[AUM095] - CD in deluxe digipak
Darius Jones: alto saxophone, compositions
Matt Mitchell: piano, Rhodes
Sean Conly: bass
Ches Smith: drum set, percussion
Emillie Lesbros: voice; piano on 6
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Pascal Niggenkemper: bass on 6
"With this release, Darius Jones cements his position as a brilliant, model jazz musician in the new century. ... After absorbing his five-album cycle of music that is simultaneously extremely varied and remarkably focused, we have to acknowledge that Jones is one of our most important young composers and thinkers about this music." –PopMatters
"Accessible avant-garde jazz, lyrical compositions, and a seamless integration of a sympathetic unit and a vocalist who (also) uses her voice as another instrument in the ensemble. Le bébé de Brigitte is not only Jones' finest disc yet but easily one of the best of 2015." –JazzTimes
"Witty, soulful and brimming with invention, an inspired marriage of creative music and song." –The Wire
Le bébé de Brigitte (Lost in Translation) is alto saxophonist-composer Darius Jones’ most recent album, and the 5th installment in his expansive Man’ish Boy epic. The highly acclaimed series began in 2009 with Man’ish Boy (A Raw & Beautiful Thing) – and shall eventually comprise nine albums. This release arrives soundly at the mid-way point with great potency, tenderness, fluency and unrelenting passion.
As ever with Jones’ work, the compositional palette ranges widely here. From the new blues swagger of “Universal Translator” to the equally universal sense of great loss evoked in “I Can’t Keep From Weeping” (as aching a ballad as Jones has yet written/recorded); from the infectiously swinging & (finally) unhinged cabaret dialogue that is “Chanteuse in Blue” to perhaps the deepest essence of the album (and platforms of intent) which are “Two Worlds, One Soul” & “Beneath The Skin”, a pair of extended works which evolve with the utmost in careful consideration to timing and gesture by all involved. French singer-lyricist Emilie Lesbros’ own composition, “Quand Vient la Nuit” (here arranged by Darius Jones) closes and lyrically encapsulates the album: espousing no fear, in life, in art.
1. Two Worlds, One Soul - 10:11
2. Chanteuse in Blue - 09:01
3. Universal Translator - 08:30
4. Beneath the Skin (we are already one) - 11:33
5. I Can't Keep From Weeping - 07:00
6. Quand Vient la Nuit - 06:34
Compositions by:
1, 2, 4 : Music - D. Jones; Lyrics - E. Lesbros
3, 5 : Music & Lyrics - D. Jones
6 : Music & Lyrics - E. Lesbros; Arr. by D. Jones
Published respectively by
AstonBoymusic, ASCAP; Emilie Lesbros, SACEM
Recorded by Michael Marciano in September 2014
at Systems Two Studio, Brooklyn.
Mixed with and mastered by Michael Marciano at Systems Two.
Produced by Darius Jones and Steven Joerg
Cover+ features original commissioned artwork
by exquisitely gifted painter Justin Hopkins
Layout by Ming@AUM