Photo: Peter Gannushkin

On Friday, October 14th at 8:30 p.m., New York-based alto saxophonist/composer Darius Jones and his working trio, featuring bassist Adam Lane and drummer Jason Nazary, will celebrate their new AUM Fidelity release, Big Gurl (Smell My Dream), at Outpost 186 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Doors open at 8:00 p.m. and admission is a $10 suggested donation.

This will be Jones’ first performance in the Boston area since his October 2009 concert at the same venue celebrating his widely acclaimed debut, Man’ish Boy (A Raw & Beautiful Thing).

That record appeared on best-of-the-year lists in over 20 different publications, including the Boston Globe and Boston Phoenix.

“The young saxophonist plays both raucously and sweetly,” wrote the Globe‘s Steve Greenlee, “and he puts every genre at his disposal, from blues to swing to free improvisation.”

The Phoenix‘s Jon Garelick added, “On Man’ish Boy (AUM Fidelity), his music sounds older than old—ancient, in fact—but also completely up to the minute…Jones delivers forceful melodies with a just-discovered freshness. The trio’s show at Outpost 186 in October was a standout.”

Big Gurl (Smell My Dream), which officially hits the streets October 11th, is Jones’ eagerly anticipated follow-up to Man’ish Boy. It documents the next chapter of the ongoing autobiographical “Man’ish Boy” series of compositions he introduced on his first release.

Where that record was inspired by aspects of his early childhood in rural Virginia, this latest effort revisits his years of study, experimentation and self-discovery at university where he began the search for his own voice.

“Big Gurl (Smell My Dream) continues the sonic tone poem of my life,” Jones explains. “It focuses on my experiences in Richmond, Virginia, which changed my life profoundly. It captures that mystical moment when I fell in love with music for the first time so completely. It delves deeper into the concept of developing organically without the awareness of boundaries. It expresses my love for underground hip-hop, soul, gospel, jazz, blues, rock and all things funky. Soul Power!”

Jones’ working trio has been his primary outlet as a composer/bandleader for the past three years. The group, which was first heard on record in 2009 thanks to a special foreshadowing bonus track on Man’ish Boy, has since performed at such notable venues as the Earshot Jazz Festival, Undead Jazzfest and the Vision Festival. Jones and Nazary have also performed together all over the world in the genre-defiant quartet Little Women.

The recording session for Big Gurl was documented in an April feature article in the Wall Street Journal by Steve Dollar.

A two-time nominee for Up & Coming Artist of the Year at the Jazz Journalists Association Jazz Awards, Jones is a musician on the rise thanks to a string of diverse AUM Fidelity recordings, including Cosmic Lieder, an intergenerational partnership with pianist Matthew Shipp, released earlier this year.

“Jones speaks through his alto in an original and unforced language,” writes DownBeat‘s Joe Tangari. Critics have called him “robustly creative” (Nate Chinen, New York Times), “one of NYC’s most incisive and passionate saxists” (Time Out New York) and “an up-and-coming virtuoso with big plans on the horizon” (John Garratt, PopMatters.com).

“He’s a fluid player who adapts to the context in which he finds himself,” explains Burning Ambulance‘s Phil Freeman, “but through his choice of a single instrument and the way he plays, Darius Jones is always uniquely and recognizably his own man. He is aware of history (the history of his instrument, the history of his culture), even enraptured by it, willing to serve it, but not beholden to it. He wants to bridge the generations, but he’s ready to move forward. More than ready; he’s doing it, right now.”

Learn more about Darius Jones and his AUM Fidelity recordings at http://www.aumfidelity.com/darius_jones.html