Scott Marshall

June 1^st, 2024

Saxophonist Scott Marshall has gigged with everyone from The Rascals to Marie Osmond. He currently teaches at the Oscar Peterson School of Music at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory. His latest self-released album is The Solitude Suite, which, like his previous six albums, is all-original compositions.

The CD was inspired by the “solitudes created by smartphones, social media algorithms, and divisive political discourse.” To reflect the loss of “middle ground” in society, Marshall leaves out any chordal instruments in his acoustic quartet.

Without piano or guitar, the sound is detached and floating. It compares to Ornette Coleman’s first pianoless quartet, but this isn’t free jazz. Marshall’s compositions stick to the changes, the arrangements are head-solo-head, and there’s no interplay among the sax and trumpet when they improvise. This makes you sometimes hear a piano or guitar in your imagination.

The “middle ground” role shifts not so much to Mike Downes’ walking bass, but to Terry Clarke’s drums. Rather than inversions and modulations, you get loud and soft, fast and slow, and different touches on the percussion as it responds to the soloists and steers them.

Kevin Turcotte’s trumpet is warm, stays in the middle register, and has a slightly blurry edge to it like Don Cherry’s. Marshall’s tenor is airy and fluid, in the Lester Young/Stan Getz tradition. They make an effective combination, especially when they play in straightforward harmonies.

“Conversations” is a good example of Marshall’s composing and playing talents. There’s tension-and-release as the melody’s sour harmonies unfold. The soprano solo makes effective use of the unusual intervals heard in the melody, taking them in new directions.

Turcotte has his own style. He especially caught my attention on the meditative “Reflection.” In a dissonant melody that recalls Yusef Lateef’s “Syn-Anthesia,” Turcotte plays long tones very quietly, without a mute, while still sounding expressively human. It’s a reminder that playing quietly is an advanced technical skill for trumpeters, too.

Marshall succeeds here with another document dedicated to his own highly personal musical vision.

Allen Michie, The Arts Fuse

The band’s strong connection and, most importantly, their emotional playing set this album apart. The album invites the listener to actively embrace the depths of the performances and revel in the ensuing solitude. It is a not-to-be-missed musical experience.

Ed Sapiega - Jazz Views

The Solitude Suite is a contemporary jazz enthusiast's delight, showcasing talent, emotion, and creative passion in every song.

Jim A. Cox – Midwest Book Review

Solitude Suite is a composition inspired during the Covid-19 period, undoubtedly fueled by the need for air, sunlight, and vast spaces, which today provides such a joyful recording. It marks the sixth album of original music by saxophonist and composer Scott Marshall. Written for a unique configuration without chords – and performed by Canadian jazz icons Kevin Turcotte, Mike Downes, Terry Clarke, and Marshall himself – the Solitude Suite once again proves that Marshall is one of Canada’s most insightful and creative jazz composers.
As we know, Canadian jazz musicians are often the most inspired, with one foot in Anglo-Saxon and Francophone cultures. Often, they incorporate a bit of both worlds into their art, whether it’s in music, literature, dance, or visual arts. So, it’s natural here to find particularly radiant and inspiring inspirations in terms of musical writing or composition, if you prefer. No unnecessary chatter; the saxophones tell the story, while the other instruments set the scene.
The first half of this suite was composed during the Covid-19 pandemic (a literal solitude). The second half was composed as the world emerged and grappled with the “new normal” (figurative solitude). In jazz music, chordal instruments typically cover the internal harmonies of the music. They handle the middle ground, holding the song together – they play the “buttered notes,” as Miles Davis put it.
The shadow of Miles, yes, from a sixties era in part, and especially in intentions, in the way the instruments are structured in the arrangements, far from be-bop, it’s more about feeling, but strangely this album brings me back to certain albums by Dexter Gordon, circa 1973 with his quartet. There’s something of that in it; this album walks in the footsteps of the greatest, with no pretensions, just out of love, necessity, and emotion, and there’s plenty of emotion in this album. This suite is both a reflection on these solitudes and a musical call for more beauty, hope, and optimism in the world.
Solitude, not only the one caused by Covid, I also see the solitude of the artist facing himself, during creation, or on stage, those magical moments between musicians where communication happens in silence most of the time through looks and, if necessary, through a gesture.
An album that, without seeking to be demonstrative, immediately knows how to make itself indispensable, simply through its sincerity…

Thierry De Clemensat
USA correspondent – Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News

PARIS-MOVE, March 10th 2024