Tony Jones - Saxophone

Tenor saxophonist Tony Jones has performed, recorded and composed for the Jessica Jones Quartet for 25 years, and collaborated with Peter Apfelbaum in musical groups since they were fourteen years old, including the seminal Berkeley Free Jazz Unit, the Hieroglyphics Ensemble, the Peter Apfelbaum Sextet and the New York Hieroglyphics Ensemble. In addition, Tony has worked with Joseph Jarman, Muhal Richard Abrams, Cecil Taylor, Idris Ackamoor, and Don Cherry playing jazz festivals on the east and west coasts as well as in Germany and France.

As an art form, free jazz is often associated with honking, screaming, fiercely extroverted solos. But in the hands of tenor saxophonist Tony Jones, free improvisation can also explore introspective inner spaces. On his beatific new recording Pitch, Rhythm and Consciousness, his music murmurs, croons, chants and sighs, sustaining a becalmed but intensely alert mood from beginning to end. Featuring master drummer Kenny Wollesen and exploratory violinist Charles Burnham, the project brings together three long-time comrades. In many ways, the unusual instrumentation gave birth to the album, as Wollesen steps away from the trap set to create resonant textures with a collection of bells that inspired these captivating soundscapes. The music unfolds as a series of aural investigations, as Jones and Burnham leave plenty of space for the metallic notes to ring and fade. The resulting music - patient, intimate and unmistakably jazzcentric - is unlike anything else in recent memory.

Tags