Jazz Articles about Roland Barber

About Roland Barber

Album Review

Frank Swart: This Is The One! (Raison D'êTre)

Read "This Is The One! (Raison D'êTre)" reviewed by Kyle Simpler

by Kyle Simpler
July 27, 2026

There is a common misconception that musical artists who release albums usually tour to promote them. While this may be true for the most part, there are exceptions. San Francisco-based bassist and composer Frank Swart is quick to point out that artists such as The Beatles were more focused on spending time in the studio creating albums than taking the show on the road. Swart's project Funkwrench Blues uses the studio to full effect, and this is evident on This Is The ...

Album Review

Rahsaan Barber: Six Words

Read "Six Words" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
March 10, 2025

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 ...

Album Review

Rahsaan Barber: Six Words

by Chris May
September 21, 2024

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." ...

Album Review

John Alvey: Loft Glow

by Chris May
August 11, 2024

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 ...