Jason Palmer: The Cross Over: Live in Brooklyn

For a label that just got its start in 2018, it has quickly become evident that Giant Step Arts brings a potent, focused discipline to its documentation of some of the most distinctive jazz talents of our time. Rather than covering the field with as many different musicians as possible, the label's founder, Jimmy Katz, has chosen instead to cultivate close relationships with a relatively modest number—foremost of whom is trumpeter Jason Palmer, who has released three discs on the label before The Cross Over: Live in Brooklyn, a splendid recording featuring another Giant Step artist, tenor saxophonist Mark Turner, along with the first-rate rhythm tandem of bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Marcus Gilmore. The fact that the release is a double album, with two complete sets recorded in 2023 at Ornithology, is a bonus.

With a total of nine tracks on the two sets and well over two hours of music in total, there is more than enough room for all four musicians to stretch out. And it begins with the opening cut, "B.A.M.D. (Budgets are Moral Documents)," in which Palmer offers a lengthy, carefully crafted solo statement before Gilmore joins him two minutes in to develop a dialogue that elevates the energy a notch before Turner and Grenadier finally enter the conversation, as the quartet's enticing formula is off to a rousing start. As the opener's title suggests, Palmer's artistic vision is undergirded by a keen political awareness, with Cornel West getting a dedication on "Do You Know Who YOU Are?" and "One for Fannie Lou" offering a tribute to legendary civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer.

Although there are episodic exchanges between the horns, typically they converge only on the main theme of each piece; so most of the album is devoted to extended solos by Palmer and Turner individually, and here we are fortunate that each is such a consummate player that their solos feel like coherent narratives—well thought out, with technical bravado always held in service to the overall shape of each statement. Grenadier proves he can bring the goods as well on a tuneful, funk-driven solo on "Do You Know Who YOU Are?" while Gilmore displays a melodic sensibility of his own on a multilayered three-minute solo to open "Beware of Captain America" for the start of the second set before Palmer enters to engage the drummer in a tenacious two-way dialogue that gets even better when Grenadier, and eventually Turner, enters as well. But there is no denying that this cut is Palmer's tour de force, and his level of sustained improvisational intensity on this track alone is truly impressive. His work on "For the Freedom Fighters" almost matches it, with a quicksilver fluidity on the back half of his solo that astonishes.

As outstanding as Palmer and Turner are on their own, there are moments in which we might like to hear more of them in conversation together. A hint of what that might engender is found on the closing track, "More in Common," where after another invigorating solo from Gilmore the rest of the band enters, and here there is more focus on the constructive interaction of the horns, with moments of communion that provide a thrilling finish to a superb recording.

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