On his first offering in three years, Kenny Garrett delivers the album that has been promised since his very auspicious debut Introducing Kenny Garrett back in 1984. On Beyond the Wall, the saxophonist and composer has continued his deep exploration of modal jazz. The album is dedicated to McCoy Tyner, the king and progenitor of modal pianists, and it sounds as if Garrett observed that tutelage well, though the music is unmistakably his own. The core band on the set features drummer Brian Blade, bassist Robert Hurst, and Mulgrew Miller on piano. Pharoah Sanders and Bobby Hutcherson appear on all but two of these nine cuts (Sanders appears on these, the pair on five). The beautiful introductory Calling that opens the set features Garrett and Sanders playing long, droning, Eastern-mode lines, threatening to explode at each moment as Miller takes a couple of pages of Tyner's book and hovers over both the front line and the rhythm section. On the title cut, Garrett's longstanding love affair with hard bop comes popping in the front door as Miller's solo goes deep into sharp arpeggios, playing in an augmented mode à la Freddie Redd, while never losing his own sense of elegance as the front-line players take him on in the head. Garrett's solo carries within it some of the circular techniques he learned from Trane's records, but keeps its bop angles sharp and tough.

1		Calling
2		Beyond the Wall
3		Qing Wen
4		Realization (Marching Towards the Light)
5		Tsunami Song
6		Kiss to the Skies
7		Now
8		Gwoka
9		May Peace Be Upon Them

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