Phil Haynes Asks “What?” Again With the Adventurous New 2 Horns & What?

For drummer and composer Phil Haynes, a question mark has never simply been punctuation. It is an invitation.

More than three decades after launching the eccentric ensemble 4 Horns & What?, Haynes is returning to the concept in a leaner, more combustible form with 2 Horns & What?, a trio built around horns, drums, improvisation, and the possibilities that emerge when almost everything else is stripped away.

The new project makes its recorded debut October 2, 2026, with two albums arriving simultaneously on Haynes’ Corner Store Jazz imprint. AvAnt MODerN is a freewheeling live recording featuring experimental trumpeter Nathan Wooley, while JAzZ nOW takes a somewhat more straightahead — though still unmistakably Haynes — approach with saxophonist Jonathan Ragonese.

Both albums feature Haynes alongside saxophonist Peyton Pleninger, a younger collaborator with whom the drummer has developed a musical mentorship through experiments at Pleninger’s upstate New York venue and research space, The Tavern. The two recordings present different versions of the same fundamental idea: two horn voices and one drummer, left to discover what happens next.

That question has been at the center of Haynes’ musical personality for decades.

He launched 4 Horns & What? in the late 1980s, introducing himself as the “What?” in the equation. The unconventional ensemble combined multiple horns with Haynes’ highly conversational drumming, creating a sound that could move from New Orleans polyphony to free jazz and modern composition.

The original band lasted five years and produced two studio recordings and a live album that remained unreleased for decades before appearing on The Complete American Recordings in 2024. The concept, however, never really left Haynes.

“At this point in my career,” he explains, “I’m constantly trying to figure out where I’m going next. Getting rid of everything but horns and drums challenged me in a lot of ways and also garnered some attention early in my career. I thought that lots of other bands would have explored that setting in the 25 years since, but that hasn’t really happened. So it seemed like there was endless potential in revisiting the idea.”

The revival also gave Haynes an opportunity to look backward in a way that is unusual for an artist whose instincts generally point toward the future. For the new albums, he revisited compositions from several chapters of his career, including his work with Paul Smoker’s trio, the original 4 Horns & What?, and his venturesome trio No Fast Food.

The decision was inspired partly by the example of musicians Haynes considers heroes.

“So many of my heroes, like Joe Henderson or Miles Davis, performed different versions of the same material over the course of time,” he says. “And boy, when the tunes changed and something new emerged, it was always exciting to me. A great tune is a great tune, and it was fun selecting things from my early records with the new guys in mind and then witnessing how they transformed them.”

On AvAnt MODerN, Wooley and Pleninger take that opportunity to the outer edges. The album thrives on extended techniques, unusual textures, startling vocalizations, and the kind of open-ended interaction that makes the absence of a conventional rhythm section feel less like a limitation than a challenge.

Haynes himself becomes another voice within the ensemble, adding spoken recitations to several pieces and expanding the idea of the “What?” beyond the drums.

The album opens with “Never Doubt I Love,” a fanfare built from Shakespeare texts that Haynes originally arranged for his wedding, where his sister Mary Beth, a coloratura soprano, performed the piece. On the new recording, Haynes delivers the words himself, an intensely personal interpretation that reportedly moved his wife Dee, who was in the audience, to tears.

Dee is also honored on “For Doc, Hawk & Dee,” where Haynes offers an impassioned reading of “Body and Soul,” connecting the performance to Coleman Hawkins and to his late mentor Paul Smoker.

If AvAnt MODerN pushes toward the outer limits, JAzZ nOW explores what happens when the same horns-and-drums framework leans more deeply into Haynes’ jazz roots.

Ragonese is a longtime acquaintance of Haynes and a former protégé of pianist Steve Rudolph, one of Haynes’ partners in the Day Dream Trio. His tenor saxophone interacts with Pleninger in a two-horn conversation that draws on the history of players such as Sonny Rollins and John Coltrane while remaining firmly rooted in the present.

The opening track, “Together,” erupts into a fiery dual solo over Haynes’ rolling drums. “Goofus’ Step” places woozy horn lines over a deliberately stumbling rhythmic foundation. “Blue Dop” unfolds with a sly, almost cinematic quality, while “A Lil’ Iowa Get-Down” closes the album with an angular hoedown that prompts Haynes to wonder what the people of Davenport might make of it.

For all their differences, Haynes views the two albums as parts of the same band rather than separate projects.

“This really is one band,” he says, “even though we’re exploring different strains of my material. I really enjoy highlighting the ways that the performers change interpretation. When I explain the idea of horns and drums to people, they inevitably respond, ‘What?!’ And that inevitably opens the door to some serious fun.”

That sense of playfulness is part of what has made Haynes such a distinctive presence across nearly four decades of adventurous music. His discography stretches across nearly 100 releases for American and European labels, with collaborations spanning an unusually broad cross-section of contemporary jazz and improvised music.

He has worked with saxophonists Anthony Braxton, Ellery Eskelin, David Liebman, and Wooley; trumpeters Herb Robertson and Paul Smoker; bassists Mark Dresser, Ken Filiano, and Drew Gress; keyboard artists David Kikoski, Denman Maroney, and Michelle Rosewoman; guitarists Ben Monder, Steve Salerno, and Jim Yanda; vocalists Theo Bleckmann, Nicholas Horner, and Hank Roberts; violinist Mark Feldman; and the composers collective Joint Venture.

His musical outlets have included the Americana string band Free Country, Terra with guitarist Ben Monder and Pleninger, the new 2 Horns & What?, and the romantic piano trio Day Dream with Yamaha artist Steve Rudolph.

Haynes has also chronicled his musical journey in his 2023 memoir, Chasing the Masters: First Takes of a Modern Drumming Artist, a wide-ranging account of a career shaped by curiosity, collaboration, experimentation, and an enduring willingness to follow an idea wherever it leads.

That spirit is embedded in the very structure of 2 Horns & What?. Without bass, guitar, or piano to define the harmonic and rhythmic architecture, the musicians have to construct the music in real time. The horns become melody, texture, counterpoint, and sometimes percussion. The drums become more than timekeeping, functioning instead as an equal conversational voice.

And then there is the question mark.

It remains the perfect symbol for Haynes’ approach. The point isn't necessarily to know what will happen before the music begins. The point is to create enough space for something unexpected to happen once it does.

With AvAnt MODerN and JAzZ nOW, Haynes is revisiting an idea that first took shape more than 35 years ago, but he isn't simply recreating his past. By placing the concept in the hands of Pleninger, Wooley, and Ragonese, he is testing what the horns-and-drums format can become now.

Two horns. One drummer. Two very different records.

