When Silence Becomes Song: JJJJJerome Ellis and the Sacred Clearings of "VESPER SPARROW"

JJJJJerome Ellis is a Grenada-, Jamaica-, and U.S.-based composer, saxophonist, and interdisciplinary artist who transforms their stutter into a generative musical and philosophical force. Through works like The Clearing and Vesper Sparrow, Ellis blends jazz, hip-hop, R&B, experimental composition, and silence to explore time, Blackness, spirituality, and communication—treating pauses not as absences, but as sacred spaces where meaning, connection, and beauty emerge.(Electronic)

Vesper Sparrow starts by saying something "A stutter can be a musical instrument." This idea really changed things for JJJJJerome Ellis, a composer and artist, from Grenada, Jamaica and America. When JJJJJerome Ellis was young they found freedom in the sounds of the saxophone. But talking was a story it made JJJJJerome Ellis feel ashamed and uncomfortable. JJJJJerome Ellis has a stutter that happens when their throat gets stuck. They cannot talk for a moment. Ellis learned to see the times when they could not talk as a thing. When you are with people it can be weird if you stop talking and people might feel bad for you.. When Ellis is playing music these quiet moments are really special. They make the music feel more personal. They give Ellis a chance to try new things. Now Ellis just goes with their stutter it is like a guide that helps them find their way. Ellis trusts their stutter it is, like a feeling that tells them what to do.

Ellis calls these parts of their music "clearings". This is like when you are walking on a path in the forest and you come across an open space. A time ago clearings were special places where African Americans who were treated very badly could get together and pray. Ellis talked about how being Black and having trouble speaking and music're all connected in their really good album The Clearing that came out in 2021. They also wrote a research paper with the name, The Clearing, where they explored these ideas even more. Ellis is really interested, in The Clearing and what it means for people and their music. That album was really something it was teaching us something new and also very creative it was very emotional but also made us think a lot and it was all brought to life with hip-hop, R&B and jazz music. Vesper Sparrow, which is the album that came after that one is more to the point but just as meaningful it is like a story in poem form rather, than a big long essay. The main thing that Ellis is thinking about now is time: how when someone stutters it can make time feel like it is standing still for both the person talking and the person listening and how fixing that problem can help people understand each other better.

The Vesper Sparrow has a lot words than The Clearing. This means Ellis can actually show us things of just talking about them.. We still need a little explanation. It is of like what Alvin Lucier did in "I Am Sitting In A Room". In that piece he used a stutter as an instrument. Ellis does something in the four-part Vesper Sparrow piece called "Evensong". Ellis starts by telling us how they made Vesper Sparrow. They say "I made this music when I was at the MacDowell artist residency, in the spring of 2019. The person is listening to the music now as they talk. The music that you are hearing at this moment was made by them using a way called granular synthesis.

The music is really beautiful with a saxophone, a hammered dulcimer and voices that sound like they are floating away. Ellis talks about how they took their music and broke it down into tiny pieces of sound which they call grains. The music shows what this means by falling into single sounds that are, like raindrops when a storm is just starting. On "Evensong, Part 2" Ellis takes all these bits of music and puts them together to make something big. The saxophone is now floating on top of a lot of distortion. Then Ellis says: "When I make a piece of music the music... "

The way Vesper Sparrow is put together and the main point of Ellis thesis depends on that pause. This pause is like the one it has music in it.. This time the pause takes up a lot of the album around two-thirds of it. The album Vesper Sparrow has four parts to the song "Evensong" that get stopped or really they just get put on hold. This happens because the song "His Eye Is, on the Sparrow" is played twice. They did this to remember how Ellis was raised in his grandfathers church and his grandfather was a reverend. The song with the name as the album has a really simple piano part that goes along with Ellis voice. He sings with a lot of feeling. He asks himself some questions, like "Why should I feel discouraged?". Why should the shadows come?" Then a saxophone starts playing. It sounds like the wings of birds flapping.

On the song "Savannah Sparrow" Ellis uses the song and makes it really long. It is sixteen minutes of pipe organ music. He did this to remember his grandmother. She used to play the organ at church. Ellis plays a great sax solo over the organ music. The sax solo is very powerful. Ellis plays the sax solo on the song "Savannah Sparrow". Ellis has said that Ellis stutters on the sax too which may be the reason why Ellis has such a presence with the sax. When Ellis plays the sax every breath and every click of the keys feels very slow and thoughtful like a conversation, with someone Ellis loves. Ellis makes each note sound like it really matters.

Ellis says something that really makes you think. They talk about a seed that they plant. It grows, but you do not really see it happening. Ellis is speaking at the start of "Evensong, Part 3". They are talking about something they mentioned earlier. It is a simple idea but it feels like you are moving through time. When you look at Ellis past and their experiences with religion it is like everything is tied together.

The idea of a clearing is really interesting. It is a space where you can be quiet and think, where you can connect with something than yourself and where you can say prayers. Ellis and their thoughts on the clearing as a space, for meditation, connection and prayer are really something to consider. Ellis finishes talking about synthesis by saying that "grains" are like pollen.. His grains are not carried by the wind. They are carried by the silence that makes all music possible and keeps it safe. The song Vesper Sparrow is made up of blocks. The song "Evensong" is made in a way. Granular synthesis takes bits of sound and separates them with silence. This is like having clear spaces that can lead to many different things. Granular synthesis is really good at doing this because it can take these bits of sound and make them into something new. The silence, in synthesis is what makes it special. It is what makes the tiny bits of sound stand out. "Evensong, Part 4" is really something. It has a lot of music in it. You will hear the piano and the dulcimer and people singing. There is also a flute and a saxophone. All of these things play together in a way. They just keep going around and it sounds really good. The music is happy. It just keeps playing. The piano and the dulcimer and the vocals and the flute and the saxophone all play together in a way.

Ellis often tells a story to illustrate the potential of a clearing: Once, after they had finished ordering at a restaurant, they blocked when asked to give their name. The cashier simply waited, unbothered, encouraging, caring. Maybe the employee didn’t realize it, but they were performing together, and Ellis’ instrument was their stutter. Vesper Sparrow shows what can happen in such moments: The world slows down, opens up, and becomes a bit more beautiful.

Morgan Mason