This is the California and Berklee-raised saxophonist/composer's first quartet album since 2014's gracefully polyphonic Lathe of Heaven, and it repeats that session's two-horns-and-rhythm setup, now with the Boston-based trumpet virtuoso Jason Palmer coming in for Avishai Cohen, and young West Coast drummer Jonathan Pinson (who includes Herbie Hancock and Kamasi Washington among his employers) replacing Marcus Gilmore. But the shape and sound of the group continues to be guided by Turner's unique composer's muse, a blend of effortlessly subtle Birth of the Cool harmony-glides, register-sweeping Coltrane-to-Wayne Shorter sax-improv, and contrapuntal horn dialogues.

On the title track, the ways the harmonies build and sway in improv conversation - drawing melodic motifs toward new turns or dropping back to let Joe Martin's bass briefly take the dominant role between the purrs of the horn lines and the tick of the drums – showcase Turner's intuitions about this instrumentation's collective potential for integrating through-written chamber music and freewheeling soloing. 'Terminus' is a slowly riffy long-tone theme over a dark bass vamp - distantly evocative of 'All Blues' - with its exchanges sometimes fluid and floating, sometimes accented and swinging. 'Bridgetown' occasionally hints at 'Fly Me To The Moon', 'It's Not Alright With Me' finds Turner in his most Shorter-like mood; 'Unacceptable' is a delightful rhythm-game on short, stuttered, single-note patterns; 'Lincoln Heights' a sensuous sway on smoky horn harmonies against Martin's and Pinson's lazily simmering slow groove. Within this quietly chamber-musical cloister Mark Turner is so at home in, Return From The Stars is close to perfect.