Leading a reborn version of his band Everyday Magic,
saxophonist/composer Rahsaan Barber
takes inspiration from a conversation with Wynton Marsalis, who told him, "There is power
in this music." On his new album "Six Words," Barber's first-ever
suite explores "the powers of music to inspire, unify, heal,
grieve, protest, and to express all manner of emotion and human
experience."
RICHMOND, Calif., Aug. 8, 2024
/PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Saxophonist Rahsaan
Barber greets the arrival of a new phase in his musical
career with the September 6 release
"Six Words" on Jazz Music City Records. The album features Barber's
eponymous, eight-part suite—his first—performed by his sextet
Everyday Magic, which he formed with the help of a grant from the
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill (where Barber is an assistant professor of jazz studies
and saxophone).
I'm as excited as I've been about music in
a long, long time.
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.
Media Contact
Terri Hinte, Terri Hinte Public
Relations, +15102348781,
hudba@sbcglobal.net, http://www.terrihinte.com
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SOURCE Rahsaan Barber