Steve Turre

Steve Turre stands among the elite trombonists bridging the final decades of the twentieth century and the opening years of the twenty-first, distinguished equally by his breadth of musical pursuits. A composer, sideman, arranger, bandleader, and educator, he brought conch shells into jazz as a viable instrument starting in 1970, with his 1993 release Sanctified Shells now regarded as a landmark recording. Since 1985 Turre has served as both member and music director of the Saturday Night Live Band, and since 1988 he has instructed jazz trombone at the Manhattan School of Music. His session credits encompass an extensive roster of major jazz figures. The 1987 solo debut Viewpoint first signaled to jazz journalists the arrival of a significant new voice. Throughout the 1990s his Antilles and Verve albums—Sanctified Shells, The Rhythm Within, Steve Turre, and Lotus Flower—each registered on the jazz charts. Blending a blues-inflected trombone approach, conch shells, and fresh rhythmic concepts, Turre forged connections across Ellington-ian swing, bop, modal and avant-jazz, and Afro-Latin as well as Caribbean rhythms. In the new millennium he returned to the charts with tributes to his former employer and mentor Woody Shaw on the 2012 album Woody's Delight, followed by Spiritman in 2015 and Colors for the Masters in 2016. The 2024 Smoke Sessions release Sanyas marked his fifth project for the label and his initial live recording as a leader.

Born in Nebraska in 1948, Turre grew up under the guidance of his Mexican-American parents in the San Francisco Bay area, where he encountered regular exposure to mariachi, blues, and jazz. He began trombone studies in fourth grade at age ten after earlier violin lessons. A football scholarship took him to California State University at Sacramento, where he pursued music theory for two years while performing with the Escovedo Brothers salsa band before transferring to the University of North Texas College of Music. He finished his coursework in 1969 and joined a jazz ensemble directed by trumpeter Hannibal Peterson. That same period, beginning in 1968, initiated his intermittent mentorship under Roland Kirk.

Turre moved to California in 1970 and recorded with Santana, then toured with Ray Charles in 1972, marking the start of his deeper immersion in jazz. He performed with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, both in 1973, and handled trombone and electric bass duties regularly with Chico Hamilton from 1974 to 1976 while also appearing on recordings by Woody Shaw and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Kirk, a perpetual seeker of new sonorities, encouraged Turre to perform on exotic shells in professional settings. Following Kirk's passing, Turre traveled with McCoy Tyner, Dexter Gordon, Slide Hampton, Poncho Sanchez, Hilton Ruiz, and Tito Puente, among additional artists. In 1987 he entered Dizzy Gillespie's United Nations Orchestra and maintained ongoing associations with Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy, the Leaders, and the Timeless All-Stars. Turre presented his Sanctified Shells ensemble—comprising four trombonists who also played shells, trumpeter E.J. Allen, bass, drums, and multiple percussionists—at the 1995 Monterey Jazz Festival and has issued leader dates on Stash, Antilles, Verve, and Telarc. His 1990s Antilles recordings all charted and established his international profile.

After issuing a pair of Telarc albums at the century's turn, TNT and One4J, Turre launched an extended association with Highnote in 2004 through the acclaimed Kirk tribute The Spirits Up Above. Recorded in 2007 at Knoop Studios in New Jersey, Rainbow People appeared on Highnote Records in 2008, presenting reinterpretations of bop compositions by Charlie Parker alongside originals performed by a quintet that included drummer Ignacio Berroa, pianist Mulgrew Miller, bassist Peter Washington, and trumpeter Rodney Jones. Delicious and Delightful arrived in 2010. Early in 2012 Turre fulfilled a long-standing aim with a tribute album to the late Woody Shaw, whose touring and recording groups he had joined for eight years between 1981 and 1989. Woody's Delight showcased alternating trumpet players Wallace Roney, Jon Faddis, Alfredo "Chocolate" Armenteros, and Claudio Roditi, while also introducing 23-year-old Freddie Hendrix as an emerging horn talent, and it reached the Top 50. During summer 2013 Turre released The Bones of Art, spotlighting a multi-trombone front line that featured Frank Lacy, Robin Eubanks, and Steve Davis, among others, though the project did not chart. In 2015 he delivered a set of reimagined standards titled Spiritman for Smoke Sessions, followed the next year by the charting Colors for the Masters, which peaked at number 16 and featured drummer Jimmy Cobb, bassist Ron Carter, and pianist Kenny Barron performing works by Thelonious Monk, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and Wayne Shorter alongside several Turre originals. In 2017 Turre appeared among the invited soloists on the United States Air Force Band album Airmen of Note alongside Cyrus Chestnut and Terell Stafford. Two years afterward he realized another enduring objective with The Very Thought of You on Smoke Sessions, a ballad collection spotlighting Barron, bassist Buster Williams, drummer Willie Jones III, tenor saxophonist George Coleman, guitarist Russell Malone, and strings arranged by Marty Sheller.

Generations, released in 2022, paired emerging jazz players with veteran colleagues and spotlighted the trombonist's son, drummer Orion Turre, alongside trumpeter Wallace Roney, Jr., pianist Isaiah J. Thompson, and bassist Corcoran Holt, joined further by saxophonist James Carter, guitarists Ed Cherry and Andy Bassford, keyboardist Trevor Watkis, bassists Buster Williams and Derrick Barnett, drummers Lenny White and Karl Wright, and percussionist Pedrito Martinez. In 2024 Turre issued Sanyas, his first live album, on Smoke Sessions; the title evokes the fourth stage within the Hindu spiritual progression that follows Brahmacharya, Grihastha, and Vanaprastha. Thompson, White, and Williams returned for the project, joined by trumpeter Nicholas Payton and saxophonist Ron Blake, a longtime SNL Band associate.