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Rahsaan Barber: Six Words
by Jack Bowers
The Six Words that epitomize woodwind artist Rahsaan Barber's fifth recording as a leader came to him via trumpeter Wynton Marsalis: “There is power in this music." And as Barber affirms on this tasteful studio date, aside from power there is depth and refinement as well. Barber commands a tight-knit sextet, so much so that it is hard to believe that most of them had never played together before gathering in Nashville, Tennessee in December 2020 to record ...
Continue ReadingRahsaan Barber: Six Words
by Chris May
Six Words is saxophonist Rahsaan Barber's fourth album on his Nashville-based label Jazz Music City, and the first to be conceived as a suite. The titular six words are something Wynton Marsalis said in a conversation with Barber: “There is power in this music." With that thought in mind, Barber composed a series of pieces focused on protest, personal liberation and love, and on the penultimate track, grief, in a tender elegy for Roy Hargrove, “Remembering Roy." ...
Continue ReadingJohn Alvey: Loft Glow
by Chris May
Such is the proliferation of albums which in the 2020s are taking jazz in new and exciting directions--see AAJ's Best Jazz Albums of 2024: All-Star Break Edition round-up here--that it is easy to pass over albums which have their feet firmly planted in the tradition, and which show no ambition to redefine it, but which are by any standards fresh and first-class jazz. Such an album is Nashville-based drummer John Alvey's debut, Loft Glow. On this love ...
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