Jimmy Greene - As We Are Now (2025) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Jimmy Greene’s ‘As We Are Now’ Is a Jazz Album of Inventive Brilliance and Emotional Resilience.

Sometimes, leafing through the sleeves of jazz records feels like dreaming up the lineup of an imaginary festival, so rich is the ensemble of featured players that one might believe a concert hall could spring to life just from the liner notes alone. But this isn’t a whimsical illusion. Listening to As We Are Now, the latest release from tenor saxophonist Jimmy Greene, is like being transported to one of those unforgettable summer nights at Jazz à Vienne, seated not in a plastic chair or a concrete amphitheater but atop a living, breathing acoustic form. The music here is dazzlingly modern, fiercely inventive, and, at times, gloriously unclassifiable. Its surface may seem smooth, its melodies accessible, but beneath lies a latticework of staggering complexity, a piece of architecture so intricate it could rival the spirals of a Gothic cathedral.

And at its center, Greene’s tone glows like a constellation: clear, considered, and deeply lyrical.

Named the critics’ choice in DownBeat magazine’s annual poll, As We Are Now is more than a triumph of musicianship, it is a poignant musical meditation on personal wellness and, by extension, the collective healing of Greene’s family and community. The album arrives more than a dozen years after the unthinkable loss of his daughter Ana, who was murdered during the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. While previous albums such as Beautiful Life offered grief distilled into melody, As We Are Now emerges not from the ruins, but from the soil turned anew, resilient, questioning, and full of breath.

From the opening bars of “Praises,” Greene sets the tone with jubilant ferocity. The piece is an original composition, but it feels timeless, his tenor saxophone rings out in ecstatic exhortation over a tambourine-laced ostinato that evokes the rhythmic grounding of the Black church, further enriched by the righteous piano comping of Aaron Goldberg. Greene’s playing is at once muscular and reverent, as though every phrase were a prayer. Goldberg follows with a solo that swings deep into the pocket, effusive and joyful without ever sacrificing precision. And so the journey begins.

This spirit persists throughout the record: compositions that are both complex and heartfelt, pieces that seem to breathe and speak with a human voice. Greene’s music reaches that rarefied height where sound begins to rival great literature, expressing what language alone cannot. In listening, I’m reminded of the energy I once witnessed during rehearsals with Joe Zawinul, whose musical eccentricities I captured for foreign broadcasters years ago. Greene’s music doesn’t imitate Zawinul’s, nor does it need to, but it channels that same sacred fire of invention, that same commitment to the unexpected. Wayne Shorter comes to mind, too—not as a direct comparison, but as a kindred spirit. There were many Wayne Shorters, each with a different voice for a different era. Greene, too, is one of those rare shapeshifters, a musician of many dimensions, all rooted in one clear artistic soul.

The album’s title track is its emotional linchpin. Over its opening, we hear Greene’s own voice, quiet, steady, inviting us into an introspective moment: How are you now? It’s a simple question, but one that carries enormous weight in the context of Greene’s life. The track then opens like a window: we hear sampled excerpts of speeches and interviews from Greene’s wife, Nelba Márquez-Greene, and their son Isaiah, adding intimate texture to the music. What follows is a masterclass in ensemble playing, where Greene and guitarist Mike Moreno trade solos that shimmer with light, and bassist Dezron Douglas anchors the track with a resonance so deep it seems to vibrate through bone.

At its core, As We Are Now is a living document, a testament to an artist who refuses to separate life from art, or grief from joy. There’s a beating human heart behind every track, a kind of musical respiration that unites the listener with the performer in a shared space of feeling.

The album’s inspirations are many and varied, but never feel scattered; they are windows, not mirrors, offering glimpses of gospel, swing, post-bop, and beyond, without ever falling into pastiche. One never knows, moment to moment, what might unfold, a sudden modulation, a rhythmic shift, a burst of light from the drums. Listening becomes an act of discovery.

As I write these words, I catch myself pausing, rewriting a sentence, replacing a word—and realizing that As We Are Now has been looping in the background for hours, without once wearing thin. That in itself is a rare thing. Albums like this don’t merely entertain; they accompany. They console, they challenge, they stay. As We Are Now is such a work: a modern jazz masterpiece that neither shouts nor whispers, but speaks, clearly, honestly, and with a voice entirely its own.

Jimmy Greene, saxophones and percussion
Javier Colon, vocals on Seventeen Days
Mike Moreno, guitar
Aaron Goldberg, piano
Shedrick Mitchell, Hammond B3 organ
Dezron Douglass, bass
Jonathan Douglas, bass
Jonathan Barber, drums
Rogerio Boccato, percussion
Gabriel Globus-Hoenich, congas on Speak Low
Nelba & Isaiah Marquez-Greene, spoken word on As We Are Now

Tracklist:
1. Praises (5:58)
2. Seventeen Days (feat. Javier Colon) (4:01)
3. Impatient (4:46)
4. Unburdened (5:56)
5. As We Are Now (6:41)
6. Anhelando (5:49)
7. Flood Stage (4:03)
8. Speak Low (7:20)


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