Prologue: 1984 – 2008



Southern California, spring, 1984:

The two tenor saxophonists in this high school band could easily be mistaken for members of the basketball team. Seated several chairs apart, they are fairly tall—taller than the average jazz musician, at least—and, more importantly, play with unusual maturity for seventeen-year-olds; in fact, so do all their peers in the California All-Star High School big band, which is currently rehearsing for an upcoming performance at the Monterey Jazz Festival. The saxophonists are named Mark and Donny, and they will soon graduate from Palos Verdes High School and Aptos High School, respectively. In a few months Donny will catch a plane to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music, where he will pursue his dream of becoming a professional saxophonist; Mark will stay in California to attend Cal State Long Beach to study art. Although Mark derives immense pleasure from playing the saxophone, he has other interests: he has always had a sharp eye for design and illustration, and he more recently developed a fondness for break dancing. For Mark, the life of a professional saxophonist does not appear to be in his future.



Boston, winter, late 1980s:

The practice rooms at Berklee College of Music are packed and Chris Cheek, class of ’90, is ready for a break. He sets his saxophone down on the lone chair in this stale, little cubicle and steps into the hall where, peeking out from the churning noise of students practicing, something catches his ear. He follows it several doors down and peers into the window, where a gangly, rail thin saxophonist is diligently practicing a Coltrane solo, the transcription copied by hand. He notices the remarkable tidiness of the penmanship, more like the work of an experienced draftsman than a music school student. The transcription sits alongside pages of what appear to be notes, this particular student’s personal appendix to Coltrane’s musical language. Cheek stands and listens for a few more minutes, then walks back to his cubicle and shuts the door.



Boston, fall, 1998:

Tower Records stands monolithic at the intersection of Newbury Street and Massachusetts Avenue. A glacial procession stretches down the block as eager fans await their shrink-wrapped, midnight-release copies of Prolonging the Magic (Cake, certified platinum September 1999), S’il suffisait d’aimer (Celine Dion, U.S. release, second best-selling French album of all time behind Dion’s D’eux), and other new releases. When one young man finally reaches the front of the line, he causes a minor commotion. “What did you say you wanted a copy of?” A weary employee hastily abandons the stacks of pop, rock, and hip-hop albums at the counter and disappears deep into the store, and several minutes slip by before he resurfaces with the mystery CD.

The next day, the same young man, a Berklee freshman saxophonist from Houston named Walter Smith III, starts picking out melodies by ear from his new acquisition: In This World, Mark Turner’s second release for Warner Brothers. A few hours later, Smith steps out into the hall to clear his ears. He pauses for a moment when he realizes he is still hearing fragments of songs from the album in his head, and then realizes the sounds aren’t in his head; they’re seeping out from practice rooms throughout the entire floor.



Boston, fall, mid-2000s:

At morning rehearsal at the New England Conservatory, the ensemble coach calls a standard, something simple to give the students a chance to blow and get their chops warmed up. The coach counts off the tempo and sits back to let the students take over. When everyone has finished taking a solo and the song comes to a close, the coach looks at the tenor saxophonist. “You know, in this music you’ve got to find your own voice,” he says. He pauses to scan the room, as though to broadcast his teacherly contemplation, before returning his gaze to the saxophonist. “Now, I’m hearing a lot of Mark Turner in the room, but Mark Turner’s not here today. I played with Mark last week. He’s probably in New York somewhere.” The saxophonist looks increasingly uncomfortable. “I didn’t come here to hear Mark. I came here to hear you.”



Brooklyn, fall, 2008:

A few days before his forty-third birthday, Mark Turner is splitting firewood in his house as he regularly does. He favors a power saw. Setting to the work at hand, he is focused and careful, just as he is when he plays the saxophone. This time, however, there is an accident. The rotation of the saw exerts a deep pull, sometimes drawing the wood into the blade with sudden surges. This time, the left hand guiding the wood to the blade is too slow and as the saw takes the wood into it, the left hand is pulled in with the wood.