New York Metropolis saxophonist and composer Alison Shearer releases a coming-of-age musical testomony along with her sophomore studio album, In The Backyard (Pinch Data), set for launch on Friday, October 10, 2025. The rising star jazz saxophonist dwells In The Backyard of sound and self to find what’s been ready to be unearthed. A recording she launched into with engineer and Pinch Data label proprietor Scott Lindner, In The Backyard is a present, following Shearer’s years of honing her singular voice and rising as a number one feminine jazz artist.
Whereas Alison Shearer’s debut album, View From Above (NPR Music “High 10 Albums of 2022” – Nikki Birch), was a tribute to her late father the legendary civil rights-era photojournalist John Shearer, In The Backyard finds Alison composing a number of years after her father’s battle with prostate most cancers (he died on June 22, 2019) and feeling as if she’s lastly discovered her sound. “Artists compose music to assist folks entry their feelings by sound, like no different medium can,” Shearer says. “Writing permits me to grasp who I’m, and at 36, I’m lastly residing the life I’ve wished and I’m prepared to talk out and inform my story so different ladies in music can hopefully have a journey that’s just a little bit simpler.”
In The Backyard facilities round Alison’s working band that includes Kevin Bernstein (piano, Fender Rhodes, synthesizers), Marty Kenney (bass), and Horace Phillips (drums). Shearer is ready to exhibit a pop sensibility inside a posh rhythmic thicket; she likes to explain the album as a “assortment of wierd meter earworms.” “Homer,” impressed by drum maestro Nate Smith, marks the primary single (Launch Date: August 1, 2025) and is the hardest-hitting tune on In The Backyard. Alison’s efficiency is dialed in and sizzling.
“Sophie’s World” (Launch Date: August 29, 2025) comes from the title of a ebook on philosophy by Jostein Gaarder. The contemplative vibe is about by Bernstein’s starry Wurlitzer and Kenney’s gently rotating bass line. The rhythmic adjustments are subtly blended into one another, imperceptible to all however probably the most cautious listeners.
“Liberty Market” (Launch Date: Friday, September 26, 2025) will get its title from a market in Lahore, Pakistan that Shearer visited whereas on tour with Sunny Jain’s Wild Wild East in 2022. Shearer captures the vibrancy, the youngsters operating round, the multitude of colours and sounds, by soprano saxophone and flute melodies that weave effortlessly out and in of a multi-metric setting. Like the entire album, this observe was minimize dwell to tape and you may really feel it in its jubilation. “Skylark” is the only real commonplace on Within the Backyard; one in all Alison’s favourite tunes. The 7/8 really feel and piano ostinato makes this rendition her personal.
Essentially the most straight-ahead observe on the album is “However Not For Now.” That includes Kevin Bernstein (piano) and Marty Kenney (acoustic bass), Shearer continues to shock us with an interlude/outro written in a baroque model. The soulful title observe “In The Backyard”, ends with an alto solo that provides an exuberant Kenny Garrett like power. Alison says, “The entire concept of being within the backyard, is being able to bloom.” “Treehouse,” an uptempo bembe tune, is the primary flute tune she’s written for her quartet – Willie Colon followers will probably be pleased with this one. “Treehouse” segues into the joyful “Keep in mind When,” with hovering solos by Bernstein and Shearer, and a decent drum/sax duo second between Phillips and Shearer.
About Alison Shearer
Saxophonist Alison Shearer is the daughter of legendary civil rights-era photojournalist John Shearer, who was one of many youngest and second black workers photographer for LIFE journal. He chronicled the funerals of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., in addition to Muhammad Ali earlier than his notorious battle with Joe Frazier. Her grandfather was the illustrator Ted Shearer, who launched the primary nationally syndicated cartoon that includes a black character, Quincy. The Shearer household achieved an array of firsts within the black group, and lived amongst different greats resembling Cab Calloway and Sidney Poitier in Greenburgh, NY. Whereas she grew up with a pedigree of black excellence, Alison’s sense of racial identification was sophisticated because of the equity of her pores and skin. She has all the time been tremendously happy with her black heritage and identifies as a mixed-race girl, however she grew up being perceived as white, residing in a predominantly white neighborhood inside Westchester County.
The drive of her household was actually handed all the way down to her, and at 17, she enrolled on the prestigious Manhattan College of Music. Tragically, her time at college was tarnished by extreme sexual trauma, which might have a long-lasting influence on her life and relationship to jazz and music typically. With out naming names, Alison not stays silent about her expertise and is actually not the one girl who went by related trials at elite colleges. Despite this, Alison persevered and has constructed an amazing profession: she excursions internationally as a member of Crimson Baraat and Sunny’s Jain Wild Wild East, is on the school of Jazz at Lincoln Heart’s Excessive College Jazz Academy and has turn into a longtime composer. She obtained chamber commissions from USCB Heart for the Arts in 2024 and 2025, in addition to a fee to write down a saxophone concerto from ROCO in Houston, Texas, which is able to premiere in September 2026.
Alison’s return to the studio for In The Backyard is a milestone presenting a deeply private venture that charts a terrain of grief, resilience, and rebirth. Way more than a set of compositions, In The Backyard is a sonic memoir. It’s Shearer’s reckoning with the complexity of life and lineage, informed by music that’s as technically masterful as it’s emotive. In The Backyard spotlights her as a rising drive in jazz with one thing highly effective to say.
To view Alison Shearer’s forthcoming tour dates, please go to: alisonshearermusic.com
