With BloodLines, Giant Steps Arts introduces a compelling new compositional voice, Colorado-native tenor saxophonist Rico Jones. The album is his New York City leader debut and features a multi-generation band of peer guitarist Max Light and two veterans in bassist Joe Martin and drummer Nasheet Waits.
In his budding career, Jones has already accomplished much. He has won the Vandoren and Yamaha Emerging Artist Competitions and Manhattan School of Music’s William H. Borden Award for Outstanding Achievement and was selected to participate in both the Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Program at the Kennedy Center and the JAS Aspen Workshop. During his time at the Manhattan School of Music, Jones won numerous DownBeat Magazine awards for his ensembles, including jazz soloist. In 2024, he co-led—with creator Julia Keefe—the first-ever all-Indigenous big band, a project he helped initiate in 2022, and later appeared at the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival with Esperanza Spalding. That same year, he was invited by Spalding to appear as a special guest for two nights at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York. Jones has been mentored by David Kikoski, Bennie Maupin, Charles McPherson, Bobby Watson, Eric Wyatt, and George Coleman, and studied under Vincent Herring, Buster Williams, Paquito D’Rivera, Arturo O’Farrill, and Miguel Zenón.
Critical to Jones as a musician is his multicultural heritage. “The Latino and Indigenous perspectives have always been a part of my life. I saw much of those cultural expressions in my mother and extended family, the art in my home and the food I ate growing up,” he says. “My ancestry can be traced back to the Manso people who lived from New Mexico to Juarez Mexico.” Furthermore, Jones has absorbed the traditions of African-Americans both through his love of jazz legends like Wayne Shorter, Joe Henderson, Wardell Gray, Lester Young and others and by playing music in his youth each Sunday in a predominantly Black Catholic Church.
BloodLines, recorded live at Brooklyn’s Ornithology in August 2024, is, as the title clearly implies, a deeply personal album, comprising original compositions but also Jones’ decision to have the performance begin with the five sections of "Bloodlines: Suite of the Omnipotent and Eternal Spirit," the preposition "of" rather than "for" emphasizing how each piece is part of a larger whole. As well, Jones says, “Film and its accompanying scores have been a deep source of inspiration for me. I love the emotional weight that the great melodies in film carry,” he says. “Just as films transport the audience, I hope the music connects people to a musical narrative, a singular expression of the divine seen through different lenses—my ancestors, my departed friends, my creativity, and my lived experience.”
The opening “Invocation,” a brief group improvisation symbolizes what Jones says is “the act of calling upon divine spiritual powers when entering a state of prayer.” Other pieces speak to the divine and the universe we inhabit, particularly the last three: “Across Time,” “The Moment” and “The Voice of God Shines Brightly On My Heart.” The first percolates not only with movement but also perspective; the second’s introspective quality recalls “points in life when I experience true clarity about the nature of all things”; and the third acts as an impassioned bookend to “Invocation,” an “acknowledgment of the divine creator of all life and reality. I can only speak to my own connection to the creative spirit as an unquenchable source of joy, hope, and creativity.”
Other pieces celebrate important people in Jones’ life, from a deceased friend beautifully memorialized in “Lone Wolf” to his treasured great-grandmother, whose stateliness and resolve is captured with ““Queen Isabelle.” No matter the source material Jones’ gorgeous tone is on display throughout, his playing with a sense of purpose and understanding of restraint belying his youth.
Crucial to the success of Jones’ vision is his band, which Jones says reflects that “the beauty of music is that it is a cultural, traditional, and aural art form. It is inherently cross-generational. This ensemble is an example of the age-old tradition of multigenerational exchange in the musical arts.” Jones has known Light the longest and worked with him the most, the guitarist’s his absolute first choice for the album and someone who brings “a high level of enthusiasm and creativity”. Martin and Waits he had first appreciated as a listener and thus was eager to collaborate with both for this project: “Their wisdom and experience add a level of creative musical power that both inspires and guides Max and me in ways we might not otherwise encounter.”
All albums are biographical in some way, reflecting the spirit of the musician who created it but BloodLines is particularly so. Jones has the rare ability to communicate on myriad levels with the audience and make the act of listening a richly expansive occurrence. "This music marks a rite of passage for me—a convergence of years of prayer, dreams, and hard work coming into focus," he says. "It’s part of my journey from Colorado to New York, but also an attempt to invoke the presence of God in my playing, to remember those I love who have passed, and to honor the voices that helped nurture both my faith and my creativity."
BloodLines is the latest entry in Giant Step’s Modern Masters and New Horizon series. Specially curated by trumpeter Jason Palmer and drummer Nasheet Waits, the series features artists who have helped shape the modern jazz landscape along with rising voices doing the same for the next generation. Artists currently slated to contribute include saxophonists Mark Turner, Neta Raanan, drummer Eric McPherson and the Edward Pérez/Michael Thomas Band.
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