Jakob Bro, Lee Konitz, Bill Frisell, Jason Moran, Thomas Morgan, Andrew Cyrille

CD version. Taking Turns brings the Danish guitarist Jakob Bro together with Lee Konitz, Bill Frisell, Jason Moran, Thomas Morgan and Andrew Cyrille for seven of his compositions. Recorded in New York in 2014 and issued only ten years later, it is the last record Bro made with Konitz, who was 86 at the sessions and died in 2020. The band ignores the habits of an all-star date and plays as an ensemble, with soloing kept to a minimum.

The sessions took place in March 2014 at Avatar Studios, with James Farber engineering and Manfred Eicher producing. Bro mixed the tapes with Thomas Vang in August 2024 at The Village Recording Studio in Copenhagen. The ties between the players go back a long way. Bro had been a member of Paul Motian's group, and it was Motian who recommended Konitz to him in 2008. Three albums on Bro's own label followed, Balladeering, Time and December Song, all with Konitz. Frisell, too, had a long history with Motian, and Morgan has been Bro's regular bassist for years.

The line-up of saxophone, two guitars, piano, bass and drums could easily become crowded, but the music stays spacious. In the opener, Black Is All Colors At Once, the two guitars intertwine before Konitz enters on alto with a slow, lyrical solo. On Haiti he switches to soprano over a loose, rolling pulse from Morgan and Cyrille. Pearl River, named after a budget store in New York's Chinatown, is the most melancholy piece, with Konitz again in front and Moran more prominent near the end. Bro has said his compositions are about catching a glimpse of a feeling and unfolding it as the band records.

Reviewers treated the release as a lost record finally found. In The Guardian in January 2025, John Fordham called it "a little masterpiece", praising its "understated themes, and spontaneously ensemble-engendered ideas". Writing for UK Jazz News, Phil Johnson concluded that "this may well be one of the albums of the year, ten years late." Several critics heard in it an echo of the cool school and of the Lennie Tristano tradition from which Konitz came, now absorbed into Bro's spacious writing.

This is the CD edition, ECM 2543, released on 29 November 2024.