| Jazz |
Summary: Saxophonist Tia Fuller and pianist Shamie Fuller-Royston reunite for a deeply intimate album that blends jazz and classical influences into a refined, enduring musical dialogue.
Dynasty, Vol.2: The Fuller Sisters Turn Family Legacy Into Timeless Jazz
Two sisters, one a saxophonist, the other a pianist, have pursued distinct artistic paths before converging, if only for the span of a single recording, to braid their voices into something greater than either alone. With Dynasty, Vol.2, they do more than collaborate; they articulate a shared lineage, an aesthetic inheritance shaped by discipline, intimacy, and time. The result is an album that announces itself not with bravado but with quiet authority, already resonant with the timbre of a future classic. It is, in the end, futile to ask which sister impresses more. The project’s power lies precisely in the interplay of two sharply defined artistic identities, whose dialogue unfolds with rare intelligence across the length of the record.
The story begins with Fuller Sound, the family ensemble led by their parents, mother, vocalist Elthopia Fuller, and father, bassist Fred Fuller. More than a mere group, it functioned as a crucible: a working band rooted in shared repertoire, rigorous rehearsal, and the daily practice of music as lived experience rather than commercial product. The first chapter of this recorded legacy, Dynasty, Vol.1 (released in the early 2020s), established the framework for translating that lived musical dialogue into studio form. In Dynasty, Vol.2, that history is revisited and deepened, extending the family’s musical lineage into the present tense without sacrificing its organic vitality.
From this early immersion, the two sisters, Tia Fuller and Shamie Fuller-Royston, have forged a demanding and deeply contemporary language. It is not a style designed for immediate accessibility; rather, it rewards attentive listening, drawing as readily from the intricate architectures of classical repertoire as from the improvisational freedoms of jazz. One hears, almost subliminally, the ghosts of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach hovering in the margins of the score, never overt, yet unmistakable in the structural clarity and harmonic ambition. At times, the music unfolds in long, conversational phrases, the saxophone and piano exchanging motifs with a near-telepathic sensitivity; elsewhere, it tightens into more intricate passages, were rhythmic displacement and harmonic layering demand close attention.
For listeners familiar with Beyoncé’s stage productions, Tia Fuller’s formidable presence as a saxophonist is already well established. Here, liberated from the constraints of pop frameworks, she plays with palpable joy and expansiveness, moving fluidly between lyrical restraint and bursts of virtuosic intensity. Her vocal turns on “Momma Said,” a tribute to their mother, reveals another dimension: a voice at once intimate and unguarded, carrying emotional weight without theatrical excess. Shamie Fuller-Royston, for her part, proves no less compelling. A contributor to The New Standard by Terri Lyne Carrington, an album honored with a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance in February 2023, she brings to this project a pianistic command that is both technically assured and narratively sensitive. Her playing alternates between crystalline precision and richly textured harmonic clusters, grounding and elevating the dialogue in equal measure.
Recorded in an intimate duo setting at Klavierhaus in New York on March 21, 2025, Dynasty, Vol.2 pares its instrumentation to essentials: alto saxophone and voice alongside piano. This stripped-down format draws directly from the music the family once played together, even as it incorporates new compositions shaped by those formative experiences. Tempos shift organically across the album, from meditative, spacious passages to more animated exchanges, while the structures often resist conventional head-solo-head patterns in favor of evolving, suite-like forms. The death of Elthopia Fuller in 2022 casts a long, quiet shadow over the project, marking a personal and artistic turning point. Tia Fuller’s decision to embrace singing can be understood as both homage and continuation, integrating her mother’s vocal legacy into the evolving language of Fuller Sound.
For newcomers to contemporary jazz, Dynasty, Vol.2 may initially feel dense, even elusive. Yet it offers multiple points of entry: the emotional clarity of its themes, the intimacy of its duo setting, and the narrative cohesion that binds its compositions. With repeated listening, what first appears complex reveals itself as deeply expressive, each motif and gesture contributing to a larger, coherent arc.
What emerges is far more than a curiosity or a niche release. Dynasty, Vol. 2 is the kind of album that invites, and withstands, repeated listening, each return revealing new intricacies. Its poetry resists obsolescence; its musical architecture feels unmoored from any particular era. Indeed, the closing tracks, “Summer in Central Park” and “Descend to Barbados (Postlude),” encapsulate the record’s enduring appeal. Without lapsing into nostalgia, they conjure richly imagined landscapes, guided by a musical sensibility that is at once profound and unpretentious. There is nothing ornamental here, nothing superfluous. The very form of the compositions and performances ensures that the album will continue to be regarded as a contemporary work for years to come. Its governing principle is simple yet rare: the primacy of beauty itself.
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 6th 2026
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Musicians :
Shamiee Royston, piamo
Tia Fuller, saxophone, vocals
Track Listing :
Windsoar (Shamie Fuller-Royston)
Dooty Baby (Tia Fuller)
Ode to Bach (Shamie Fuller-Royston)
Momma Said (Tia Fuller)
Beatrice (Sam Rivers)
In This Quiet Place (Shamie Fuller-Royston)
Dear John (Freddie Hubbard)
Black Viking (Tia Fuller)
Summer in Central Park (Horace Silver)
Descend to Barbados (Postlude) (Tia Fuller)