And, as Haynes has been asking all along, the most important question may still be the simplest one: What happens next?

2 Horns & What?: AvAnt MODerN (Corner Store Jazz CSJ #0160) was recorded March 28, 2026. 2 Horns & What?: JAzZ nOW (Corner Store Jazz CSJ #0161) was recorded May 8–9, 2026. Both albums are released October 2, 2026.

Mathis Picard’s The Sound Orchestra Reimagines Big-Band Jazz for a Global Dance Floor

For pianist, composer, and producer Mathis Picard, the big band has never been about standing still.

His new project, The Sound Orchestra, takes the scale and tradition of large-ensemble jazz and pushes it outward, drawing equally from Madagascar, Afro-Cuban music, 1970s funk, UK garage, and the improvisational language of jazz. The result is a genre-fluid orchestra built not simply to be heard, but to move people.

Picard has announced The Sound Orchestra, the debut album from his large ensemble of the same name, arriving November 6 via La Reserve Records. The announcement comes with “Portrait of Lizzy,” a deeply personal reimagining of the American standard “Portrait of Jennie” and a celebration of Picard’s wife, Lizzy.

The timing is intentional. “Portrait of Lizzy” arrives on the couple’s third wedding anniversary. The two were married at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Dizzy’s Club, a venue with a significant connection to Picard’s career and his years at The Juilliard School. It is also a place where Picard has performed with The Sound Orchestra at the club’s legendary dance parties, including a celebration of the music of Earth, Wind & Fire, whose infectious energy has become a central influence on the project.

The new recording turns that personal history into music, transforming a classic melody associated with romance into something intimate and contemporary.

For Picard, however, The Sound Orchestra is about more than expanding the traditional jazz ensemble. It is about creating a physical relationship between musicians and listeners.

“This is not your traditional Big Band record,” Picard explains. “The goal of the band was always for it to make people dance. Whether it be swing music, house, dubstep, waltz, or even a ballad, I wanted to connect with the audience through dance. Dance for me is this wonderful way to express our bodies, and for us to be together in community.”

That idea of community is central to the album. Rather than treating musical traditions as separate territories, Picard allows them to collide and communicate. Rhythms from Madagascar, the homeland of his mother, meet Afro-Cuban grooves and the muscular funk of Earth, Wind & Fire. The harmonic and orchestral possibilities of jazz giants such as Duke Ellington and Fats Waller provide another foundation, while contemporary rhythmic ideas broaden the palette.

The result is music that can move between swing, funk, dance music, waltz, balladry, and improvisation without treating genre boundaries as fixed.

Picard's relationship with the large ensemble stretches back to adolescence. At 13, while studying at Chetham’s School of Music in England, he led a similar group. The American incarnation of The Sound Orchestra began years later as a three-horn ensemble performing Picard’s original compositions, with Giveton Gelin and Ruben Fox among its early members.

Over time, the project grew into a full-scale ensemble with a saxophone section, electric bass, and an expansive percussion section. That evolution mirrors Picard’s own musical development: the more worlds he encountered, the more space he needed to accommodate them.

Born in France to a French father and Malagasy mother, Picard began playing piano at four. His education took him across France, the United States, and the United Kingdom before bringing him to New York, where he graduated from Juilliard. He has since established himself as a distinctive young presence in contemporary jazz, receiving recognition from ASCAP’s Next Generation of Songwriters program and becoming a member of the Montreux Jazz Foundation.

His performance history already spans generations and musical perspectives. Picard has worked with artists including Ron Carter, Lillias White, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Wynton Marsalis, and Christian McBride, while performing internationally at venues and festivals including the Umbria Jazz Festival, Montreux Jazz Festival, and The Jazz Cruise.

That breadth of experience is reflected in The Sound Orchestra. The album doesn't position jazz tradition and contemporary music as opposing forces. Instead, it treats them as parts of the same conversation.

The nine-track album opens with “FearLess” before moving through the two-part “A Bigger Picture,” with “Truth” and “Hope” as its respective movements. “JitterBug Waltz” leads into “Portrait of Lizzy,” followed by “InnerChild,” “SunRise,” “Ho Azy,” and “RoundPoint.”

Even the titles suggest a project concerned with movement, perspective, memory, and possibility.

There is also a sense of deliberate physicality throughout Picard’s concept. Large ensembles can easily become exercises in orchestration — impressive in scale but distant from the audience. Picard's approach reverses that expectation. The arrangements are expansive, but their purpose is ultimately communal: to create a shared rhythmic experience in which musicians and listeners occupy the same physical world.

That philosophy helps explain the influence of Earth, Wind & Fire on the project. Their music demonstrated that sophisticated arrangements, virtuosic musicianship, theatrical scale, and an irresistible dance groove could coexist. Picard takes that lesson into the contemporary jazz landscape, adding his own multicultural vocabulary and an improviser's instinct for surprise.

The Sound Orchestra also continues Picard’s growing relationship with Jazz at Lincoln Center. On October 9, he will perform a solo set at Lincoln Center’s Kenneth C. Griffin Sidewalk Studio honoring the musical legacy of San Juan Hill. Other upcoming performances include appearances in Pennsylvania, Vermont, San Francisco, and Palo Alto.

With The Sound Orchestra, Picard is building something larger than a conventional big band. The project reflects the many places, traditions, teachers, collaborators, and communities that have shaped him, while leaving room for those influences to transform each other.

At its core, the album asks a deceptively simple question: What happens when the expansive language of jazz is built around the body's instinct to move?

For Picard, the answer is The Sound Orchestra — a meeting place where Madagascar can speak to Afro-Cuban rhythm, Duke Ellington can coexist with funk, orchestral writing can meet improvisation, and a jazz audience can become a dance floor.

The Sound Orchestra arrives November 6 via La Reserve Records.

The album tracklist is “FearLess,” “A Bigger Picture Pt. I (Truth),” “A Bigger Picture Pt. II (Hope),” “JitterBug Waltz,” “Portrait of Lizzy,” “InnerChild,” “SunRise,” “Ho Azy,” and “RoundPoint.”

Upcoming performances include October 9 at Kenneth C. Griffin Sidewalk Studio at Lincoln Center in New York; October 10 at Middlebury Town Hall Theatre in Middlebury, Vermont; October 15 at the SFJAZZ Joe Henderson Lounge in San Francisco; and October 16 at Meyhouse Jazz in Palo Alto.

Lisa B Brings the ’60s Into the Present With ’60s Magic Now!: The Y-Verse

What happens when a Bay Area artist looks back at the songs of the 1960s not as artifacts of a vanished era, but as unfinished conversations?

