Does the idea of sitting in a cushioned seat at a performing arts center while someone plays j-a-z-z make you drowsy? Then get ready to be awoken by Darius Jones and Emilie Lesbros. Based in New York, Jones is among the most distinctive and fiery alto saxophonists the world has heard this side of the year 2000. The French-born, U.S.-based Lesbros, meanwhile, is a vocalist and poet who seems ready to give everything she has to her art–it comes out in her breathy, sustained tones, urgent and hurrying whispers, and spoken-word verses in both French and English. When Jones’ quartet comes together with Lesbros, the result is an unheard-of music, dark but burning, full of its own stormy, undeniable force. Okay. Now your eyes and ears are open.

The group will perform this Saturday evening at 8 p.m., at the Atlas Performing Arts Center; it won’t be your average jazz show. And CapitalBop will be in the house to launch our third season of Riffin’: CapitalBop Listening Sessions at the Atlas. We’ll be sitting down with Jones at 7 p.m. to watch some of his favorite music videos and hold an open conversation between him and you–the audience. It’s free (though you can still save yourself a seat by registering here)–so come out and join in the conversation with one of today’s most innovative improvisers and composers. Then stay for Jones and Lesbros’ concert at 8.

A bit more on Darius Jones, about whom too much cannot be said: With his snarled tone and long-view artistic concept, he’s perhaps the premier experimental alto saxophonist of our time. But maybe there’s only so much you can do with an instrument. Maybe the possibilities of the sax—its vibrato, its bendy metallic timbre, its sonorous power—can start to feel like limitations. Maybe if you ride far enough with it, you come to feel like you understand your vessel too well. For whatever reason, Jones decided to release an album last year that featured nothing but four female vocalists singing pieces he had written in pensive, sustained tones. It was called The Oversoul Manual, and it was unnervingly beautiful. This year he followed it up with Le Bébé de Brigitte, yet another triumph, this time recorded with his fabulous quartet (Matt Mitchell on piano, Sean Conly on bass, Ches Smith on drums) as well as Lesbros on vocals. Don’t miss the rare opportunity to hear that same lineup at this concert.

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