| Jazz |
Summary : Ron Wilkins transforms his near-fatal COVID-19 experience, including a 32-day coma, into a joyful, jazz-funk album celebrating resilience, recovery, and the power of music.
Ron Wilkins Turns COVID Survival Into a Joyful Jazz-Funk Album of Resilience
Playful yet deeply affecting, buoyed by a supple jazz-funk pulse, this album sets out to explore one of the most fragile and defining stretches of the COVID-19 pandemic. For many, that period was marked by rupture, fear, and isolation; for artists abruptly cut off from the world, it became an extended confrontation with the self, at times devastating, at times unexpectedly fertile. In this case, it has yielded a work of striking emotional clarity, one that transforms personal catastrophe into a quietly radiant musical statement.
At the center of the project lies a story as improbable as it is harrowing. In the early days of lockdown, Ron Wilkins was performing in Texas with the touring company of the Broadway musical Aladdin. When the production came to an abrupt halt, he made the decision to remain in Texas with his mother rather than return to New York, a choice that, in retrospect, would take on profound significance. By April 2020, he had begun to feel unwell, though without yet grasping the severity of his condition. What followed was a rapid and brutal descent: Wilkins was found in a state of hypoxia, unresponsive, and rushed to the hospital by ambulance. Intubated immediately upon arrival, he never regained awareness of the events unfolding around him. He would awaken 32 days later from a medically induced coma. Thirty-seven days after that, he was finally able to breathe on his own again.
The dissonance of such an experience is difficult to fully comprehend. To fall asleep and awaken more than a month later with the impression that only hours have passed is to experience time in a profoundly altered way. For Wilkins, those 32 days effectively collapsed into a fleeting instant. For those waiting at home, however, time stretched unbearably. For his family, and especially for his partner, Rebecca Patterson, each second seemed to expand, heavy with uncertainty and fear. The ordeal was collective, even if lived in radically different temporal realities.
Experiences of that magnitude inevitably reshape the contours of a life. As Wilkins slowly regained his strength, he was forced not only to recover physically, but to relearn how to inhabit the ordinary, to breathe, to move, to exist within a world that had, in many ways, continued without him. In that fragile and uncertain space, music returned not simply as a profession, but as a necessity. It became a means of reclaiming agency, of marking progress, of transforming survival into expression.
What is perhaps most striking about this album is not that it emerges from trauma, but that it refuses to be defined by it. Each incremental step toward recovery is treated as a victory, and that sense of hard-won progress animates the music throughout.
The result is a record that feels irrepressibly alive. It is joyful, not in a naïve or escapist sense, but in a manner that feels deliberate, almost defiant. There is humor here, too, woven into the fabric of the compositions, surfacing in playful exchanges and unexpected turns that lend the work a sense of lightness without diminishing its emotional weight.
Nowhere is this balance more evident than in the writing for trombones, which take on a presence that is almost theatrical. They function not merely as instruments, but as voices—characters engaged in conversation, sometimes teasing, sometimes reflective, always alive to the shifting emotional landscape of the music. Their phrasing moves fluidly between gravity and levity, anchoring the compositions while also lifting them into something more expansive.
Rather than dwelling on the darkest moments of illness and uncertainty, the album turns its gaze elsewhere. It becomes, above all, an ode to life, an affirmation of vitality in the wake of fragility. Certain passages carry a dual resonance, suggesting both the weight of what has been endured and the possibility of what lies ahead. Yet at no point does the music yield to despair. It remains firmly rooted in forward motion, in the quiet insistence that life, once regained, must be fully lived.
Beyond its thematic core, the album is equally remarkable for its musical architecture. The large ensemble is handled with precision and imagination, the arrangements layered yet fluid, allowing for both individual expression and collective coherence. The rhythm section provides a grounded, groove-oriented foundation that leans into jazz-funk without ever feeling constrained by it, giving the music both accessibility and depth. There is a palpable sense of commitment among the musicians, as though each is fully invested in the emotional and artistic stakes of the project.
And yet, for all its technical accomplishments, the album’s impact ultimately resides in something less tangible. As it unfolds, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate the power of the story from the beauty of its execution. The two are inseparable. The narrative lends the music its emotional gravity; the music, in turn, transforms that narrative into something broader, more universal, something that extends beyond the specifics of one individual’s experience.
From the opening moments, there is a sense of being drawn into a vast musical fresco, one that carries the listener forward with quiet assurance. The production reflects that same confidence: balanced, clear, and fully realized, with nothing extraneous and nothing withheld. Every element feels intentional, contributing to a whole that is both cohesive and deeply expressive.
If the album ultimately makes a broader statement, it is a reminder of jazz’s enduring capacity to hold complexity, to embrace contradiction without resolving it too neatly. It is a form that can contain joy and sorrow, humor and gravity, intimacy and expansiveness, all at once. Here, it becomes a vessel not only for storytelling, but for transformation.
In the end, what lingers is not simply the memory of what was endured, but the sense of what has been reclaimed. This is music that does not turn away from fragility, but neither does it dwell in it. Instead, it reaches toward something brighter, guided by the conviction that even in the aftermath of the most difficult experiences, there remains the possibility of renewal, of connection, and of life fully lived.
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, April 13th 2026
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Musicians :
Rebecca Patterson – trombone
Ron Wilkins – trombone
Alex Pope Norris – trumpet
Seneca Black – trumpet
Freddie Hendrix – trumpet
Raul Agraz – trumpet
Ed Neumeister – trombone
Eric C. Davis – French horn
Ron Blake – tenor sax
Zac Zinger – Bansuri, EWI
Carl Maraghi – baritone sax
Aaron Heick – soprano and alto sax
Mike King – piano
Jeff Barone – guitar
Boris Kozlov – bass
Ray Marchica – drums
Choe Holgate – vocals
Julie Benko – vocals
Erica Seguine – conductor
Track Listing :
Covid Suite I. Big City Livin’
Covid Suite II. Comatose Dreams and Nightmares
Covid Suite III. Awaken and Allevia
Covisd Suite IV. The Sleeper Has Awaken
Sulk City
Near East
Waltz Someday
Like and Brother
Recorded and mixed by John Kilgore
Mastered by Alan Silverman