Jimmy Greene Beautiful Life (2014)

Jimmy Greene’s new release, "Beautiful Life" on Mack Avenue Records, is a celebration of the life of his 6-year-old daughter, Ana Márquez-Greene, whose life was tragically taken, along with 19 other children and 6 educators, on December 14, 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. In late January 2013, Greene, feeling that “I needed to get back to some sense of routine,” resumed a regimen of practice and composition. Soon thereafter, Norman Chesky, the co-owner of Chesky Records and HDtracks, reached out with an extraordinary offer.

Two years after the death of his six-year-old daughter, Ana Grace Marquez-Greene, in the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, saxophonist Jimmy Greene returns with 2014's Beautiful Life. Both a direct response to Ana's death and a celebration of her life, Beautiful Life is a gorgeous, heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting album. Backed by a stellar rhythm section featuring pianist Renee Rosnes, bassist Christian McBride, and drummer Lewis Nash, as well as a handful of guests and many close friends, including NBC's The Voice season one winner (and fellow Hartt School graduate) Javier Colon, pianist Cyrus Chestnut, and singer Kurt Elling, Greene has crafted an album of deep spiritual grace, imbued throughout with Ana's exuberant personality and wide-eyed joy in life.

As on his acclaimed Mack Avenue debut, "Beautiful Life", a poignant, reflective recording that honored his daughter’s love of singing with a program combining jazz, spirituals, contemporary Christian music and ballads, Greene again fulfills his stated imperative of “reflecting the way that Ana lived”. Here, Greene hones in on Ana’s love of dance with a kinetic, groove-filled program comprising ten original compositions - including two Greene-penned lyrics - and his arrangement of the “new standard”, “Something About You”.

On 2020's While Looking Up, saxophonist Jimmy Greene offers more of his deeply spiritual and joyful post-bop jazz. The album arrives after Greene's two previous releases, 2014's Beautiful Life and 2017's Flowers: Beautiful Life, Vol. 2, both of which found him working through his grief over the death of his six-year-old daughter in the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. While often emotionally heavy to listen to, those albums found Greene tapping into a deep well of love for his daughter and transforming his sadness into hope for the future.