Sometimes it takes a change of scenery for artistic goals to come into focus, and that’s the story behind tenor saxophonist Julieta Eugenio’s debut album (pronunciation guide: who-lee-ETTE-ah EH-oo-HEN-yo), Jump. Releasing on Dave Douglas’ label Greenleaf Music (which also gave us Donny McCaslin’s 2008 tenor trio classic Recommended Tools), Jump finds Eugenio at the helm of a superb trio with bassist Matt Dwonszyk and drummer Jonathan Barber. Both happen to be based in Connecticut, an alluring getaway from the bleak conditions Eugenio faced in pandemic-stressed New York. “I remember the day Matt called me and said, ‘You should come up here, we can play with Jonathan, go for a hike, it will be fun.’ And that’s how it all started. I was writing new music at the time so we tried some of it and then for a month I was going up there almost every weekend.”

Recorded while musicians everywhere were facing an uncertain future, as Eugenio writes in her program notes, “This music gave me hope, it gave me the strength to keep moving forward and continue making music every day for the rest of my life. The album is like an open book reflecting on many feelings and life experience I’ve had these past years living in NYC. Jump will take you on a musical journey of sensations inspiring you to reflect on life, explore yourself and to take the Jump, or jumps, you may need in your life, to feel free, to feel alive.” We hear that adventurousness in the mellow waltz feel and intricate trio chemistry of “Jump,” the title track, which Eugenio describes as evoking “a period of loneliness, sadness, many changes, but a deep feeling of peace at the same time, getting rid of old habits. A jump into the unknown, the adrenaline of letting it go and feeling free again.”

Raised in a small city five hours from Buenos Aires, Eugenio earned a degree from the Manuel de Falla Conservatory for Jazz Performance, taking the first steps in developing her own voice in the idiom. She made the “jump” to the United States in 2013 and began pursuing her jazz goals full-time, earning a master’s degree in 2016 from the Aaron Copland School of Music of Queens College. Her formal studies with Antonio Hart and experiences playing with fellow students and people on the New York scene paved the way for her tenor and compositional voices to come into their own.

The invigorating results are clear on Jump, the first dispatch from Eugenio’s musical journey to date. On the cover, Eugenio is posed with tenor sax amid dense and lush forest green.

The leadoff track, “Efes,” translates to the plural of the letter “f” (i.e., more than one “f”), although not the key of F. Eugenio is hinting here at a unique synesthesia: she associates this tune with a yellow-orange hue and an array of “Efes.” The maturity of Eugenio’s tenor concept also comes across on the album’s two standards, “Flamingo” and “Crazy He Calls Me,” the latter as a tenor-bass duo with Dwonszyk. The theme of nature is also pronounced on Jump, in the music and Eugenio’s cover art. “I want the listener to have that feeling of walking in nature and finding peace even during chaos. There’s always a way out.”

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LABEL: Greenleaf Music

ALBUM: JUMP

RELEASE DATE: March 4, 2022

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