Almost five years on from the onset of the pandemic era, transcendent jazz albums that might not have happened but for the interruption of live performance continue to engage us. The latest case in point is Edible Flowers, the sixth overall album by the Jessica Jones Quartet, an incredibly inventive and unique group featuring husband and wife tenor sax players Jessica and Tony Jones, bassist Stomu Takeishi (who has worked steadily with the couple over the last two decades) and drummer Deszon Claiborne (who first played with the quartet in the late 90s).
In early March 2020, the quartet started its first short West Coast tour, filled with school and community workshops and performances in the Bay Area and beyond. One performance in, the world changed. Wanting to document the music and continue to capture the rapport that had evolved, they decided to create a new recording with local engineer Jeff Cressman at the house they had rented for their stay.
It became a more intimate and spontaneous affair than a regularly scheduled session would, including sharing a meal cooked by Takeishi after running through an emotionally impactful six song repertoire marked by a balance of high energy, often frenetic and percussively intense pieces (the intense, bustling “Manhattan,” the fast paced, improv-rich Connie Crothers’ Charlie Parker ode “Bird’s Word”) and more lilting, lyrical expressions like the first few minutes of “No Relation/Just Us,” which evolves from an easy swinging romance to wild fury and then moody ambience, and a hypnotic, brooding spin through Jackie McLean’s “Little Melonae.”
Of the album’s unique title, Jessica Jones says, “The decoration of the edible flowers in the face of the unknown was touching to me.” The world needs a little of that comfort and this band’s inspirational gust of energy now more than ever!
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