I drew from the core musical principles I absorbed performing alongside McCoy Tyner, Miles Davis, and Elvin Jones in the post-Coltrane years. It's rooted in that harmonic intensity and modal depth, but spoken in my own voice. The sound moves forward.
—Azar Lawrence
Tenor saxophone titan Azar Lawrence’s past, present, and future converge with the September 25th release of Turn the Music UponLawrence’s own Trazar Records. The world-renowned 73-year-old player and composer, who first made his name in the spiritual jazz and funk-fusion of the 1970s, revisits some of the milestones of that era, filtering it through the lens of his current-day ensemble (The Azar Lawrence Experience, or TALE), and pointing the way forward for his musical conception.
In other words, Turn the Music Up is itself a benchmark in Lawrence’s storied career. He broke into jazz via apprenticeships with McCoy Tyner, Miles Davis, Woody Shaw, and Elvin Jones; subsequently, he collaborated with Marvin Gaye and Earth, Wind & Fire, and is a member of the celebrated supergroup The Cookers.
All the while he has maintained the rich and colorful solo career that he inaugurated in 1974 and maintained across 50 years and 13 albums as a leader. “This album is a culmination of all of these experiences,” Lawrence says. “We’ve sieved through artists and musicians over the years, and have brought it to this point of refinement.”
With Coltrane’s centennial on the horizon, says Lawrence, for this album “I drew from the core musical principles I absorbed performing alongside McCoy Tyner, Miles Davis, and Elvin Jones in the post-Coltrane years. It’s rooted in that harmonic intensity and modal depth, but spoken in my own voice. The sound moves forward.”
Most of Turn the Music Up comprises pieces the saxophonist first recorded in his early days, with a special focus on his first two albums, 1974’s Bridge into the New Ageand 1975’s Summer Solstice(including the latter’s Lawrence-penned title track). Also present are a searing, Latin-spiced take on Tyner’s “Atlantis,” the original 1974 recording of which featured Lawrence, and “The Creator Has a Master Plan,” Pharoah Sanders and Leon Thomas’s great anthem of spiritual jazz.
Yet if it’s vintage material—and Lawrence’s visceral, cutting tenor sound is instantly recognizable wherever it appears—the music itself is refreshed and entirely of the moment. TALE (which includes trumpeter Brian Swartz, guitarist Taka Mori, pianist/keyboardist Robert Turner, bassist Gerald Brown, drummer/percussionist Yayo Morales, and vocalist Lynne Fiddmont) is an alert and versatile band, able to turn on a dime from the plugged-in Braziliana of “Highway” to the sweet, smooth balladry of “Fatisha” to the edgy funk of “Summer Solstice.” Fiddmont proves a particularly valuable asset, as at home with “Highway’s” aggressive, full-throated scat as she is with “The Creator Has a Master Plan’s” downy-soft lyrical incantations.
Given such a sprawling band (plus special guests trombonist Quinn Carson and percussionists Munyungo Jackson, David Leach, and Adam Moseley) and the full-length workouts of these seven tracks, Lawrence and TALE keep things remarkably tight. The discipline and close listening happening throughout the album are readily apparent, as is the leader’s ear for careful sonic detail. Turn the Music Upis in that way a tantalizing promise of more great Azar Lawrence music to come.
Azar Lawrence was born November 3, 1952 in Los Angeles. His mother, ImaJean Lawrence, was a schoolteacher, but she also led the church choir and gave music lessons, guaranteeing her son a solid musical foundation from the start. He built on it quickly; at 5 years old, he was already playing violin in the Los Angeles Junior Symphony. He switched to viola, then, at 13, to saxophone. Guided into the jazz universe by his best friend Reggie Golson (son of jazz great Benny), Lawrence compounded his knowledge in the Dorsey High School Jazz Workshop.
Transitioning from high school into professional musicianship, Lawrence joined acclaimed pianist/bandleader Horace Tapscott’s Pan-Afrikan People’s Arkestra and became a regular at the L.A. jazz club L.B. West. He also worked with Ike & Tina Turner, the Watts 103rd Street Band, and War before joining drumming great Elvin Jones’s band in 1972 and making the move to New York. Shortly thereafter, he also began working with Jones’s onetime Coltrane band mate, pianist McCoy Tyner, andrecorded with Miles Davis on the trumpet legend’s Dark Magus album.
Lawrence made his own first statement with 1974’s Bridge into the New Age, following it with the next year’s Solstice and 1976’s People Moving. Although the late ‘70s through the 1990s found him working with a dizzying variety of artists and genres—from Marvin Gaye to Busta Rhymes—he maintained his vision as a jazz artist as well, working as a sideman for Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, and Phyllis Hyman before returning full-time to the jazz world in the 21st century.
Post-COVID, Lawrence has again breathed new life into his jazz career. He worked with John Beasley and Nduduzo Makhatini on his 2022 album New Sky; he’s had artists such as Theo Croker and Kamasi Washington sit in with his band; and he’s joined the celebrated supergroup The Cookers, along with forming and working extensively with TALE. Turn the Music Up is his thirteenth album.
The Azar Lawrence Experience (TALE): 7/24 San Sebastian (Spain) Jazz Festival; 11/8 Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, Half Moon Bay, CA(additional Bay Area dates TBD); 2/17-21, 2027 Jazz at Lincoln Center, NYC.
