Saxophonist Darryl Yokley composes a jazz symphony inspired by the PMA’s new African-American art exhibition.

Kicking off 2015 at Chris’ Jazz Café one Friday earlier this month, Darryl Yokley name-checked Modest Mussorgsky, only to be met with puzzled silence.

That’s unlikely to happen when the New York-based saxophonist returns to Philly this Friday, as the audience at the Philadelphia Museum of Art will doubtless be populated by listeners more familiar with the Russian composer’s art-inspired “Pictures at an Exhibition.”

This suite served as one of the inspirations for “Pictures at an African Exhibition,” a new collection of music that Yokley composed for his regular quintet Sound Reformation, supplemented by second drummer Nasheet Waits. Yokley’s “jazz symphony” was inspired by pieces of African art that Yokley found at the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, both in New York City, as well as online.

Subtle traces of African rhythms wove through the pieces Yokley played at Chris’. They took compositional cues from classical music while never losing the fire of the music’s post-bop roots. Waits and regular Sound Reformation drummer Wayne Smith Jr. engaged in a lively give and take, laying a complex rhythmic foundation for the music while jousting in solo sections.

While Yokley hopes to record that piece later this year, he’ll be premiering a different variation on Friday. To coincide with its new exhibition, “Represent: 200 Years of African American Art,” the PMA commissioned Yokley to pen a second suite, “Pictures at an African American Exhibition.” The new piece draws on works in the show ranging from a tall case clock crafted by a freed slave, to Kara Walker’s darkly evocative Middle Passage rumination An Unpeopled Land in Uncharted Waters, and was penned for the original configuration of Sound Reformation: Smith, pianist Zaccai Curtis, bassist Rashaan Carter and Philly-born trumpeter Duane Eubanks.

“I wanted to find pieces that created a storyline tracing the history of African-Americans from their inception into the country to the modern day,” Yokley explains. “It’s an empowering thing. You’ve got to know where you’re coming from in order to understand where you’re at today.”

“Pictures at an African Exhibition” and its new variant mark the most ambitious works in Yokley’s discography. Born in California, Yokley studied classical saxophone at Michigan State University, then spent the early part of his career touring with soul legacy groups like the Four Tops, the Temptations and the O’Jays. Wanting to get back to his youthful love of jazz, he moved to Philadelphia in 2007 and began working with locals like Sid Simmons, Mickey Roker and Orrin Evans. Yokley settled in New York two years later, forming Sound Reformation in 2010 and teaching at Westminster Conservatory in Princeton.

From the start, Yokley wanted to create an African spin on the Mussorgsky masterpiece that did more than simply accompany images with music. “I could have written some melodies that were very obvious, as if I was writing the soundtrack for a movie and using the typical clichés. People would understand it and appreciate it, but it wouldn’t be anything significant. I wanted to bring a unique twist.”

His aim was to get at something more universal that he found depicted in the artwork. “I tried to make the pieces about themes that every culture has experienced and can relate to,” he explains. “As far as we know, the origins of our species came from Africa, so that’s why I chose it as the subject. If we can acknowledge that all of these characteristics are common with the source of where everyone comes from, we can see that we have a lot more in common than we have differences and stop arguing and fighting. So it’s kind of a humanitarian approach to the subject.”

“Migration” explores one of the more positive aspects of our common human nature, the desire for discovery, reflected in frequent changes in time and mood throughout. “People started out on the continent of Africa, but we’re kind of a restless species,” Yokley says. “We want to explore and go into uncharted territories. It’s just in our natures to want to keep evolving and growing.”

The self-explanatory “Genocide March” explores a darker constant, inspired by tragedies in Sierra Leone and Rwanda. “Every culture has experienced genocide or some type of warfare from outside sources or within,” Yokley says. “When that happens, the country is decimated, people lose lives, and it entails a lot of suffering. People all over the world can understand and identify with these things.”

While Yokley could easily have taken history alone as a source of inspiration, filtering those themes through the lens of visual art offered a different perspective from which to launch his own musings. He cites Walker’s print, which depicts a slave ship being lifted from the water by immense hands. “That piece is from 2010, but she’s depicting events from the 1600s,” he says. “It’s interesting to see artists in other mediums being aware of their history. It changes your perception of how to think about that history.”

When we spoke last week, “Pictures at an African American Exhibition” was still a work in progress. (“By no means has the final sculpture dried and been cast” is the way Yokley put it.) Both pieces were intense undertakings, requiring the composer to delve into a vast history of visual art and African music on top of the expected demands of composing works of this size, though he has embraced those challenges. “It’s kind of like being back in school,” he says. “But it’s a project that I actually want to do.”

Fri., Jan. 16, 5 p.m. concert, free with museum admission of $20; “Represent: 200 Years of African American Art” exhibition runs through April 5; Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy., 215-763-8100, philamuseum.org.

More from the Second Season Arts Guide:

Soundtrack of a sarcophagus: Relâche plays music for mummies. | Plus our experts highlight the upcoming season in: Classical/Opera  |  Roots  |  Jazz  |  Rock/Pop  |  Visual Art  |  Dance  |  Theater