JOY Isaiah Collier

• 1 Joy 05:42
• 2 Landscape Of Dreams 05:10
• 3 Where I’m Loved 05:58
• 4 When The Dust Settles 05:24
• 5 God's By Your Side 04:57
• Total Runtime 27:11

Info for JOY

In a world currently defined by unrest, uncertainty, and cultural fracture, acclaimed saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Isaiah Collier returns with Joy, a 5-track EP that reframes one of humanity’s most nuanced emotions both as a devotional grounding and political act.

Collier’s deeply personal compositions present joy as an act that isn’t rooted in escapism or abstraction, but rather, as something hard-won rooted in lived experience, shaped by transformation, and sustained through connection. Throughout the album’s five compositions, Collier positions joy as a guiding light during challenging times, an expression of challenging yourself to utilize your gifts, an affirmation of love and discovery, and as an affirmative source of reassurance.

“We are in a paradoxical time, where so much is being revealed to us,” Collier shares. “Everything feels political from every scope… our collective hearts feel the heaviness in the air. Yet I say to you all—don’t despair. For right now, the most political thing we can do is share joy.”

That ethos is made clear in the opening title track and lead single “Joy.” A pulsing rhythmic motif anchors the melody with a sense of both searching and certainty. Collier conceived the piece around 3 years ago reflecting on a time where many people in his life were experiencing loss of family and friends and experiencing profound life transitions. “Everything just felt like it was falling apart with no aim in sight,” he reflects. “Yet, there is a light at the end of it all.”

Joy is a through-and-through expression of the arc of joy in its truest form. Joy transcends fleeting happiness and is conscious gratitude shaped by taking chances, leaning into your gifts, fostering community, and lived experiences.

“Joy is partially happiness,” Collier explains. “But to me it means happily being grateful for family, friends, lovers, teachers, and good times. These are the things that anchor us.”

Isaiah Collier

Isaiah Collier
is a musical virtuoso in the truest sense of the phrase. He began playing saxophone at age 11, and his intuitive proficiency earned him attention early on. Ever since, his band Isaiah Collier and The Chosen Few has been turning ears.

In February 2025 he is featured on NPR's "Jazz Night In America", and graces the cover of Downbeat Magazines April 2025 issue. The Chicago Tribune named him Jazz Artists of the Year for 2024. His recording The Almighty (Division 81 Records, 2024) was selected as one of the Top Ten Jazz Recordings of 2024 by The New York Times. He was featured in The New York Times Fall Arts Preview in September 2024. Downbeat Magazine selected him as one of 25 for the future in their 90th Anniversary issue in July 2024. He won the Rising Star Award in Downbeat Magazine’s critics poll for Tenor Saxophone (2023), and Soprano Saxophone (2024), and has been named a Steve Jobs Fellow.

There’s a regal, elegant manner to Isaiah’s stage presence: he’s over 6 feet tall, thin, deep brown, with high cheekbones. When not playing, he is patiently waiting – not contemplating his next move, but listening to the musicians who accompany him, listening to their stories. He explains that he’s never really hearing himself, he’s hearing others play: some people have fire, others have air.

Isaiah Coller’s sound is a dynamic flurry of metaphors, yet he can hold back when necessary. He plays his influences, which he describes as a “sonic time machine; you can’t really put a time or destination on it.” As far as he where he plans to take his music, Collier says, “I reach backwards, and forwards simultaneously when creating art and what is ahead of me is the past.”

He has released six albums to date, The Almighty (Division 81 Records, 2024), which was chosen by The New York Times as one of the 10 best jazz albums of 2024, Parallel Universe (Night Dreamer, 2023), I AM BEYOND (Division 81 Records, 2022), Cosmic Transitions (JAZZ, 2021), and Return of the Black Emperor (JAZZ, 2018). His latest release The World Is On Fire (Division 81 Records, 2024) is receiving wide critical acclaim.

A concert program in tribute to the classic quartets of John Coltrane is being planned for 2026. In 2027 Isaiah Collier will premiere a new program titled Isaiah Collier & The Defiance.

This album contains no booklet.