“Bujo” Kevin Jones is a percussionist who has performed all over the world. He has backed up well known entertainers an artists such as Whitney Houston, The Isley Brothers, Jermaine Jackson, Archie Shepp, Charles McPherson, Winard Harper and Ray Copeland. He has worked along side of many of the greats in the Latin Jazz and World Music genres such as Hilton Ruiz, Mario Rivera, John Benitez and Francis Mbappe.

More recently, Kevin has continued to stick close to his roots of Jazz and Traditional African and Neo-African music by playing with many artists such as Talib Kibwe, Winard Harper, Babatunde Lea, James Weidman and Clifford Adams. Kevin still can be found playing traditional African music with Malaki Ma Congo Drum and Dance Ensemble.

Besides performing, Kevin is fast becoming an excellent teacher and clinician. He now works for the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, The Bronx Ensemble, Arts Horizons, Dance Giant Steps and Harlem School of the Arts.

Kevin has recently recorded his own project, “Land of Eternal Tranquil Light”, featuring drummer Marvin “Bugalu” Smith, saxophonist Talib Kibwe, pianist Kelvin Sholar and percussionist Djobi Irie Simon, a recording expressing his commitment to peace and an expression of his untiring faith.

“Bujo” Kevin Jones: ” I can start by saying that Tenth World is a group which is dedicated to producing music that will inspire, heal and unify society. Our music can best be described as music that is inspired by the rhythms of the African diaspora.

My biggest influences are Mongo Santamaria, John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, Dizzy Gillespie, drummers Tito Puente, Max Roach, Art Blakey, Chief Bey, Big Black, Guinean master drummer Mamady Keita, Babatunde Olatunji, Babatunde Lea, The Isley Brothers and congolese drummer,Titos Sompa.”

Neon Egypt’s departure from mainstream jazz began in 1992 with formation of the performance art collaborative “Tabula Rasa”. This four piece ensemble undertook an intentional regimen of mental and musical exercises designed to reach beyond the players’ musical “programming” as jazz musicians, and augment it with the pure ability to create – by inspiration as it were – through attentive, intuitive listening. Each weekly session was recorded and distributed for review to the participants the following week.

The earliest experiments were hesitant and clunky, as the musicians struggled to escape their usual and familiar chordal and rhythmic jazz frameworks and “patterns” of playing, while attempting to create something unknown, something truly fresh. As they continued to work this process week by week, new, natural “patterns” began to emerge and assert themselves. For example, the four players found that they would consistently create musical pieces that had apparent structure. Thirty-five to forty minute musical pieces would materialize that had three or more clearly defined movements, each with an easily discernible beginning, middle, and end. As the process of refined listening continued, a continual stream of new musical information began to flow through and inform these flexible movements, seemingly regulating itself in some unknown manner, so that the players would each fully exercise their creative contributions, and yet all somehow end up in the same musical “place” consistently. Previous constraints such as time signature and key signature became essentially irrelevant, as the musicians began to play in unusual, mixed keys and rhythms. Pure, coordinated inspiration became the new “glue” holding the pieces together. It was always apparent when a particular piece was complete, and the players would reach a natural ending together and simply stop playing, at once.

The fruit of these years of musical experiment and growth are now represented in Neon Egypt, a continuing collaboration of just two members of the ground breaking group Tabula Rasa. Neon Egypt’s music is fully and spontaneously improvised, and recorded live without overdubs or retakes.

Influences: Wayne Shorter, Dave Brubeck, Paul Desmond, Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders, Cal Tjader, Joe Morello, Don Lamond, Ed Shaughnes