who, despite being detached
from at least a couple of jazz generations, have revealed a similar conception of“
music for flows,” which, while at times evoking books already well-established and
well-known in the recording world, dissolves the individual pieces into a flowing
and ever-changing continuum.

Indeed, jazz writers of great caliber had predicted an inexorable shift toward structured
composition and marked individuality for the jazz of the new millennium…

Both groups are well known for a series of notable recordings, which have consolidated
their image. But in both cases, live listening has suggested extended forms corresponding
to long, dilated tempos; therefore, immersive listening is required, a completely
different experience from listening to records.

Mark Turner’s quartet (he on tenor sax, Jason Palmer on trumpet, Joe Martin on bass,
and Jonathan Pinson on drums) clearly gains in freshness and novelty from the removal
of the “ECM filter.”

In addition to the freedom to play on extended tempos, throughout the first part
of the concert, the front line’s marked inclination toward prolonged unisons is 
evident, which on a purely structural level seem to hark back to bebop and only 
rarely open up to individual paths.

![](https://i0.wp.com/traccedijazz.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/markturnerquartet_fb-
1024x5767758931656435669280-1.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

Turner remains immersed in the introverted and meditative mood we’ve long known 
him for, but the Tristanian influences are more distant than on past occasions. 
At times, his loose conversationalism recalls Rollins’s inexhaustible thematic improvisation,
but in a much more linear and intellectual dimension, free from any athletic titanism.

The contrasting dialogue with Jason Palmer is very refined and effective, a vital
and luminous trumpet that provides a constant counterpoint to Turner’s sax, absorbed
instead in long-range melodic strings and free from showy soarings.

Behind this intense and focused front line, there’s plenty of room for a highly 
prominent rhythm section: Martin’s bass is clear and authoritative, but Pinson’s
assertive drumming asserts itself with great determination: his dry and authoritative
accents, crafted with great theatrical effectiveness, are impressive.

Well, Turner may have been a reluctant leader in the past (as he himself has stated
on various occasions), but he now seems to have acquired a taste for building and
shaping a band that boasts both a clear identity and a lively internal dialogue.

Watch out for his next appearances on our stages (the Perugia gig was a truly invaluable
one, by the way).

This time we’re in luck: Turner and his band are in Berlin just a few days before
the Perugia concert. Great video, you’ve got a whole 22 minutes of music to enjoy.

Immanuel Wilkins, on the other hand, seems to have been born a fully-fledged leader
from Minerva’s mind. But appearances can be deceiving: in jazz, no one is born a‘
caballero’ (as is too often believed in our parts), and Immanuel’s 27 years have
been filled with a long and varied apprenticeship.

Not only that, but to this day we still see our man appear as a sideman in musical
contexts often quite distant from his already established poetics, as evidenced 
by his already impressive discography: hats off, he’ll go even further than he has
now.

But at the Morlacchi, he’s playing on home soil, bringing his polished quartet with
him: it’s wonderful to see how these DOCG jazzmen, even confined to the theater,
still cherish the legend of Umbria Jazz of old and make it a point to appear there
in their finest form.

They deserve at least a few words of introduction (this year, no one showed up to
do so, truly sad); but fortunately, this Morlacchi audience knows very well who 
they’re dealing with and the caliber of the offerings they’re offered.

Here too, the concert opens with a long stream of consciousness, in which the clear
voice of Wilkins’ alto sax evokes the auroral atmosphere typical of his music, but
in a sort of dilated, subtle prelude that has something of a ritualistic quality.

After a long, linear progression, showcasing Wilkins’s fluidity and melodic inventiveness,
the music unfolds in a long, tense dialogue between the leader’s staccato, fragmented
sax and Kweku Sumbry’s pressing drums: a truly memorable moment, rightly celebrated
by the audience.

Sumbry’s enveloping, omnipresent drumming immediately and clearly establishes itself
as the true cornerstone of the group, balancing the ethereal freedom of the frontline.

![](https://i0.wp.com/traccedijazz.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/immanuel-wilkins-
by-chris-longyne-scaled-e16263799453248293227801342008082.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

Alas, Ryoma Takenhaga’s bass remains only a cornerstone role in the wings.

A pianist of Micah Thomas’s caliber, however, certainly cannot go unnoticed: after
so much faithful, understated accompaniment, Thomas takes flight in the solo spaces
with an ethereal, fingertip-based pianism tinged with luminous abstraction.

The keyboard ace thus emerges, and we note his affinity with that vein of intellectual
pianism so well represented by Ethan Iverson.

The quartet’s music is a great river in which the alto is the placid heart of the
current, Thomas’s faithful yet restless accompaniment the whirlpools hidden just
beneath the surface, and Sumbry’s drums the foam of the rapids.

In short, another immersive and engaging listening experience that deserves adequate
documentation in a beautiful live performance that captures its richness and vitality:
but unfortunately, the futile trend of LPs prevents such a realization.

Stay tuned, the best is yet to come.

**Still blessed by luck: this is even an amateur clip from the Perugia concert, 
even more precious. Hurry and enjoy it, the Thought Police are always lurking on
YouTube.**

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