For Oakland singer, poet, spoken-word artist, and intuitive reader Lisa B, the answer is ’60s Magic Now!: The Y-Verse, a soulful, genre-fluid reimagining of songs that emerged from one of the most musically and culturally restless periods of modern American history. Released digitally August 21, with a physical release scheduled for September 25, the album is Lisa B’s eighth full-length record and a deliberate attempt to bring the spirit of the ’60s into the pressures and contradictions of the 2020s.

Rather than reproducing the past, Lisa B bends it.

That approach is especially vivid on “Windy,” her Latin pop-soul-jazz interpretation of The Association’s 1967 classic. In the original, Windy is an elusive free spirit. Lisa B takes that idea of freedom and expands it into something mythic, connecting the character to Oya, the Yoruba wind goddess and orisha, associated with wind, transformation, movement, and feminine power.

The song begins with a prelude establishing that connection before opening into a bright, rhythmically propulsive arrangement. Sandy Cressman supplies background vocals, while Ben Flint plays keyboards, Aaron Germain bass, Jeff Marrs drums, and Brent Sunderland percussion. Recorded at 2200 Studios in Sausalito with overdubs at Santo Recording in Oakland, the track was engineered by Dale Everingham and produced and arranged by Lisa B.

“‘Windy’ always felt to me like a song about a free spirit, but I wanted to open that freedom into something larger,” Lisa B says. “Bringing in Oya gave the song a mythic charge, a sense of wind as power, change, movement, and feminine force. Then the groove takes over. It becomes joyful, danceable, and alive in the body.”

That transformation is the organizing principle behind The Y-Verse. The album revisits songs that Lisa B associates with a moment when music, social change, experimentation, and personal liberation seemed inseparable. With the exception of Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” which was released in 1964, the album’s covers first appeared in 1967, a year Lisa hears as a particularly potent cultural crossroads: freeform radio, psychedelic music, folk-rock idealism, soul-jazz, political activism, and an increasingly blurred boundary between musical genres.

The album includes “Spooky,” “Dear Mr. Fantasy,” “Ruby Tuesday,” “Windy,” “Everybody Get Together,” and “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” alongside the original “’60s Magic Now!,” a vocal rap-and-drum duet with Jeff Marrs.

The record’s most recent single before “Windy” was “Dear Mr. Fantasy,” a collaboration with Bay Area hip-hop veteran Lyrics Born. Originally recorded by Traffic in 1967, the song becomes a meditation on imagining freedom. Lyrics Born steps into the role of Mr. Fantasy through an original rap, while Lisa B’s vocals reinterpret the song’s plea for someone to break through the gloom.

The collaboration also created a Bay Area musical circle, bringing Lyrics Born back to Oakland’s Pajama Studios, where he recorded much of Latyrx’s landmark debut, The Album. There, he reunited with mixing engineer James Gardiner, whose long history in Bay Area recording also intersects with Lisa B’s own musical journey.

The political and social atmosphere of the present day is part of what prompted the project. Lisa B describes the album as an urgent response to the Trump administration and the larger pressures of contemporary life, but The Y-Verse is less interested in nostalgia than in asking what remains useful in the idealism of the ’60s.

“That time of ‘everybody get together,’ ‘let’s love one another,’ and also ‘let’s change the world’ felt right,” she says. “In the context of the ’60s, loving one another was a community activity, and it involved social change.”

That distinction matters. These aren't museum pieces in Lisa B’s hands. They are raw material.

She adds new poetic raps and spoken interjections to five tracks, using them to expose possibilities that might be overlooked in the originals. “Ruby Tuesday” becomes a character study. “Spooky” gives greater agency to the mysterious woman at its center. “Windy” acquires a mythological dimension through Oya.

Even the album’s title began as a playful constraint. Every covered song title contains the letter Y. From there, Lisa B developed the idea into something more expansive. Y asks “why.” Its shape evokes a peace symbol. And “The Y-Verse” suggests a parallel universe just far enough removed from ordinary reality to allow a different perspective.

“It’s a WHY verse,” Lisa B says. “It’s an open-minded and open-hearted approach. We’re singing and playing for you with open minds and open hearts.”

That openness extends to the music itself. Engineered by D-Wiz, also known as Dale Everingham, and James Gardiner, and arranged by Lisa B and Ben Flint, the album moves freely among soul-jazz, funk, Latin music, hip-hop, rock, folk, and spoken word. Everingham brings decades of experience in Bay Area hip-hop, R&B, and alternative music, while Gardiner, founder of Live Oak and Pajama Studios, has contributed to recordings associated with 42 gold and platinum records and two Grammy nominations.

For Lisa B, crossing genres isn't a gimmick. It is part of how she understands music.

Across seven previous albums, she has developed a body of work that treats jazz, soul, funk, hip-hop, electronica, spoken word, and literary songcraft as interconnected forms of expression. Her work as an intuitive reader adds another dimension to that practice. She describes the psychic, poet, singer, and improviser as different kinds of seers and listeners, all concerned with what exists beneath the obvious surface.

That perspective helps explain why familiar songs become something different in her hands. The goal isn't simply to cover them. It is to listen for what they might still have to say.

“What makes people excited about music,” Lisa B says, “is that you’re giving them an alternate reality to participate in and also to heal themselves through.”

That alternate reality is at the heart of ’60s Magic Now!: The Y-Verse. The album looks backward while refusing to stay there, drawing connections between the communal idealism of another generation and contemporary questions about freedom, identity, women’s power, social change, connection, and collective responsibility.

It is also distinctly Bay Area in spirit: exploratory, genre-fluid, politically conscious, playful, and willing to let a question remain open long enough for the music to answer it.

On “Windy,” that answer arrives as movement — percussion, groove, voice, breath, and the force of Oya's wind. A song born in 1967 becomes something that can live in 2026.

Lisa B isn't trying to recreate the ’60s. She's asking what might happen if we let some of its questions loose again.

’60s Magic Now!: The Y-Verse is available digitally, with a physical release following September 25. Lisa B will perform October 3, 2026, at The Back Room in Berkeley, California.

The album tracklist is “’60s Magic Now!,” “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” “Dear Mr. Fantasy” featuring Lyrics Born, “Ruby Tuesday,” “Spooky,” “Windy,” and “Everybody Get Together.”

Listen to “Windy” here: https://lnk.bio/lisablisabernstein

Lily Finnegan Turns Chicago’s Creative Tradition Into a Language of Her Own on 150 Swirl

If Lily Finnegan’s acclaimed 2025 debut Heat On! was a love letter to Chicago’s tightly knit jazz community, 150 Swirl is a manifesto from an artist who understands that consistency can be its own form of rebellion.