With The Cookers: 9/11 Regattabar, Cambridge, MA; 9/12 Jazz at the Berkshires, Williamstown, MA; 10/16 A Place for Jazz, Schenectady, NY; 4/21-25, 2027 Jazz Nad Odrą Festival, Wrocław, Poland (date TBD); 4/29-5/2, 2027 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, New Orleans (date TBD).
In other words, Turn the Music Up is itself a benchmark in Lawrence’s storied career. He broke into jazz via apprenticeships with McCoy Tyner, Miles Davis, Woody Shaw, and Elvin Jones; subsequently, he collaborated with Marvin Gaye and Earth, Wind & Fire, and is a member of the celebrated supergroup The Cookers.
All the while he has maintained the rich and colorful solo career that he inaugurated in 1974 and maintained across 50 years and 13 albums as a leader. “This album is a culmination of all of these experiences,” Lawrence says. “We’ve sieved through artists and musicians over the years, and have brought it to this point of refinement.”
With Coltrane’s centennial on the horizon, says Lawrence, for this album “I drew from the core musical principles I absorbed performing alongside McCoy Tyner, Miles Davis, and Elvin Jones in the post-Coltrane years. It’s rooted in that harmonic intensity and modal depth, but spoken in my own voice. The sound moves forward.”
Most of Turn the Music Up comprises pieces the saxophonist first recorded in his early days, with a special focus on his first two albums, 1974’s Bridge into the New Ageand 1975’s Summer Solstice(including the latter’s Lawrence-penned title track). Also present are a searing, Latin-spiced take on Tyner’s “Atlantis,” the original 1974 recording of which featured Lawrence, and “The Creator Has a Master Plan,” Pharoah Sanders and Leon Thomas’s great anthem of spiritual jazz.
Yet if it’s vintage material—and Lawrence’s visceral, cutting tenor sound is instantly recognizable wherever it appears—the music itself is refreshed and entirely of the moment. TALE (which includes trumpeter Brian Swartz, guitarist Taka Mori, pianist/keyboardist Robert Turner, bassist Gerald Brown, drummer/percussionist Yayo Morales, and vocalist Lynne Fiddmont) is an alert and versatile band, able to turn on a dime from the plugged-in Braziliana of “Highway” to the sweet, smooth balladry of “Fatisha” to the edgy funk of “Summer Solstice.” Fiddmont proves a particularly valuable asset, as at home with “Highway’s” aggressive, full-throated scat as she is with “The Creator Has a Master Plan’s” downy-soft lyrical incantations.
Given such a sprawling band (plus special guests trombonist Quinn Carson and percussionists Munyungo Jackson, David Leach, and Adam Moseley) and the full-length workouts of these seven tracks, Lawrence and TALE keep things remarkably tight. The discipline and close listening happening throughout the album are readily apparent, as is the leader’s ear for careful sonic detail. Turn the Music Upis in that way a tantalizing promise of more great Azar Lawrence music to come.
Azar Lawrence was born November 3, 1952 in Los Angeles. His mother, ImaJean Lawrence, was a schoolteacher, but she also led the church choir and gave music lessons, guaranteeing her son a solid musical foundation from the start. He built on it quickly; at 5 years old, he was already playing violin in the Los Angeles Junior Symphony. He switched to viola, then, at 13, to saxophone. Guided into the jazz universe by his best friend Reggie Golson (son of jazz great Benny), Lawrence compounded his knowledge in the Dorsey High School Jazz Workshop.
Transitioning from high school into professional musicianship, Lawrence joined acclaimed pianist/bandleader Horace Tapscott’s Pan-Afrikan People’s Arkestra and became a regular at the L.A. jazz club L.B. West. He also worked with Ike & Tina Turner, the Watts 103rd Street Band, and War before joining drumming great Elvin Jones’s band in 1972 and making the move to New York. Shortly thereafter, he also began working with Jones’s onetime Coltrane band mate, pianist McCoy Tyner, andrecorded with Miles Davis on the trumpet legend’s Dark Magus album.
Lawrence made his own first statement with 1974’s Bridge into the New Age, following it with the next year’s Solstice and 1976’s People Moving. Although the late ‘70s through the 1990s found him working with a dizzying variety of artists and genres—from Marvin Gaye to Busta Rhymes—he maintained his vision as a jazz artist as well, working as a sideman for Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, and Phyllis Hyman before returning full-time to the jazz world in the 21st century.
Post-COVID, Lawrence has again breathed new life into his jazz career. He worked with John Beasley and Nduduzo Makhatini on his 2022 album New Sky; he’s had artists such as Theo Croker and Kamasi Washington sit in with his band; and he’s joined the celebrated supergroup The Cookers, along with forming and working extensively with TALE. Turn the Music Up is his thirteenth album.
The Azar Lawrence Experience (TALE): 7/24 San Sebastian (Spain) Jazz Festival; 11/8 Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, Half Moon Bay, CA(additional Bay Area dates TBD); 2/17-21, 2027 Jazz at Lincoln Center, NYC.
With The Cookers: 9/11 Regattabar, Cambridge, MA; 9/12 Jazz at the Berkshires, Williamstown, MA; 10/16 A Place for Jazz, Schenectady, NY; 4/21-25, 2027 Jazz Nad Odrą Festival, Wrocław, Poland (date TBD); 4/29-5/2, 2027 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, New Orleans (date TBD).
For more information contact Terri Hinte Publicity.
