Jimmy Greene - As We Are Now (2025)

GRAMMY® nominated saxophonist-composer and DownBeat Magazine Critics Poll winner Jimmy Greene is proud to release his latest album, As We Are Now. As We Are Now is a poignant musical statement addressing his personal wellbeing – and to some degree, the collective wellbeing of his household and community – more than twelve years after his daughter Ana’s life was violently taken at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut.

As We Are Now is Greene’s first release since 2020’s While Looking Up, and his first on Greene Music Works. At the album’s core is a powerful, emotionally stirring, and deeply personal suite of songs commissioned by Chamber Music America after naming Greene a winner of its Doris Duke Charitable Foundation-funded New Jazz Works grant program in 2023. As Greene states, “My emotional path over the past 12 years has not been linear – in my experience, there isn’t a straight line from tragedy to triumph. Instead, I have consistently experienced a range of emotions, over time, that occupy the spectrum between great joy and deep sorrow. I tried to reflect that spectrum of emotion in the composition of the various songs that comprise the suite.”

While Greene’s more recent releases have featured lush string orchestra or woodwind choir arrangements, reflective of Greene’s passion for large ensemble writing – a passion he explored in depth as a doctoral composition and orchestration student of Jim McNeely’s at the Manhattan School of Music – As We Are Now features Greene’s core quintet of world-class veterans, with whom he has shared a long history of collaboration. Greene has performed and recorded with pianist Aaron Goldberg since their college days in the mid-1990s, with guitarist Mike Moreno and bassist Dezron Douglas since the early 2000s and with drummer Jonathan Barber since his days as a student in Greene’s Repertory Building class at the Hartt School back in the late 2000s.

The quintet is augmented by several notable guests on selected tracks. Greene was a Hartt School classmate of vocalist, recording artist and winner of the inaugural season of NBC’s The Voice, Javier Colon and studied Brazilian rhythms with percussionist Rogerio Boccato while a doctoral candidate at MSM. Organist Shedrick Mitchell contributes his soulful Hammond B3 touch to two tracks, while percussionist Gabriel Globus-Hoenich’s congas offer a beautiful texture to the album’s closer.

The album opens with an explosion of jubilant energy in the form of Greene’s original, “Praises.” Greene’s exhortant tenor saxophone pours all over the song’s tambourine laden, African-American church drenched ostinato (enhanced by Mitchell’s accompaniment) and launches into a deep swing for Goldberg’s exciting piano solo. Mitchell’s B3 organ and Boccato’s array of percussion instruments are called upon to add depth and richness to Greene’s quintet on the album’s backbeat-groove driven title track, “As We Are Now.” Greene’s speaking voice is heard in the song’s intro, inviting the listener to consider his answer to the frequently-posed question, “How are you doing now?” Greene also enlists the public-speaking talents of his wife Nelba Márquez-Greene and their son Isaiah throughout the track by sampling snippets of their recent speeches and interviews. The track is a vehicle for bright, inspired solos by Greene and Moreno and a soulful call-and-response exchange between the band and Dezron Douglas’ thick, resonant bass.

Greene’s warm, expressive and incisive tenor saxophone sound can also be heard on the album’s two most contemplative pieces, “Unburdened” and “Anhelando,” (which means ‘longing’ in Spanish). In Greene’s words, the two songs, “represent two different perspectives of existence related to my daughter Ana.” Anhelando’s plaintive melody and Greene’s emotional yet tastefully restrained solo statement – supported by Jonathan Barber and Rogerio Boccato’s enchantingly slow Brazilian partido alto groove – effectively communicate the longing for Ana’s presence experienced daily by her dad and loved ones. By contrast, Unburdened’s flowing, lyrical melody is hopeful and dreamlike, evoking the image of Ana’s soaring, heavenly spirit, free from the burdens we all carry throughout our daily lives here on earth. Greene remembers, “I was overcome with emotion after recording the master take of “Unburdened” in the studio. Tears flowed remembering Ana’s joy and beauty.”

On the impressive tracks “Seventeen Days” and “Impatient,” Greene’s buoyant and fluid soprano saxophone take center stage. The former, with lyrics penned by Greene, is an exhilarating showcase for Javier Colon’s rich, expressive tenor. The lyrics are quite personal, hearkening back to Greene’s early days as a touring musician tasked with balancing the artistic thrill and financial benefits of performing on the road with the joys and responsibilities of family life. Colon’s wide vocal range and playful exuberance embody the pure fun of music making alluded to by the lyrics, and Jonathan Barber’s powerful drum solo is a revelation. “Impatient” draws it’s spark from one of the foundational elements of the music we know as ‘jazz,’ the ‘Charleston’ rhythm, from the composition of the same name written over a century ago by a pioneer of Harlem stride piano, James P. Johnson. Greene and Moreno flow effortlessly and melodically through the song’s harmonic labyrinth while Douglas and Barber burn brightly, alternating between all-out swing and the Charleston-derived, harmonically tense ostinato sections.

“Flood Stage” was inspired by one of Greene’s musical heroes, Wayne Shorter, and is based upon the chord progression of his masterful tune “Pinocchio.” Named in the aftermath the devastating “once-in-a-thousand-year” storm that ravaged Greene’s home and southwestern Connecticut community in August of 2024, Greene and company artfully and valiantly navigate through the song’s constantly shifting harmonic waters at a rapid pace, maintaining a meaningful dialogue with each other throughout. To close the album, Greene revisits his affinity for re-harmonizing and re-imagining chestnuts from the Great American Songbook by re-working Kurt Weill’s “Speak Low.” Augmented by Gabriel Globus-Hoenich’s congas (and Greene’s cowbell!), the vibrant, exciting Afro-Cuban dance feeling achieved by the quintet throughout the track never belies the wistfulness of the lyric, “sung” with great dynamic range and vocal inflection by Greene’s tenor.

And if you’re still wondering how Greene would answer the question, ‘How are you doing now?,’ the album’s cover art – “Together,” commissioned by Nelba and gifted to the family by long-time friend and Connecticut-based artist Kate Ten Eyck – offers a stunning visual representation of Greene and his family. Four majestic trees, absent their adorning leaves, standing peacefully erect in a verdant field with blue skies above, together. “I’m certainly in a good place,” Greene reminds us. “The challenges I face on a daily basis are no match for the joy and comfort my faith assures me. I have so much to look forward to.”

Jimmy Greene, saxophones, composition
Mike Moreno, guitar
Aaron Goldberg, piano
Dezron Douglas, bass
Jonathan Barber, drums
Javier Colón, vocals (on “Seventeen Days”)
Rogerio Boccato, percussion
Shedrick Mitchell, Hammond B3 organ
Gabriel Globus‑Hoenich, congas (on “Speak Low”)
Nelba & Isaiah Márquez‑Greene, spoken word (on “As We Are Now”)

TRACKLIST

1. Jimmy Greene - Praises
2. Jimmy Greene;Javier Colon - Seventeen Days (feat. Javier Colon)
3. Jimmy Greene - Impatient
4. Jimmy Greene - Unburdened
5. Jimmy Greene - As We Are Now
6. Jimmy Greene - Anhelando
7. Jimmy Greene - Flood Stage
8. Jimmy Greene - Speak Low