The “six words” of the title refer to a statement Barber once heard from Wynton Marsalis: “There is power in this music.” The suite explores that power in its many guises—to all of which Barber himself has fallen prey: “I’m as excited as I’ve been about music in a long, long time.”
Barber is looking at music from a different vantage point with this record. Now settled into academia in Chapel Hill, the saxophonist is able to embrace making music without having to take it on the road for endless stretches. It gave him the time and space to sharpen his focus and refine his approach, with the product being a musical vision of fresh clarity.
But that didn’t subtract from the all-important spontaneity in the music; Barber saw to that. He assembled a band—trombonist Roland Barber, his twin brother; trumpeter Pharez Whitted; pianist Matt Endahl; bassist Kevin Beardsley; and drummer Joshua Hunt—that had never played together before and didn’t get a look at Barber’s compositions until they arrived at the studio in Nashville.
All the more remarkable, then, are nuances like the subtly balanced ensemble work on “Unity, Parts I and II,” Roland Barber’s sensitive muted melodic statement on “Reach,” or the delicate three-way exchanges between Rahsaan Barber and Beardsley, Endahl, and the brasses on “Dreams of Goliath.” They manage it all and maintain the vigor and aplomb it takes to generate gorgeous improvisations like Endahl’s ruminative one on “The Long Wait for Justice,” Rahsaan Barber’s fond reverie on “Remembering Roy” (for Roy Hargrove), or Whitted and Roland Barber’s fierce counterpoint on “Sun Dance.” This music has caught the other musicians in its power, too.
Rahsaan Barber was born April 2, 1980 in Nashville, Tennessee, where he was raised. He was the third generation of a musical family, with his grandmother and parents immersing him in every flavor of Black American Music. Jazz was the one that captured his attention, and Barber took after his older brother Robert in selecting the tenor saxophone.
Accompanied by his trombone-playing twin brother, Roland, Barber matriculated at Indiana University, where both brothers studied under pioneering jazz educator David Baker. After completing their undergraduate work at IU, the Barber twins earned master’s degrees at Manhattan School of Music; Rahsaan went on to earn a doctorate in classical saxophone at the University of Memphis.
Shortly after finishing his master’s, Barber was hired as a saxophone instructor at Belmont University in Nashville, moving from there to Tennessee State University and then to the University of North Carolina, where he is currently an assistant professor of music. He has also presented master classes at numerous other universities.
In the meantime, he has continued to develop a performing career. The brothers made an album as co-leaders, Twinnovation, in 2000; his first album as a leader, Trio Soul, arrived in 2005. Barber then spent many years freelancing on the Nashville scene, leading to tours with Kelly Clarkson, Chris Stapleton, the Wooten Brothers, and Delfeayo Marsalis. Between those gigs and the university ones, he issued Everyday Magic, his first collection of all original tunes, in 2010, with the standards-intensive Music in the Night following in 2016 and Mosaic, another album of all-originals, in 2021. Six Words is his first time creating original compositions as a suite, adding another impressive entry to his already formidable list of accomplishments.
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