Criss Cross Jazz 1423 CD

M.T.B.

Solid Jackson



When eminent jazz practitioners with shared histories convene in the studio without rehearsal or preparatory gigs, a perfunctory, by-the-numbers session is often the outcome. That is decidedly not the case on Solid Jackson, whose personnel, four of whom participated on the well-wrought day-after-Christmas of 1994 Criss Cross album titled Consenting Adults (Criss 1177), reside in any hardcore jazz connoisseur’s “top-five”. This second gathering of M.T.B. (titled for the surnames of Brad Mehldau, Mark Turner and Peter Bernstein, and to signify upon the late ’80s “young lion” band OTB) is an intense, focused recital that reinforces the exalted position each member holds in the 2024 jazz landscape. Everyone listens. No one overplays or goes for “house.” The ambiance is one of concentrated excellence.

Consenting Adults (Criss 1177) wasn’t released until 2000, six years after it was made. In the liner notes the protagonists (Larry Grenadier, then and now, played bass; Leon Parker, the drummer in 1994, gives way to Bill Stewart) were described as “elite young improvisers who will be among the movers and shakers of 21st century jazz at the conclusion of their postgraduate education.”

In short, Mehldau stated in an email conversation for this text, Turner, Bernstein, and Grenadier – who has consistently made beautiful choices in a wide array of contexts over the last three decades, not least in Mehldau’s trio with Jeff Ballard; in the collective trio Fly with Turner and Ballard; alongside Stewart in trios led by John Scofield and Pat Metheny; and on 15 prior Criss Cross albums – “were fully formed” by 1994, and “have honed down the identity they already had then.” The same is true of Stewart, who makes his 26th Criss Cross appearance on Solid Jackson.