Ballad Sessions

Have you heard Mark Turner's Ballad Sessions? I listened to it last night for the first time in a while. If there was any question as to how much Mark and Kurt have added to the general vocabulary of contemporary music, this is the confirmation. Most of the ballads are pretty standard standards with pretty trad changes, and the harmonic concepts employed by Mark(more dominantly) and Kurt create a stark contrast between the old and the new. It is a wonderful listening situation because the things they are doing comes out so clearly at these tempos and with the 'solid color' background of the original tunes. Kurt plays beautifully and extremely articulately on Nefertiti(one of the few more modern forms), making it very clear that he has replaced Metheny in the Holy Trinity of jazz guitar(scofield, frisell). I look forward to absorbing the Gospel according Mark'nKurt.