When young vibraphonist Joel Ross was scheduled to perform at NN North Sea Jazz in 2019, he had just released his album KingMaker. Yet at the time, he did not want to limit himself to just that album, which was dedicated to his mother. According to him, that was too easy; he preferred to get busy with music for his next project. Will it be the same with his latest (fourth) album nublues, released on Blue Note Records? This time Ross chose the blues as the undercurrent of his own compositions, some of which pay homage to legends such as Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane. According to The New York Times, he now immerses his music in harmonies derived from modern gospel. The idea for nublues came to Ross during the time of the coronavirus pandemic while he was in New York finishing his studies at the New School of Music. It was then that he saw that the blues is not just a form, but rather “a spirit or an energy. It’s emotion, it’s expression,” says Ross.
