You hear something like this and immediately think: whoa! back ! tone down those superlatives! he can't be that good!! I'm pleased- and a little shaken - to say that after umpteen listens I'm still persuaded that Jason Palmer is easily that good. This is a terrific modern jazz record from a player and composer who sometimes recalls Woody Shaw, more often Kenny Dorham, and just every now and again Eddie Henderson (especially when Genovese rolls out the Fender Rhodes behind him), but over the haul isn't easily pinned to an influence.

Like Osby, who guests here, Palmer won his spurs jamming at Wally's Jazz Cafe, neat the New England Conservatory where he trained. He's not just a roll-up-and play musician, though. There's considerable craft and skill in these nine originals and considerable care even with the titling, which seems acute and letter-perfect every time. "Priest Lake" is the most personal, apparently based on a mini-suite inspired by a visit to Idaho; Palmer's trumpet soars through it with that Dorhamish, vocalised quality that also inspired "Hoop-Ti-Du" (which is how Kenny sang the "whoop-de-do" line in "From This Moment On").

Palmer likes tessellations and checkerboard effects, and if there's a tiny criticism of the record, too much of it is based on fairly schematic harmonic oppositions. You hear that in "Checkmate", Laid Up" and "The Shadowboxer", the last of these is one of the best things on the date. The real action of the album is trumpet, piano/Fender, vibes, and rhythm. Easy to see the rationale of having Osby and Coltrane aboard, but so rich are Wolf and Genovese in chordal understanding and rapid comeback that I couldn't but hear the saxophones as an uneccessary addition. It's a nicely shaped record, too, with the final track (named after a PBS documentary) mirroroing the suite structure of the first.

Plaudits to AYVA for taking this one on, but I bet the next Jason Palmer cd isn't going to be on a Spanish label.

At the age of twenty-five, when most jazz musicians are still in the process of sorting out influences and making tentative steps in developing their own voice, trumpeter Jason Palmer is already playing at a level that merits close attention. Informal recordings of some recent live performances in the Boston area reveal an emerging style based on the language of bebop, including a number of fundamental elements that bode well for the future. During several medium-to-up tempo tracks he plays solos in the 4 to 6 minute range. While such stretching out can be an indication of youthful exuberance rather than significant things to say, Palmer is seldom at a loss for ideas or direction. (Palmer has signed to make a recording as a leader in 2005 for the respected independent label, Fresh Sound New Talent. It will be interesting to hear how he responds to the tighter, somewhat more rigid confines of a commercial recording date.)   
      Palmer’s solos are not filled with pyrotechnics; rather, in his own thoughtful way he’s strong and decisive. He consistently creates melodically oriented improvisational lines, mostly in the horn’s middle register, that make perfect sense. There’s no fat or excess in what he does. He rarely reaches for emotional peaks or crowd-pleasing climaxes, yet the listener is invited into each solo. There’s nothing labored or strained about his playing, and he swings without exaggeration or struggle. He’s not afraid of silence and allows the music to breathe. Palmer’s time is excellent, and he’s good at riding the bassist and drummer’s pulse while establishing a rhythmic momentum of his own. Very seldom does a phrase sound incomplete, isolated, or broken off. He has a knack for reworking and knitting together similar phrases before moving on to the next sequence.
    I’m looking forward to hearing Jason Palmer again in the near future and following his music and career in the years to come.   

"Jason Palmer may be an unheralded trumpet player, but, if his music is allowed to do the talking, it won't be for very long. His dexterity and precision in Herbie Hancock's "Sorcerer," a favorite of the pianist's most notorious employer, Miles Davis, cuts and burns like a white-hot scalpel. Other tunes, particularly Palmer originals such as "The Rundown" and more soft "Eye of the Beholder," summon familiar echoes of classic be-bop, hard-bop, and post-bop Blue Note sessions. To lift a familiar media phrase, Jason Palmer is a trumpet talent deserving wider recognition."