Joe Lovano on the art of assembling a quartet

Boston Globe

09-04-2025

The seed for the group was planted when Lovano – among the most prominent tenor saxophonists of his time, with dozens of celebrated albums on first Blue Note and more recently ECM to his name – was recruited for a hurricane relief benefit concert in 2022 by drummer Calhoun, a Berklee College of Music graduate best known for his work with the two-time Grammy-winning hard rock band Living Colour. Rounding out the trio Calhoun assembled for that night was bassist Dibriano, whom Lovano had first played with in the 1980s. The set went well, and when Lovano began thinking of forming a new band the next year, he decided to add guitarist Julian Lage into the mix.
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Lage, 37, has long been a star in his own right, most recently leading a trio. But Lovano first met him in 1999 at the venerable Oakland, Calif., club Yoshi's, where the then-pre-teen music prodigy Lage had been brought by family friends to see McCoy Tyner lead a band that included Lovano. Several years later, Lage was placed in Lovano's ensemble class at Berklee, where since 2001 the saxophonist has held the Gary Burton Chair in Jazz Performance.
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Despite their long acquaintanceship, Lovano and Lage hadn't performed publicly together until the Paramount Quartet debuted at the Vanguard in February 2024.
That weeklong residency, says Lovano, was magical. The focus was on Lovano's own compositions. But the repertoire took other directions as well.
'I remember Ravi Coltrane came to hear us,' says Lovano, referring to the saxophonist son of jazz great John Coltrane, whose music the quartet spontaneously began exploring that night from the bandstand. 'I started with some theme, one of [John] Coltrane's tunes, and it turned into a 20-minute exploration of about five different Coltrane tunes in a collage — different tempos, different keys, different everything. And all of a sudden that became an idea.'
Another night that week the quartet did the same with music by
'Everybody knows the music,' Lovano explains. 'You don't have to say, 'Oh yeah, let's play this, let's play that.' No, you do that by suggesting something you know, and the way Julian plays — he has a deep repertoire of music that he loves and knows. And everybody [in the group] does.You've got to play with the right people. And so, throughout the week, that idea started to take shape, too. And that was beautiful.'
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Lage agreed, noting that he'd known both Lovano and Debriano as long as he could remember. He recalls having performed with Debriano around age 12; Calhoun was the only one in the group he was playing with for the first time.
'It's kind of the debut of an old thing,' says Lage. 'Joe is that kind of figure. He's deeply, deeply important to all of us, as a player, as a conceptual artist, as a writer, as a historian — as someone who understands the tradition and where it's coming from, where it's going.'
Lovano also said the band would be 'playing on a couple famous, beautiful tunes,' naming relatively unfamiliar classics by Billy Strayhorn, Charlie Haden, and Wayne Shorter.
'When you play with folks, it's like — I learned this from playing with Hank Jones, too — you play music. You only really play music you love to play; you don't play anything you don't love. The more tunes and things that you love to play, the more that comes out. Because if you ever went to hear Hank Jones, play a solo concert with his trio or whatever, he captured you with every phrase. It's all about love.'
Talk turns to other celebrated groups Lovano has led or played in through the years. Some remain ongoing projects: The Sound Prints quintet he co-leads with trumpeter Dave Douglas. His
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'Since the mid-'70s, I've played with all kinds of folks, man,' Lovano notes. 'I find if you play with the same people all the time, it gets boring. I like to play with all kinds of folks and have an exchange of ideas and let the music really guide you.'
Lage feels the same way. 'A context is the paintbrush, and some cats are really great at using that paintbrush,' he says, referring to the grace with which Lovano moves among his various bands. 'He's able to be as free and imaginative with the contexts that he creates as he is with the music he's playing within them.'
Lovano's juggling of several active bands contrasts with the approach of another stellar saxophonist,
But that doesn't necessarily apply when elite musicians are involved.
'Oh no, there's no small talk at all,' Lovano counters. 'From the very get-go you get into something, because you're all living the music.'
To prove his point, Lovano offers a recent example: a recording session he did with Branford Marsalis himself. It took place last July in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where the original bassist from Marsalis's quartet, Robert Hurst, lives and teaches. Joining Marsalis, Hurst, and Lovano were pianist Orrin Evans and the Marsalis quartet's original drummer, Jeff 'Tain' Watts.
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'We came together with an attitude of, 'Yeah, that's it!' Bob had some great music. You know, a lot of record dates come together with some magical spirit. For me, that's what it's about to play music. Share the space and see where it goes. Follow the concept that's coming from the cats. Follow the sound and let it take you places.'
Which is just what the Paramount Quartet has been doing thus far this year, both musically and geographically.
GLOBAL ARTS LIVE PRESENTS JOE LOVANO'S PARAMOUNT QUARTET FEATURING JULIAN LAGE, ASANTE SANTI DEBRIANO, WILL CALHOUN
April 13, 7:30 p.m., at Somerville Theatre. 55 Davis Square, Somerville. $36 to $66.