Like its predecessor, the new album arrives via Cuneiform Records and reunites Finnegan with the same formidable cast: legendary Chicago tenor saxophonist Edward Wilkerson Jr., alto saxophonist Fred Jackson Jr. and bassist Nick Macri on upright and electric bass. Together, they create music that swings hard, leaves room for disruption and draws equally from Chicago’s deep jazz history and Finnegan’s wide-ranging experiences in punk, improvisation and experimental music.

At 28, Finnegan has already established herself as an essential player across several overlapping scenes. One of the defining characteristics of her musical life has been a willingness to seek out veteran musicians and learn from them.

She doesn’t take those relationships for granted. A recent conversation with a friend visiting from New York put the uniqueness of Finnegan’s Chicago experience into perspective.

“She said, ‘It’s so cool you have so many elders in your life. That intergenerational aspect is really lacking in New York,’” Finnegan recalls. “That’s part of what makes me so excited about this band.”

That intergenerational connection is embedded in 150 Swirl from its opening moments. Finnegan begins with “Same Old Velvet,” a tribute to the late saxophonist Von Freeman’s legendary Velvet Lounge, the long-running Chicago institution that became a vital home for experimental music. Finnegan was too young to have experienced the club firsthand, but its influence permeates the piece.

Swinging with rough-edged abandon, “Same Old Velvet” combines two fragments into a kinetic, rambunctious composition inspired by Roscoe Mitchell and Henry Threadgill.

“It’s very inspired by Roscoe Mitchell and Henry Threadgill, where elements of their work could paint a vibrant picture with sparse melodic information,” Finnegan says.

Edward Wilkerson Jr.’s liquid alto clarinet winds around Fred Jackson Jr.’s more combative alto saxophone, creating a sound that captures Finnegan’s idea of the Chicago aesthetic: loose without abandoning swing.

“Sometimes people think outside music equals not playing in grid-like time,” she says. “I like to keep swing in there that rubs against the grid, particularly when the music gets more chaotic.”

That balance between structure and surprise runs throughout the album. On “Eighty Too,” Macri’s muscular electric bass drives an extended form that feels like a turbulent trip across Chicago, while Wilkerson and Jackson dart around one another in a spirited saxophone conversation. Finnegan’s drumming provides the engine, simultaneously holding the music together and pushing it toward instability.

“For H-Park” takes a similarly kinetic approach, beginning with a drum solo before accelerating into a groove touched by Afro-Cuban rhythms. The pulse becomes a vehicle for the horns to move into increasingly freer territory.

“I enjoy that it’s rough around the edges,” Finnegan says. “With this group, I like to write intricate, interlocking parts but also leave room for surprise when we variate from what’s written on the page.”

The album’s quieter passages reveal another side of her compositional voice. “Lipstick Criminal Moonlight” moves from a brooding, obsessive theme into teasing, deliberate passages built around open space and minimal drum accents. Its initially tense atmosphere gradually becomes meditative before disappearing into silence.

“Lovebird Nextdoor” extends that calm with a lush, Mingus-inspired ballad. Wilkerson delivers the melody on tenor saxophone with understated grace, while Finnegan shapes the rhythm with finely calibrated dynamics and an implied 12/8 pulse.

On the largely through-composed “Drift, Flip, Spiral-Like,” Finnegan uses a rhythmic cue to organize the band’s movement. The gesture draws on samba, functioning as a drum call that brings the musicians back to the melody.

“I created a rhythmic cue that calls the band back in to the melody,” she explains.

The album closes with “Rubber Rose,” perhaps its most striking example of Finnegan’s ability to create simultaneous conversations. Macri opens on electric bass while Jackson and Wilkerson play clarinets, establishing contrasting musical paths. The drums and bass engage in one dialogue while the horns pursue another. Rather than collapsing into chaos, the competing lines create tension and intrigue, leaving the listener inside the music rather than simply observing it.

Finnegan’s approach to music is rooted in a curiosity that has been evident since childhood. Born in Chicago and raised in nearby Evanston, she started playing drums as a tween. Punk and alternative rock initially captured her attention, but jazz entered the picture in high school, when she began recognizing a connection between improvised music and punk.

“I was drawn to music about liberation and bigger topics, and less concerned about fitting in to a genre box,” she says.

At the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Finnegan initially studied sociology rather than music. Before long, however, she was spending as much time behind the drum kit as she was in the classroom and ultimately graduated with a double major.

A summer in Boston brought her into contact with Terri Lyne Carrington, who recruited her to Berklee’s master’s program. Finnegan completed the degree during the pandemic through a full scholarship to Berklee’s Global Jazz Institute, a 20-person program led by Danilo Pérez. She also participated in the Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, where she worked with mentors including Kris Davis, Linda May Han Oh and Carrington.

“Allison Miller is another major one for me,” Finnegan says, adding to a list of mentors who have encouraged her to remain curious across styles and musical histories.

After returning to Chicago in 2021, Finnegan connected with Ken Vandermark through Davis. Vandermark invited her to join his band Edition Redux, giving her an opportunity to observe his compositional process from close range.

“There are so many different ways to write and organize music,” she says.

That lesson has become central to Finnegan’s own practice. Her Berklee thesis, “Music and Abolition: Creating a World Without Policing - Music’s Role in Imagination, Experimentation, and Collectivity,” extended into a broader interest in the ways power, history and social movements have shaped Chicago’s creative community.

She is now one of the curators of the Option Series, a showcase for contemporary improvisation and composition at Experimental Sound Studio. She is also a festival organizer and member of the artist cooperative Catalytic Sound.

Her own projects range widely. With violinist and vocalist gabby fluke-mogul, her partner in the queer-punk-meets-avant-jazz duo, she released Throw It In The Sink in 2024. Her Lily Finnegan Double Drum Quintet, featuring veteran AACM drummer Vincent Davis, recently released Live at Elastic Arts. She also performs with the GAF Trio alongside saxophonist and guitarist Will Greene and cellist Ishmael Ali.

Her collaborators include James Brandon Lewis, Bill Orcutt, Fay Victor, Patrick Shiroishi, Brandon Seabrook and storyteller and multi-instrumentalist Shanta Nurullah, among many others.

That breadth is not accidental. Finnegan sees each project as an opportunity to access a different part of herself.

“The variety of projects help me connect with the different sides of myself,” she says.

That philosophy may be the key to understanding 150 Swirl. The album is rooted in Chicago, but it refuses to be confined by any single definition of Chicago jazz. It can be angular and swinging, composed and spontaneous, muscular and tender. It draws on the city’s elders while giving Finnegan room to establish her own vocabulary.

