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Jaleel Shaw Paints with Vital Purpose

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By Shaun Brady   I  Sep. 16, 2025

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“People don’t truly understand or know about the contributions of Black artists, Black composers, Black inventors,” said saxophonist Jaleel Shaw, who aims to change that with his new recording, Painter Of The Invisible.

(Photo: YusukeYamanouchi)

Ralph Ellison’s compelling 1952 novel Invisible Man used the notion of invisibility to explore the issues and philosophies of Black Americans in the years following the Second World War. That the word invisible remains a powerful metaphor for the Black experience in this country a half century later is reflected by the frequency with which Jaleel Shaw has returned to it in his recent work.

Shaw’s new album, his first full band effort in more than a dozen years, is titled Painter Of The Invisible, and it features his composition “The Invisible Man.” That follows “On Being Invisible,” a piece from his 2021 solo sax-and-electronics outing Echoes. The newer track pays tribute in part to Ellison, Shaw acknowledges, and makes a pair with “Baldwin’s Blues”: a more overt homage to another Black writer, activist and intellectual, James Baldwin.

But there is a far more autobiographical meaning at the root of the term’s recurrence, the Philadelphia-born saxophonist explained over the phone from his home in Fort Lee, New Jersey. “It’s really about me and how I feel sometimes just walking down the street, or when I go into a store and no one helps me, or go into a club where I’m the only Black person.”

As Shaw continued to unpack the intersecting meanings behind the title of his new album, its complexities came to light. He borrowed Painter Of The Invisible from the Paris-based artist Daniela Yohannes, who uses the sobriquet on Instagram. Shaw feels a certain kinship with visual artists, approaching his music with the color-rich palette of a painter.

“We can hear sound and we can feel it,” he said, “but it’s invisible. In the same way, a lot of our history is invisible. People don’t truly understand or know about the contributions of Black artists, Black composers, Black inventors. I think that goes to the root cause of racism and discrimination: people not truly understanding a people, not truly seeing them for who they are.”

At a time when that history is being aggressively erased from some school curricula, Shaw came to realize that it wasn’t in the classroom that he’d learned those lessons in the first place. Instead, it was through stories told by the elders of his community, family members, musical mentors and peers included. The notion of invisibility on the new album is also a commemoration of the loss that the saxophonist has suffered in those communities in recent years and the intangible influence that the departed continue to exert on his life and work.

The music on Shaw’s last album as a leader, 2013’s Soundtrack Of Things To Come, was composed prior to the death of his father in 2011. The album’s prescient title reflects the way that the music nonetheless seemed to capture his loss along with other personal struggles at the time. Shaw has continued to lose a number of close friends and family members in the intervening years, which vividly colors the resolute, deeply felt music on Painter Of The Invisible.

“Distant Images” pays tribute to Shaw’s two grandmothers, tenderly twining the sounds of the composer’s alto and Lage Lund’s guitar. “Gina’s Ascent,” which adds Sasha Berliner’s soulful vibes to the band, was penned for a cousin. “Tamir,” propelled by Joe Dyson’s agitated drums, celebrates the life of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, cut short by a police shooting.

Two other pieces offer farewells to figures mourned throughout the jazz community: saxophonist Casey Benjamin and Revive Music Group founder Meghan Stabile. Shaw recalled receiving a letter about a young woman looking for advice about entering the New York City jazz scene. “She had these aspirations and ideas,” he said. “Meghan took New York by storm. It just seems like yesterday. Sometimes you don’t fully understand how extreme someone’s situation is. She was so young and had so much going for her, but she had something else going on that she couldn’t handle and that we don’t see.”

Benjamin, who Shaw refers to as “my alto brother,” is the subject of the album’s closing track, a duet between Shaw and Berliner. The wistful send-off poses another meaning behind the invisibility theme: those whose gifts remain mysteriously hidden from the public eye. “Casey was a genius, so why wasn’t he more visible?” Shaw mused. “Why wasn’t he signed to a major label? He’s one of those amazing people that I wish more people could have known.”

Though he passed away after the music on Painter Of The Invisible was written and recorded, the spirit of Roy Haynes can’t help but hang over Shaw’s music. The saxophonist spent 14 years in the legendary drummer’s band, absorbing enough lessons for a lifetime.

“I always felt Roy was going to live forever,” Shaw said. “So many opportunities came from playing with Roy. Through him I got to work with Chick Corea, Ron Carter, Pat Metheny and so many others. Being on the bandstand with Roy, Christian McBride and Roy Hargrove, you understand how the generations come together under this master who transcends time.”

Not every tune on Painter Of The Invisible is so tinged with eulogy. The imagistic “Good Morning” leads off the album, its dawn hues giving way to the tautly focused “Contemplation,” balanced on Ben Street’s urgent bass line. “Beantown” looks back on Shaw’s years at Berklee College of Music, graced by Lawrence Field dancing with gleeful abandon on piano. The emotions and storytelling on these pieces is just as strong as the rest of the material: a vibrant, moving collection of music that promises to remain indelible rather than fade away. DB

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