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A more cerebral artist, saxophonist and composer Mark Turner, never makes it too easy for the listener. However, he may have reached his zenith with Reflections on: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (Giant Step Arts, 2025), a work that combines verbal narrative and music. As its title suggests, the album reflects upon the named book by civil rights activist, diplomat, professor, and composer of the Black national anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” James Weldon Johnson. Johnson’s book is a semi-fictional account of a biracial man able to “pass” as white during post-Reconstruction America. The novel remains one of the defining texts of African-American literature. Even now, over a century after it was written, the work continues to provide a critical perspective midst ongoing struggles with race and identity.

​Of his album, Turner states that he “wanted music enriched by words, not words enriched by music.” It was essential to him that music be an equal partner, not provide a merely supporting role. And he largely succeeds, though Turner does not do this alone. He leads a quartet of trumpeter Jason Palmer, keyboardist David Virelles, bassist Matt Brewer, and drummer Nasheet Waits. At times, the group sounds orchestral. At others, it turned its focus towards the solos of Turner, Palmer, or Virelles. Like much of Turner’s other work, the music is harmonically rich and at times rhythmically indefinable. It is emotionally intense but far from overbearing or explosive. Turner’s sonic range is also immense.  In this author’s estimation, no other saxophonist can make a single saxophone sound like a baritone, tenor, alto, and soprano all in one. ​And Palmer is a perfect foil to Turner, with the two providing some of the most synergistic tenor saxophone and trumpet ever heard on record.

When first published, Johnson’s book listed its author as “anonymous,” with such a label also serving as a title for the opening movement on Turner’s record. On it, the narrator is conflicted and guilty from the outset: “I think I find a sort of savage and diabolical desire together with all the little tragedies of my life and turn them into a practical joke on society, and too I suffer in a vague feeling of unsatisfaction, of regret, of almost remorse, from which I am seeking relief.” On “Pragmatism,” the narrator tackles issues around interracial marriage. He considers why so many Black men marry women with fairer skin, as do educated Black women with white men, ending with the line: “It’s no disgrace to be Black, but it’s often very inconvenient.” On “The Texan …The Soldier,” Palmer does most of the heavy lifting instrumentally before the movement ends with the devastating line of “After all, racial supremacy is merely a matter of dates in history.”  On the final track, the protagonist turns confessional: “It is difficult for me to analyze my feelings concerning my present position in the world.  Sometimes it seems to me that I’ve never really been a negro, that I’ve been only a privileged spectator of their inner life.” The passage then ends definitively with the statement, “I have sold my birthright for a mess of pottage.”

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While the words and music on Reflections are inseparable,  certain musical moments do stand out on their own. The backing trio, led by Virelles on piano, is brilliant on “Juxtaposition,” as they pave the way for Turner and Palmer’s gorgeous intertwined lines. Turner solos extensively on “Pulmonary Edema,” a series of liquid runs and clusters. Highlighted by the backing trio, here is where Turner’s immense range and technical mastery of the horn most fully come into view, even as Palmer provides the lead voice. The duet between the two horns reveals some of the best tenor-trumpet unison playing for four minutes on “Identity Politics.” ​

Yet the peak musical moments arrive in two pieces that find Virelles on the Prophet synthesizer, “New York” and “Europe.” On the former, the group replicates the busy energy of the Big Apple with riveting playing by Palmer. The latter is initially more exploratory and ambient in feel and ends with one of the most provocative spoken-word passages joined by Turner at some of his most intense: “You will come to see that evil is a force, and, like the physical and chemical forces, we cannot annihilate it…to attempt to right the wrongs and ease the sufferings of the world in general is a waste of effort. You had just as well try to bail the Atlantic by pouring water into the Pacific.”

There are albums and there are landmark projects that extend beyond music itself. Reflections on: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man is a rare example of the latter. Words and music have seldom been more provocative. Listen often and intensely.

‘Reflections on: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man’ is out now on Giant Step Arts. It can be purchased on Bandcamp.

Photo Credit: Jimmy Katz