Jack,
Please say hi for me (we're old pals -- even studied together in Chicago for a bit) and that I look forward to our next evening on the Curry Mile
I love the Northern, by the way. It's a terrific school.
Markus' work really interests me. As you've heard, he's a fabulous trumpeter (credits Caruso), and equally at home with jazz, free improv (nobody's more creative, in my opinion), new music, and his father's stuff (which he no longer plays). He's also a serious composer.
Markus is anything but a "crossover" artist -- simply one who explores a larger number of genres than most. It's just language in the end and we would all be well served by crawling out of our little self-imposed holes occasionally to learn a new one!
Cheers,
EC