Box of Wonders

Darius Jones made his amazing new album a "flux kit." Here's what he means.

Darius Jones at Other Minds 25, San Francisco, Oct. 16, 2021. (David Magnusson)

Greetings from The Gig — how are you? I ask in earnest, because we’re living through an exposed-nerve moment in this world. The shocking carnage and retaliatory devastation in Israel and Gaza is a reality so disheartening as to render me speechless. But I’ve been drinking from the firehose of news and commentary, in deepest appreciation of those who take care to step gingerly. I’d like to recommend one piece in that mode: an essay by

Gabriel Kahane

, a composer and singer-songwriter whose work on Substack is typically as perceptive and emotionally forthright as his music.

I’ve been thinking about music as a conduit for feeling — especially raw or difficult feeling, those deeper currents that often ring inexplicable — because my ear has lately been turned toward the music of Darius Jones. In case you’re not familiar, he is an alto saxophonist who compresses a world of human experience into his sound. But more than that, he’s a conceptualist and composer working in an avant-garde mode that combines the sanctified fire of Albert Ayler and the adamant imagination of the AACM. His new album, fLuXkit Vancouver (i​̶​t​̶​s suite but sacred), is a flat-out stunner.

Two years ago, I conducted an onstage interview with Jones and one of his heroes, the AACM elder Roscoe Mitchell, at the Other Minds Festival in San Francisco. Jones was there to perform a solo saxophone concert, as on the album he was just about to drop, Raw Demoon Alchemy (A Lone Operation). As part of the set, he played Mitchell’s “Nonaah” — a stirring homage with deep resonance for everyone in the room.

Jones recalled that moment when we reconnected last week. “It was nerve-wracking to me,” he said. “Because the historical aspect of that phrase is so huge and large. And I know what it means to him. And I’m not shying away from those kinds of things anymore. They are a part of my lineage, my heritage, the thing that makes my music tick, or work.”

Our conversation, which paid subscribers can experience in both audio and transcript below, touches on that heritage and more: the raw viscerality that prompts some listeners to overlook his music’s careful design; his commitment to an artistic practice that reaches across disciplines; the incredible profusion of projects he currently has in production. Most of all, we talked about fLuXkit Vancouver, which runs with the idea of the “flux kit” — a Fluxus innovation from the mid-1960s, comprising an array of printed and fabricated artworks, often in an attaché case. With cover art by Stan Douglas, liner notes by

Harmony Holiday

, and music developed in multiple residencies at Western Front, an artist-run center in Vancouver, the album is a self-conscious model of artistic collaboration. Jones has thought a lot about this.

I hope you enjoy the interview. And speaking of interviews:

• Pianist Adam Birnbaum has a beautiful new album out tomorrow, titled Preludes. It’s his partial translation of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, made with Matt Clohesy on bass and Keita Ogawa on percussion. We talked about it for WRTI.

• Tito Puente was among the major artists whose centennials fell this year. For TIDAL, I had a lively conversation with one of his inheritors: drummer, composer, bandleader and broadcaster Bobby Sanabria.

• You’ll hear more about this soon, but I’m about to start podcasting again with my old Jazz United co-pilot, Greg Bryant. Our new venture is The Late Set, produced by Alex Ariff for WRTI. Hear a trailer and sign up at the link. You won’t be sorry.

Thanks for being here, and for your continued support. Here’s my talk with Darius.