Already an accomplished saxophonist and composer, Rahsaan Barber nonetheless reaches a magnificent degree of creative energy—fresh, thoughtful, and somehow both raw and refined—on Eternal, arriving via his own Jazz Music City Records on October 9. The album features the Nashville-born, Chapel Hill, North Carolina–based saxophonist with a new collaborator, New Orleans guitarist Ted Ludwig, alongside Barber's longtime rhythm section of pianist Matt Endahl, bassist Kevin Beardsley, and drummer Joshua Hunt.

In part, the album's artistic crest arises from a great personal challenge: in the days leading up to the recording sessions for Eternal, Barber and his wife (esteemed classical saxophonist Heidi Radtke) received the news that her pregnancy was no longer viable. The grief over this loss changed the experience of recording in countless ways, including changing the name of the album's title track, which was originally titled "Awaiting Zora," after the girl the couple was expecting. The track became both a cathartic outpouring of grief and an anthem of enduring faith, leading to an album characterized by remarkable chemistry and empathy shared by the saxophonist and his bandmates, whom he credits with elevating the proceedings.

"I was just so fortunate to be surrounded by not just great musicians, but great people who could deal with someone who broke down in the sound booth as they were playing," he says. "I feel like they put a force field around me that allowed me to be in a place that became therapeutic for me, life-affirming."

Of no small import was the introduction to the fold of Ludwig, whom Barber met when the two played together in Memphis last year. "I've always loved guitar and piano together," says Barber of his decision to bring Ludwig into his own band. "I was really curious how Ted's traditional language and his approach would go into what we might call a more modern tune…He plays with a sweet kind of fire that really lifts the music."

That sweet fire is quite apparent on tunes like "The Skipper," "Mandela," and especially Ludwig's exhilarating line on the funky "Cabbage." Endahl, meanwhile, gets his time to shine with a swinging solo on the opening "Day Dreamer" and a part-tough, part-tender one on "Gratitude (For Claire)", while Beardsley's spotlight is on the closer "Cabbage (Reprise)." Though Hunt is rarely used as a soloist across the record (on "Day Dreamer" and "The Skipper"), he nonetheless proves his mettle in the second half of Barber's radical transformation of Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On." Ultimately, though, the band functions as a seamless and well attuned unit on Eternal, with Barber as first among equals.

Rahsaan Barber was born April 2, 1980 in Nashville, Tennessee, where he was raised. He was the third generation of a musical family, with his grandmother and parents immersing him in every flavor of Black American Music. Jazz was the one that captured his attention, and Barber took after his older brother Robert in selecting the tenor saxophone.

Accompanied by his trombone-playing twin brother, Roland, Barber matriculated at Indiana University, where both brothers studied under pioneering jazz educator David Baker. After completing their undergraduate work at IU, the Barber twins earned master's degrees at Manhattan School of Music; Rahsaan went on to earn a doctorate in classical saxophone at the University of Memphis.

Shortly after finishing his master's, Barber was hired as a saxophone instructor at Belmont University in Nashville, moving from there to Tennessee State University and then to the University of North Carolina, where he is currently a tenured assistant professor of music. He has also presented master classes at numerous other universities.

In the meantime, he has continued to develop a performing career. The brothers made an album as co-leaders, Twinnovation, in 2000; his first album as a leader, Trio Soul, arrived in 2005. Barber then spent many years freelancing on the Nashville scene, leading to tours with Kelly Clarkson, Chris Stapleton, the Wooten Brothers, and Delfeayo Marsalis. Between those gigs and the university ones, he issued Everyday Magic, his first collection of all original tunes, in 2010. The standards-intensive Music in the Night followed in 2016; Mosaic, another album of all-originals in arrived 2021; and Six Words, featuring an eight-part original suite, came in 2024. Eternal is his sixth album.

Rahsaan Barber will be performing two CD release shows in October: Fri. 10/16, University of Memphis (TN) School of Music, 7pm, Barber with Everyday Magic featuring Jeff "Tain" Watts, Nat Reeves, Kevin Ganz, Matt Endahl; Sat. 10/17, Nashville (TN) Jazz Workshop, 7:30pm, Quintet featuring Matt Endahl, Brian Allen, Keith Ganz, Joshua Hunt.