The result is a quartet that sounds deeply connected to its surroundings while remaining unmistakably individual. With 150 Swirl, Finnegan isn’t simply carrying forward a tradition. She is testing its boundaries, learning from its history and adding her own voice to the ongoing conversation.

150 Swirl features Edward Wilkerson Jr. on tenor saxophone, alto clarinet and B♭ clarinet; Fred Jackson Jr. on alto saxophone and percussion; Nick Macri on upright and electric bass; and Lily Finnegan on drums. The album is forthcoming from Cuneiform Records.

Miguel Zenón and Luis Perdomo Continue Their Journey Through the Bolero

 

For Miguel Zenón and Luis Perdomo, the bolero is more than a musical tradition. It is part of the soundtrack of home, family and memory. On El Arte del Bolero, Vol. 3, the celebrated saxophonist and pianist return to the repertoire they have explored together for years, bringing fresh spontaneity and deeply personal feeling to songs that have traveled across generations and borders.

Due August 28, 2026, on Zenón’s Miel Music label, the album is the third installment in a series that began during the isolation of the pandemic and has since become one of the duo’s most distinctive projects. The album will be released on vinyl, CD and all streaming platforms, with an album release concert scheduled for October 17 at The Jazz Gallery in New York City.

“There is a concept behind it,” Zenón says, “but the performances are very off-the-cuff and involve very few takes. We just go in and play!”

That combination of preparation and spontaneity defines the music. Zenón and Perdomo have performed together in the internationally acclaimed Miguel Zenón Quartet for 27 years, developing an intuitive musical language that allows them to follow a melody wherever it leads. Zenón’s unmistakable alto sound and Perdomo’s richly expressive piano touch give these familiar songs new dimensions without losing their emotional core.

The bolero itself is a genre built around intimacy. Emerging in eastern Cuba in the 1880s, the bittersweet love song soon spread throughout Latin America and became a defining part of 20th-century popular culture. Radio and cinema helped carry its melodies across borders, creating a shared repertoire that remains deeply embedded in the musical memory of the Spanish-speaking world.

For Zenón, who grew up in Santurce, Puerto Rico, and Perdomo, a native of Caracas, Venezuela, that repertoire is personal.

“We're exploring music that's very familiar to us,” Zenón says. “For both Luis and myself, it has a personal connection. It's not like I was around when these songs were first written or recorded. It's more like I remember hearing them at home through my parents or grandparents.”

That sense of inherited memory is central to El Arte del Bolero. Rather than approaching the songs as museum pieces, the duo treats them much as jazz musicians have long treated the Great American Songbook: as material to reinterpret, reshape and make their own.

“We explore it the same way that jazz folks would explore music out of the Great American Songbook,” Zenón says.

The connection between bolero and jazz is particularly natural in their hands. The genre’s sophisticated harmonies and song structures provide an expansive canvas for improvisation, while Zenón and Perdomo bring decades of experience to the process. Their versions retain the songs’ essential character while allowing the musicians to respond instinctively in the moment.

Choosing the repertoire is similarly intuitive. The duo does not need to look far for inspiration. Songs emerge from personal memories and conversations, often sparked by something one musician remembers hearing at home or a favorite recording discovered along the way.

That approach helped shape the original El Arte del Bolero, which was created quickly in response to the need for a livestream concert during the pandemic. Released January 8, 2021, while much of the world remained in isolation, the album introduced listeners to the intimate chemistry of Zenón and Perdomo in a stripped-down setting.

El Arte del Bolero, Vol. 2 followed in 2023 and earned the 2024 Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album. With the arrival of Vol. 3, the project has evolved from a one-time response to an established musical series, giving the two artists another opportunity to explore the repertoire that connects their Caribbean and Latin American backgrounds.

Zenón brings an extraordinary depth of experience to the project. A Puerto Rican alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader, producer and educator, he has released 19 albums as a leader over 25 years and has collaborated with artists and ensembles including Charlie Haden, Fred Hersch, Kenny Werner, David Sánchez, Danilo Pérez, Bobby Hutcherson, the Mingus Big Band and the SFJAZZ Collective. His honors include a GRAMMY Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, MacArthur Fellowship and Doris Duke Artist Award.

Perdomo brings an equally broad musical background. The Grammy-winning Venezuelan pianist has released nine recordings as a leader and appeared on more than 250 albums as a sideman. His collaborators include Ravi Coltrane, Jerry Bergonzi, Tom Harrell, Brian Lynch, Ray Barretto, Henry Threadgill, David Sánchez, The Cookers and the Vanguard Orchestra. A founding member of the Miguel Zenón Quartet, he has also collaborated with Zenón on all three volumes of El Arte del Bolero.

Yet the appeal of the series ultimately rests less on credentials than chemistry. With no rhythm section to mediate their interaction, Zenón and Perdomo operate in an unusually exposed space, responding to each other in real time. The result is music that can feel conversational, intimate and spontaneous while remaining grounded in a shared understanding of melody and harmony.

For El Arte del Bolero, Vol. 3, that chemistry continues to illuminate songs that have already lived many musical lives. Zenón and Perdomo are not simply preserving a tradition. They are listening for what these melodies still have to say—and finding new ways to say it together.

El Arte del Bolero, Vol. 3 was released August 28, 2026, via Miel Music. The album release concert takes place October 17 at The Jazz Gallery in New York City.

Brandon Sanders Is Changing the Game, One Groove at a Time

Long before Brandon Sanders took command of a drum kit, he was directing traffic on the basketball court.

A former college player at the University of Kansas, Sanders spent his early years pursuing the game before discovering the drums at 25. Decades later, after establishing himself as a first-call New York drummer, he made his recording debut in his 50s with 2023’s critically acclaimed Compton’s Finest. Since then, Sanders has released an album every year, following his debut with 2024’s The Tables Will Turn and 2025’s Lasting Impression.

Now, with The Game Changer, due October 30, 2026, via Savant Records, Sanders draws on the instincts that shaped him as both an athlete and a bandleader: awareness, timing, movement, generosity and an instinct for making everyone around him better.

“Instead of playing jazz in his youth, Sanders played basketball, and one can picture him dribbling the ball with the same springy energy,” wrote Chris Pearson in The Times of London. That energy pulses through The Game Changer, an album that moves with the confidence of a seasoned floor general while embracing the full breadth of Sanders’ musical upbringing.

The title is both a personal statement and an apt description of Sanders’ role in the studio. He sees himself as a musical point guard, someone who controls tempo and pace, creates opportunities and changes the dynamic whenever he enters the game.

