Named after Polish writer Stanislaw Lem's 1961 sci-fi novel, 2022's Return from the Stars finds saxophonist Mark Turner reunited with his adventurously cerebral acoustic quartet. The record is a sequel to his 2014 quartet album Lathe of Heaven, itself named after Ursula K. Le Guin's heady sci-fi novel. Admittedly, it remains somewhat nebulous as to what aspects of Lem's story -- about an astronaut returning to Earth after an extended space voyage only to find society having transformed into a peaceful utopia -- most interest Turner. Still, his probing, harmonically open-ended jazz certainly evokes the arid, disorienting feeling of space travel. Once again joining Turner are his quartet bandmates, trumpeter Jason Palmer, bassist Joe Martin, and drummer Jonathan Pinson, the latter of whom takes over for Marcus Gilmore. Purposefully missing from Turner's group is a chordal instrument like piano or guitar, a choice that allows for a broader interpretation of each song's harmonic chordal center and gives plenty of room for the soloists to stretch out. It's an approach that has precedent in both the West Coast cool jazz of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet with the Chet Baker band, as well as the avant-garde free jazz of Ornette Coleman's '60s quartet with trumpeter Don Cherry. Turner largely splits the difference, pushing far beyond the warm lyricism of the Mulligan/Baker style, but never going as fully atonal as Coleman did. Both Turner and Palmer are deeply inventive improvisers, and their kinetic, skittering lines have a sculptural quality as if they are constructing unorthodox shapes in real time. Much of the time, as on "Terminus" and "Bridgetown," they state a song's melody up front before dissecting and interpolating the theme with ever more ear-bending lines. This deconstructionist aesthetic takes on wry humor with "It's Not Alright with Me," a spare reworking of the Cole Porter classic shot through with a frenetic, minor-key paranoia. Perhaps it's that sense of paranoia, and the creeping feeling that what was once familiar now seems alien, that makes Return from the Stars such a tantalizing and affecting experience. ~ Matt Collar, Rovi

1		Return From the Stars
2		Terminus
3		Bridgetown
4		It's Not Alright With Me
5		Nigeria II
6		Waste Land
7		Unacceptable
8		Lincoln Heights

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