Mark Turner is an accomplished American jazz musician who has been a sideman with some of the best jazz artists of the modern era, also stepping to the forefront with his own performances and recordings. Praised by the New York Times for the "dry, dark tone" of his saxophone playing, he has performed often with bands led by the drummer Billy Hart and guitarist Gilad Hekselman, toured with the SFJazz Collective and worked extensively with the trio Fly.
Born in Ohio, Turner grew up in rural Southern California where he played clarinet and then alto and tenor saxophone in high school. He studied at California State University, Long Beach, and the Berklee College of Music before he relocated to New York in the 1990s. He worked with artists such as James Moody, Jimmy Smith and Joshua Redman and made his recording debut as leader with the album 'Yam Yam' in 1994. An eponymous album in 1998 was followed the same year by 'In This World' and then 'Two Tenor Ballads' and 'Ballad Sessions' in 2000 and 'Dharma Days' in 2001.
In 2004, he joined bass player Larry Grenadier and percussionist Jeff Ballard on the album 'Fly' and they performed under that name producing two more albums, 'Sky and Country' in 2008 and 'Year of the Snake' in 2012. Turner has also appeared with the Gilad Hekselman Quartet and the Billy Hart Quartet. He made the album 'Dusk Is a Quiet Place' with pianist Baptiste Trotignon in 2013 and the next year released 'Lathe of Heaven' leading an aggregation that comprises Avishai Cohen on trumpet, Joe Martin on bass and Marcus Gilmore on drums. The New York Times said in 2012 that Turner has been "one of the most productive and vital artists of the last dozen years" and in review wrote, "Each of his solos had technical range and fluency, but the best efforts also had a sly contrarianism."