“If you look at it from a basketball perspective, who's that guy that you put in the game that makes the difference,” Sanders says. “They change the dynamic musically, get people snapping their fingers, tapping their feet and feeling positive energy. Just put me in play and I'm going to do something to take the music to another level. That’s the game changer.”

To carry out that vision, Sanders assembles a lineup that blends longtime collaborators with fresh voices. Vibraphonist Warren Wolf, a recurring presence throughout Sanders’ discography, returns with the chemistry of a trusted teammate. Trumpeter Jeremy Pelt makes his first appearance on a Sanders album, bringing commanding brass color to the proceedings. Bassist Eric Wheeler, a frequent partner in the rhythm section, locks into the leader’s movement, while saxophonist Stacy Dillard brings his unmistakable energy and a connection that extends beyond music and into Sanders’ basketball world.

Pianist William Hill III represents a younger generation making an immediate impact on jazz, while vocalist Briana Swann appears on two tracks, lending the album a warm, soulful dimension.

Divided evenly between originals and carefully chosen covers, The Game Changer is accessible without sacrificing depth. The opening title track establishes Sanders’ hard-bop credentials while paying tribute to one of his most important influences, Art Blakey.

“If you listen to the instrumentation and the harmony, it'll remind you of The Jazz Messengers,” Sanders explains. “Art Blakey is one of my favorite drummers and I tried to write the melody in tribute to him. You think about tunes like ‘Moanin’,’ and that’s what we’re talking about.”

The Blakey influence returns on “Shrimp and Grits,” a spirited burner named for a menu favorite at Harlem’s Row House. Elsewhere, “Sunsets in Santa Monica” offers a gently swinging, pseudo-samba portrait of the California pier, with a rare Sanders drum solo providing an inviting point of entry.

The album’s originals also reveal Sanders’ deeply personal side. “James Arthur,” a stylish, cobalt-hued swinger spotlighting Wolf, Hill and Wheeler, honors his stepfather. “Pamela the Queen,” a beautifully shaped ballad, pays tribute to his mother. Together, the two pieces give the album an emotional center and mark the first Sanders release to devote such substantial space to his own compositions.

The covers showcase his versatility and his instinctive sense of support. Sanders keeps the fire burning beneath Stacy Dillard’s quartet on Cole Porter’s “What Is This Thing Called Love?” and provides understated propulsion on Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s “Isfahan.” On Pelt’s “SMB,” he settles into a lighter, guiding groove beneath the interplay of vibes, saxophone and muted trumpet.

His approach becomes even more tender on the vocal tracks. A beautiful bossa nova treatment of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s “Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars” gives Briana Swann room to glow, while the Isley Brothers classic “Footsteps in the Dark” unfolds with a relaxed slow-jam feel.

That catholic musical sensibility is central to Sanders’ identity. Raised in Los Angeles in a home filled with jazz records and born in Kansas City, where his grandmother ran the jazz club Casablanca, he grew up absorbing music without rigid boundaries. His record collection, like his new album, could move freely from Lee Morgan to James Brown to the Isley Brothers.

“I grew up in the ‘70s when they used to stack records up on top of the pin, one falling and playing after another,” Sanders says. “There would be Lee Morgan, then James Brown, then the Isley Brothers, and on and on. So, this isn’t about what’s jazz or not jazz. It's all just music to me. It's all coming from the African-American tradition. That's just how I see it, how I grew up. I can't help it. That’s me.”

Sanders’ route to the bandstand was unconventional. A walk-on at the University of Kansas, he balanced basketball with his undergraduate studies in communications. When he began drumming at 25, he had no previous experience, but dedication and sincerity quickly made up for lost time. He later attended Berklee College of Music, where he strengthened his musicianship and formed lasting friendships with Wolf and drummer Kendrick Scott.

After moving to New York in 2004, Sanders established himself as a sought-after drummer, performing with artists including Mike LeDonne, Peter Bernstein, Joe Lovano, Jeremy Pelt, Esperanza Spalding, Walter Smith III and Billy Pierce. His recording career arrived later, but it has moved with remarkable momentum.

Lasting Impression earned four-star reviews from Jazzwise, AllMusic and The Times of London, appeared on year-end lists from critics including Bill Milkowski and Phil Freeman, and drew a memorable assessment from DownBeat’s Herb Boyd, who called it “a slam dunk for the former hoopster.” WBGO’s Gary Walker likewise observed that Sanders had made “a Lasting Impression that he’s here to stay!”

With The Game Changer, Sanders continues to turn an unconventional path into a defining musical perspective. His late arrival as a leader has given him the vantage point of a veteran: patient enough to listen, competitive enough to push forward and generous enough to understand that the strongest performance is often the one that lifts the entire team.

Recorded March 9 and April 14, 2026, The Game Changer arrives October 30 on Savant Records. Sanders will celebrate the album with release concerts on November 20 at Jazz Fellowship in Seattle, November 27 at World Stage in Los Angeles and January 16, 2027, at Sista’s Place in Brooklyn, New York.

Bill Frisell’s “In My Dreams” Turns Decades of Musical Friendship Into a Singular Sound

When Bill Frisell released In My Dreams on Blue Note Records on February 27, 2026, the album arrived as more than another chapter in the celebrated guitarist’s long recording career. It was a musical reunion built around friendship, trust and decades of shared history, bringing together five musicians who have repeatedly crossed paths with Frisell but had never before appeared together in this particular sextet.

Joining Frisell are violinist Jenny Scheinman, violist Eyvind Kang, cellist Hank Roberts, bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Rudy Royston. Together, they create a richly textured ensemble capable of moving freely between jazz, Americana, improvisation and Frisell's own compositions.

The album also marked an important moment in Frisell's career. He turned 75 on March 18, 2026, celebrating the milestone with a series of concerts across the United States, including performances in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Denver, Kansas City, Tulsa, New York and Sellersville, Pennsylvania.

But the heart of In My Dreams lies less in the milestone itself than in the unusual musical chemistry of the musicians assembled for it.

Frisell has spent more than four decades developing a sound that resists easy categorization. His guitar playing can move from spacious and atmospheric to rhythmically intricate, often connecting jazz with American roots music, folk, country and experimental traditions. With In My Dreams, that expansive musical vocabulary is placed in the hands of musicians who understand Frisell's language from years of working alongside him.

The sextet effectively brings together two of Frisell's most important musical circles.

Morgan and Royston formed the rhythm section of Frisell's acclaimed trio, most recently heard on the 2020 album Valentine. Scheinman, Kang and Roberts represent a string ensemble that dates back two decades to Richter 858, first released in 2002. Each musician has developed an individual musical relationship with Frisell through years of concerts and recordings.

