Gadabout Season Brandee Younger

• 1 Reckoning 02:05
• 2 End Means 04:12
• 3 Gadabout Season 04:45
• 4 Breaking Point 02:43
• 5 Reflection Eternal 02:18
• 6 New Pinnacle 04:49
• 7 Surrender 05:26
• 8 BBL 04:55
• 9 Unswept Corners 04:34
• 10 Discernment 06:51
• Total Runtime 42:38

Info for Gadabout Season

Wie ihre berühmten Vorgängerinnen Alice Coltrane und Dorothy Ashby verbindet die Grammy-nominierte Harfenistin Brandee Younger den flirrend schönen Klang ihres Instrumentes mit dem Groove und der Freiheit des Jazz. Für Younger, die schon mit Pharaoh Sanders, Lauryn Hill, John Legend, Common, The Roots und Ravi Coltrane zusammengearbeitet hat, ist ihr drittes Album für Impulse! Records auch ihr bislang persönlichstes. Alle Kompositionen stammen aus ihrer Feder, mit den mal balladesk melodischen, mal subtil groovenden Tracks beschreibt sie ein Jahr mit für sie tiefgreifenden Veränderungen. Drei Tracks beinhalten Kollaborationen mit Shabaka, Courtney Bryan und Josh Johnson.

„Dieses Album ist das verletzlichste Werk, das ich je geschrieben habe. In zehn Tracks navigiere ich durch die 'Drehungen und Wendungen' eines Jahres, das von tiefgreifenden Veränderungen geprägt war. Momente des Schmerzes, der Offenbarung, der Wut, der Hingabe und schließlich der Erneuerung. Dieses Album ist so etwas wie ein Tagebuch eines höchst herausfordernden Jahres.“ (Brandee Younger)

Brandee Younger, Harfe
Rashaan Carter, Bass
Allan Mednard, Schlagzeug
Shabaka, Flöte, Klarinette
Makaya McCraven, Percussion
Joel Ross, Vibraphon
Courtney Bryan, Klavier, Fender Rhodes
Ele Howell, Schlagzeug
Josh Johnson, Saxophon

Brandee Younger
Among the most celebrated jazz artists to emerge in the 21st century, Brandee Younger is a harpist, composer and bandleader whose music connects spiritual jazz and classical training to the rhythmic soulfulness of R&B and hip-hop. She grew up on Long Island, where she sang gospel, studied the harp classically and became enamored of both hip-hop and the vintage soul that rap producers sampled. When Younger was a teenager, her father introduced her to Alice Coltrane’s music — a transformative moment that all but defined her life’s journey.

In Coltrane and, later, Dorothy Ashby, Younger saw two strong, empowering Black women whose brilliance on the harp inspired Younger to stake her own claim on jazz history. Over the past two decades, Younger has honored these two artistic heroines while carving a singular path. On top of recording their music, she has collaborated with John and Alice Coltrane’s son Ravi, a spellbinding saxophonist, and with iconic figures in the Coltrane legacy, like the late Pharoah Sanders. Along the way, she’s also become a go-to player in popular music, contributing to projects and performances by Ms. Lauryn Hill, Beyoncé, Stevie Wonder, the Roots, Common, John Legend and many others. As the New Yorker wrote, “Her radiant playing is as cogent on hip-hop and R&B albums as it is set against classical and jazz backdrops.”

Her first LP for the storied Impulse! Records label — a.k.a. The House That Trane Built — was 2021’s “Somewhere Different”. A track from that album, “Beautiful Is Black,” earned Younger a Grammy nomination in the Best Instrumental Composition category, making her the first Black female solo artist to achieve this. Two years later, on “Brand New Life”, Younger revitalized newly discovered Ashby compositions, and that LP won the 2024 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Jazz Album. “Gadabout Season”, released in 2025, is a more reflective and personal work focusing on Younger’s inimitable original music. In addition to her non-stop performance schedule, Younger is a dedicated educator, teaching on the faculties of New York University and the New School.

This album contains no booklet.