Turkish-born Ahmet Ertegun founded Atlantic Records in 1947, providing an early platform for jazz, soul and blues musicians, including John Coltrane, Leadbelly and Dizzy Gillespie.
For his eclectic talent and accomplishments as a musician, poet, painter, and composer, Lake won the 2006 Mellon Jazz Living Legacy Award from the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation.
Yet his quartet, which combines a Polish trumpeter and a Cuban pianist with two New Yorkers, doesn't argue for the superiority of jazz or musicians on either side of the Atlantic.