The resulting chemistry is the product of familiarity rather than formal orchestration. These are musicians who know how to listen to one another, leave space and respond in the moment.

That quality is especially important to the album's unusual production history. Produced by Lee Townsend and engineered by Adam Muñoz, the core performances were recorded live during concerts in Brooklyn, Denver and New Haven in 2025. Additional material was recorded at Opus Studios in Berkeley, California.

Rather than simply correcting isolated notes or cleaning up individual performances, the studio work involved adding entire sections and soundscapes. The finished album therefore occupies a space between concert document and studio creation, retaining the unpredictability of live performance while using the studio as another instrument in the creative process.

The album's title is rooted in a dream Frisell has carried with him for more than three decades.

In the dream, he finds himself in a magnificent library surrounded by leather-bound books and antiquities. Seated around a table are hooded, monk-like figures who initially appear intimidating but soon reveal themselves as welcoming guides. They tell Frisell they want to show him what things really are.

First, they show him what colors truly look like. Then they offer him the chance to hear what real music sounds like.

The sound that follows brings together many of the artists and musical traditions Frisell loves: Nino Rota, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Charles Ives, Jimi Hendrix, Hank Williams, Andrés Segovia and Robert Johnson. In the dream, their music exists simultaneously, yet every element remains perfectly clear.

That vision has stayed with Frisell, becoming a kind of artistic reference point. In My Dreams represents another attempt to approach that ideal—different musical worlds coexisting without losing their individual character.

It is a fitting concept for a musician whose career has consistently blurred boundaries. Frisell has never treated jazz, Americana, blues, folk or experimental music as isolated territories. Instead, he has spent decades exploring what happens when those traditions are allowed to interact.

The musicians on In My Dreams make that approach particularly vivid. Scheinman's violin, Kang's viola and Roberts' cello create a flexible string texture around Frisell's guitar, while Morgan and Royston provide a rhythm section capable of shifting between delicate restraint and more expansive improvisation.

The result is an ensemble sound built as much on conversation as composition.

By the time In My Dreams arrived in early 2026, Frisell had already established himself as one of the defining guitarists of his generation. Yet the album demonstrates that longevity has not narrowed his musical curiosity. If anything, the record suggests that the accumulated relationships of a long career can become a source of new possibilities.

That makes the album's title especially appropriate. The dream Frisell remembers is about hearing familiar musical voices with unusual clarity and discovering how seemingly distant traditions can exist together. In My Dreams turns that idea into a living ensemble.

The album is ultimately a portrait of an artist surrounded by trusted collaborators and still searching for new ways to hear. At 75, Frisell's music remains less concerned with arriving at a fixed destination than with following the sound wherever it leads.

And on In My Dreams, that journey is shared with some of the musicians who have helped shape the path along the way.

Vel Lewis Brings Six Decades of Groove to “Smoovee”

More than six decades after first stepping in front of a microphone as a teenage vocalist in Philadelphia, Hammond organ master Vel Lewis is entering a new chapter with “Smoovee,” a lush, groove-driven single featuring acclaimed soprano and tenor saxophonist Marion Meadows. The recording has already made an immediate impact, debuting as the #1 Most Added recording at smooth jazz radio and continuing to build momentum across multiple formats.

“Smoovee” is now appearing on the Smooth Jazz Network Top 100, Mediabase Smooth Jazz, RadioWave Monitor Groove Jazz 100 and the Top 30 Weekend Radio chart in Madrid, Spain, while reaching audiences across every major streaming platform. At its core, the recording captures the sound Lewis has spent a lifetime refining: groove jazz, smooth jazz, soul, funk and rhythm and blues woven into one melodic, infectious performance.

The story behind “Smoovee” reaches back to the late 1990s, when Lewis wrote the composition in his living room on a home workstation. He envisioned a smooth, uncomplicated groove built specifically around the soprano saxophone. Lewis had admired Meadows' distinctive tone and phrasing since the saxophonist's RCA Records years, and the two eventually became friends after meeting at a Houston jazz club.

When Lewis finally presented the song to Meadows, the saxophonist agreed immediately. What followed was a remarkably international recording project. During an extended stay in Brazil, Lewis recorded the rhythm section in a Rio de Janeiro studio with musicians Adalberto Miranda and Dede Silva, laying down keys, bass and drums. Percussionist Cassio Duarte later overdubbed Brazilian pandeiro from Texas, adding another layer of rhythmic color to the production.

The recording also brought together several important relationships from Lewis' musical journey. Guitarist and mixer Paul Brown, whom Lewis met the same night Meadows performed at Houston's House of Blues, helped shape the final mix. Mastering was handled by Steve Hall of Future Disc Systems.

For Lewis, the international production of “Smoovee” reflects a career that has rarely respected musical boundaries.

Born Velbert Lewis Jr. on November 30, 1954, in Philadelphia, Lewis began his musical journey in 1965 as a first soprano vocalist with the Philadelphia All Boys Choir. He eventually toured internationally as a featured soloist with the choir's Small Ensemble, including a performance at Expo '67 in Montreal.

His early training included voice and piano studies at Philadelphia's Settlement Music School. He later turned his attention to the organ, the instrument that would ultimately become his defining musical voice, studying under Milton Myers and Dr. E. Woodley Kalehoff, a former White House pianist during the Truman administration.

Even as a teenager, Lewis was moving comfortably between musical worlds. He appeared on television performing jazz with drummer Gerry Brown and bassist John Lee while simultaneously working as a Hammond organist on gospel sessions for ABC/Peacock Records produced by Ira Tucker Sr. Those sessions placed him alongside legendary gospel groups including The Sensational Nightingales, The Gospelaires and The Dixie Hummingbirds.

By 1972, Lewis had become part of Philadelphia's vibrant soul music scene. He signed with Philadelphia International Records as a member of The Futures and later performed with The Delfonics during the Major Harris era. Along the way, he shared stages with Earth, Wind and Fire, Parliament Funkadelic, Al Green, The Stylistics and Frankie Beverly and Maze.

His work as a songwriter also produced a lasting piece of soul music history. Lewis co-wrote and sang lead on “Tell Me Why” with The Life Group, released by Warner Bros. and Reprise in 1974. The recording has since gained recognition within the international Northern Soul community as a Top 100 classic, a distinction that continues to attract the attention of soul historians and collectors.

Lewis' career eventually expanded beyond live performance and recording. Beginning in 1995, he composed for Los Angeles Post Music, creating music for a series of national Chrysler Plymouth television commercials featuring Tina Turner. His compositions also appeared in television programs including “Sex and the City,” “Friends,” “Mad About You” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.”

