| Jazz Fusion |
A Sonic Tapestry of Memory and Meaning: Jaleel Shaw’s Profound Jazz-Fusion Statement in “Painter of the Invisible”
This July, a month already humming with high-stakes album releases, brings another masterstroke, this time from saxophonist and composer Jaleel Shaw, a name that has long commanded respect on the jazz circuit. Crowned “Rising Star” in the 2014 DownBeat Critics Poll, Shaw rose to national prominence as a central force in Roy Haynes’ electrifying ensemble Fountain of Youth. His résumé reads like a roll call of modern jazz luminaries: Tom Harrell, Christian McBride, Pat Metheny, Stefon Harris, Roy Hargrove, Chick Corea, Dave Holland, Jimmy Cobb. Currently performing with both Holland’s Trio and Quartet, Shaw has evolved from sideman to composer-philosopher, an artist deeply attuned to the social and spiritual dimensions of sound.
His latest release, Painter of the Invisible (Changu Records, out July 11), marks a watershed moment, an introspective, radiant album arriving exactly two decades into his professional career. It is a title that feels both poetic and pointed, capturing the album’s ethos: jazz-fusion that ventures beyond genre, navigating spiritual and political currents with luminous clarity. Listeners are invited on a journey, one where melodies chart emotional rivers, sometimes crimson and turbulent, flowing across an imagined African continent shaped by memory and resilience.
Musically, the record conjures a terrain both complex and generous, where each instrumental voice traces its own arc without losing sight of a shared destination. With vibraphonist Sasha Berliner offering shimmering, textural brilliance, the ensemble achieves that rare balance: arrangements rooted in collective interplay yet bursting with individual poetry. Shaw’s compositional choices display an intellectual clarity that never compromises emotional depth. There’s a restraint to his storytelling, a refusal to overstate, that reveals a masterful hand and an unshakable sense of purpose.
At the heart of the album lies a bold conceptual anchor: an exploration of Black life in America. Shaw doesn’t shy away from painful inheritances. Rather, he reclaims them, mapping the arc from slavery and trauma to resilience and cultural rebirth. His is a jazz that educates without preaching, reflecting deeply on identity, justice, and joy. This is music as remembrance, as protest, as reverence. From tributes to literary icon James Baldwin and innocent victim Tamir Rice to personal odes to beloved elders, Shaw offers a pantheon of Black experience, each track a monument, each note a gesture of gratitude.
“I don’t want people and events to be forgotten,” Shaw says plainly. “That’s where things are slipping, history is being erased, tragedies silenced. And then, on a lighter note, I think about my grandmother, my cousin… such beautiful people. I wish the world had known them.”
In this, Shaw casts himself not just as a musician, but as a cultural historian, a memory-bearer in an age of forgetfulness. His saxophone becomes a vessel of testimony, his compositions archival in spirit but urgent in delivery. He insists on remembering not to dwell, but to grow.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about growth,” Shaw adds. “Not just musical growth. Personal growth.”
That sentiment, quiet, reflective, radical in its insistence on inner transformation, infuses every corner of Painter of the Invisible. It is a record that demands to be listened to deeply, not simply heard. For those who seek more than just virtuosity in their jazz, for those who crave narrative, conviction, and historical resonance, this is an album destined to become essential listening.
An intellectual statement, a sonic memoir, and a meditation on legacy, Shaw’s latest effort earns its place among the most significant jazz works of the current moment.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, June 25th 2025
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Musicians:
Jaleel Shaw – Alto & Soprano Saxophones
Lawrence Fields – Piano (Fender Rhodes on track 11)
Ben Street – Bass
Joe Dyson – Drums
Sasha Berliner – Vibraphone (Tracks 6 & 7)
Lage Lund – Guitar (tracks 4 & 10)
Tracklist:
Good Morning
Contemplation
Beantown
Distant Images
Baldwin’s Blues
Gina’s Ascent Intro
Gina’s Ascent
Tamir (for Tamir Rice)
Meghan
The Invisible Man
Until We Meet Again