The Azar Lawrence Quartet

“[Lawrence has] sculpted that Coltrane-oriented goodness into the mosaic of his own mature artistry.” —JazzTimes Saxophonist Azar Lawrence came of age inside John Coltrane's direct musical lineage. In his late teens and twenties he held chairs with Elvin Jones and then McCoy Tyner — Coltrane's own legendary drummer and pianist — appearing on landmark albums like Enlightenment and Atlantis, and recording with Miles Davis on Dark Magus. That apprenticeship shaped a sound built on Coltrane's harmonic language and spiritual reach, but Lawrence never stayed a copyist: over five decades he's carried that foundation into his own catalog, from 1974's Bridge Into the New Age through Elementals, developing a broad, gritty tone and an improvisational logic that's distinctly his own. The Los Angeles-…