In 2003, Lewis joined Dionne Warwick's touring ensemble, spending three years performing internationally and drawing upon the combination of pop, soul, gospel and orchestral musicianship demanded by Warwick's repertoire.

Two years later, he released his debut solo album, “All Wound Up,” under the name Shady Grady. Lewis wrote or co-wrote every track on the project, establishing another chapter in a career defined by versatility and musical independence.

The years that followed brought continued recording activity and international recognition, including the charting singles “PlayTyme” and “Bossaflowz,” recorded with guitarist Michael Garvin, as well as “Forever More,” a 2021 collaboration featuring vocalist Larry Braggs. In June 2024, Lewis received the Houston Black Music Award for Best Jazz Male Performer from the Black Music Association and Academy of America.

Now, “Smoovee” brings many of those musical experiences together.

The Hammond organ remains at the center, surrounded by the grooves of funk, the emotional language of soul and blues, the rhythmic pulse of R&B, the improvisational freedom of jazz and the spiritual foundation of gospel. Rather than placing those influences into separate categories, Lewis folds them into a single musical identity.

That philosophy is also informing the next phase of his live performances. Lewis is bringing groove jazz, smooth jazz, soul, funk, blues, gospel and rhythm and blues together onstage, with the Hammond organ serving as the common thread.

The significance of “Smoovee” ultimately extends beyond a new single. It is the latest expression of a musician whose career has moved through Philadelphia gospel, soul revues, major touring productions, television composition, international performance and studio collaborations without losing sight of the instrument that has defined his voice for roughly 60 years.

From a teenage soprano in Philadelphia to a Hammond organist recording in Rio de Janeiro, Vel Lewis continues to write, produce, record and perform with the same curiosity that has driven his musical journey from the beginning.

Lewis is scheduled to appear at the Sugar Land Arts Fest in Sugar Land, Texas, on November 8, 2026, followed by an appearance at SoHo Restaurant & Music Club in Santa Barbara, California, on November 28, 2026. With “Smoovee” continuing its climb at radio and across streaming platforms, the latest chapter of Lewis' six-decade musical story is already in motion.

Rahsaan Barber Finds New Creative Energy on Eternal

Saxophonist and composer Rahsaan Barber enters a deeply personal new chapter with Eternal, an album that combines his sophisticated approach to modern jazz with an unusually powerful sense of emotion and reflection. Due October 9 on his own Jazz Music City Records, the album features eight Barber originals alongside an inventive interpretation of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.”

Barber is joined by his longtime working rhythm section—pianist Matt Endahl, bassist Kevin Beardsley and drummer Joshua Hunt—along with New Orleans guitarist Ted Ludwig, whose addition brings another distinctive voice to the quartet.

The personal circumstances surrounding Eternal had a profound effect on the recording. Shortly before the sessions, Barber and his wife, classical saxophonist Heidi Radtke, learned that her pregnancy was no longer viable. The loss became part of the album’s emotional foundation, particularly the title track.

Originally called “Awaiting Zora,” after the daughter the couple had been expecting, the composition became “Eternal,” taking on a different meaning as Barber transformed his grief into music.

“I feel like they put a force field around me that allowed me to be in a place that became therapeutic for me, life-affirming,” Barber said of the musicians who surrounded him during the sessions.

That sense of empathy carries throughout the album. Barber’s playing is expressive and commanding, but Eternal is equally notable for the interaction among the musicians. The album often feels less like a showcase for individual players than a conversation among a group that knows how to listen to one another.

Ludwig makes an immediate impression. Barber first encountered the New Orleans guitarist when the two performed together in Memphis, and was intrigued by how Ludwig's more traditional musical language could interact with his own modern compositions. His playing brings what Barber describes as a “sweet kind of fire” to the sessions.

That quality can be heard on “The Skipper,” “Mandela” and particularly “Cabbage,” where Ludwig delivers an energetic guitar contribution to the funky piece. Endahl gets the spotlight on the swinging opener “Day Dreamer” as well as the more reflective “Gratitude (For Claire),” while Beardsley takes a featured role on “Cabbage (Reprise).”

Drummer Joshua Hunt is featured on “Day Dreamer” and “The Skipper,” while making an especially notable contribution to the latter portion of Barber’s transformation of “What’s Going On.” The Marvin Gaye classic becomes something more than a familiar cover, fitting naturally into the album’s broader themes of reflection, loss and perseverance.

At the center of it all is Barber, whose tenor saxophone provides the album with both strength and vulnerability. Eternal represents the latest step in a career that has moved comfortably between performance, composition and education.

Born in Nashville in 1980, Barber grew up in a musical family and chose the tenor saxophone, following the example of his older brother Robert. He and his twin brother Roland, a trombonist, studied under renowned jazz educator David Baker at Indiana University before earning master’s degrees at the Manhattan School of Music. Barber later earned a doctorate in classical saxophone from the University of Memphis.

His academic career has included positions at Belmont University and Tennessee State University before he joined the University of North Carolina, where he is a tenured assistant professor of music. He has also taught master classes at universities around the country.

Alongside his academic work, Barber has maintained an active performing career. He and Roland released the co-led Twinnovation in 2000, while Barber's first album as a leader, Trio Soul, followed in 2005. Years of work on the Nashville scene led to touring opportunities with artists including Kelly Clarkson, Chris Stapleton, the Wooten Brothers and Delfeayo Marsalis.

His subsequent albums have increasingly emphasized his work as a composer. Everyday Magic arrived in 2010, followed by the standards-oriented Music in the Night in 2016, the all-original Mosaic in 2021 and Six Words in 2024, which featured an eight-part original suite.

With Eternal, Barber continues that progression while bringing an especially personal perspective to his music. The album's combination of original compositions, a reimagined soul classic and the chemistry of his working band gives the saxophonist another opportunity to explore the space where modern jazz, groove and deeply personal expression meet.

Barber will celebrate the album with three October CD release performances. The first takes place October 2 at Sharp 9 Jazz Gallery in Durham, North Carolina, with a quintet featuring Jeff “Tain” Watts, Keith Ganz, Kevin Beardsley and Joe Davidian. He follows with a performance at the University of Memphis School of Music on October 16, featuring Watts, Nat Reeves, Kevin Ganz and Matt Endahl. The October 17 Nashville Jazz Workshop performance will feature Matt Endahl, Brian Allen, Keith Ganz and Joshua Hunt.

Eternal arrives October 9, marking another significant chapter in Rahsaan Barber’s development as a saxophonist, composer and bandleader—and one shaped by experiences that have given the music an unmistakably personal voice.