The first time alto saxophonist Darius Jones put the instrument to his lips, he was 5-years-old. The sax, which was almost his size, belonged to an uncle, a professional player.

"He put it to my mouth and I blew into it, and I got a sound," Jones said. "I was so excited. Then he told me when I got a little bit older, [he would] get me a saxophone. And it's been part of my life from the very beginning."

This jazz musician, composer and bandleader shares his life and talent with audiences at Bohemian Caverns. Drawing on his Southern background and the strong women in his life for inspiration, Jones presents "Book of Mae'bul (Another kind of Sunrise)," the music of his newly released, fifth album.

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"Mae'bul is the embodiment of every woman I have truly loved and had a relationship with in my life," he said. These eight original compositions are the first he has released for quartet performance, and he is joined onstage by Mark Mitchell at the piano, Trevor Dunn on bass and Ches Smith on drums.

"The music is going to be gorgeous," said Jones, who graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University with a bachelor's in jazz studies in 2003 and earned a master's in jazz performance/composition from New York University in 2008. "[The album] is essentially about dealing with the forms of jazz music and working within the confines of structure, but also playing freely within that framework."

And Jones takes nothing for granted where critics -- and audiences -- are concerned.

"I'm never going to go onstage and not give it my all, and I mean everything: my heart, my mind, my body," he said. "You've got to put the music out there. You are who you are, and if they don't like it, they don't like it. All you can do is hope that they do. And that's it."