Rahsaan Barber: Six Words

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."

The band Barber assembled for the session—the whole album was recorded in a Nashville studio on a single December day in 2022—is a sextet with a three-horn frontline. Barber on tenor, alto and soprano saxophones, brother Roland Barber on trombone, Pharez Whitted on trumpet, Matt Endahl on piano, Kevin Beardsley on electric and acoustic bass, and Joshua Hunt on drums.

Much of the album is through composed and ensemble work is key throughout. There are solos on each track, but they are brief and improvised against a backdrop of close-harmony horn duos and trios. In the main, the voicings are lush and lyrical—opener "Unity, Part 1," for instance, has strong echoes of Gerry Mulligan and Chet Baker's sonorities in Mulligan's early 1950s pianoless quartet. Occasionally the charts take on a degree of astringency, as in the opening minutes of "The Long Wait For Justice." Rhythms are loose and swinging (more echoes of the Mulligan band), edging towards turbulence on "Dreams Of Goliath" and samba and traditional Native American dance beats on "Sun Dance."

As a soloist, it is Roland Barber who attracts most attention, just as he did on another 2024 Jazz Music City album, drummer John Alvey's love letter to hard bop, Loft Glow, reviewed here (which also featured pianist Matt Endahl). Roland Barber can embrace rough, tough tailgate (as on "Sun Dance") and gentle lyricism (as on "Reach"). He is someone to look out for.

As befits its subject matter, Six Words has a dignified, thoughtful vibe. Despite the aforementioned "Dreams Of Goliath" and "Sun Dance," however, it could benefit from a bit more edge of the seatness.