By:
On:
In: BLOG POSTS, Snarky Puppy

Snarky Puppy’s Somni tour kicked off Wednesday, April 8th, at The Eastern in Atlanta! It was a full circle moment for me, starting with the Somni recording sessions in Utrecht, Netherlands, in January 2025; the release of the album in November 2025; and me naming it my Album of the Year for 2025 (link to review)! Now, they’re in the midst of the U.S. tour—I attended the first four in Atlanta, Charleston, Durham, and Charlotte and will be at 7 of the first 14, with Red Bank, Philly, and Nashville coming up later this month.  Here are my overall observationsContinue Reading

By:
On:
In: Album of the Week, BLOG POSTS, Snarky Puppy

Snarky Puppy released Somni on November 21, and it’s one of the best albums you’ve ever heard and will ever hear. It’s already on my deserted island list and a certain (multi) Grammy winner. I’m confident that once people hear it, they will be astounded based on its sonic impact, novel approach to melodies and rhythms, range of emotions stirred, musicality, and technical achievements. Now that the superlatives are out there, I’ll offer up the rationale for the buildup. Somni was recorded with the Metropole Orkest under the direction of Jules Buckley over the course of three days (two sessionsContinue Reading

By:
On:
In: ALBUMS, Lotus, The New Mastersounds

2024 was a great one for recorded funk, jazz, soul and world music. This article covers the wide range of albums I enjoyed during the year from some perennial favorites like The New Mastersounds, Ghost-Note, Kamasi Washington, Lotus and The Greyboy Allstars to new and new-to-me artists like Diggin’ Dirt, Tatiana Eva-Marie and Kinga Glyk. These are the albums that I listened to the most – I wish I could include all the great albums that were shared with me during the course of the year — hopefully my coverage will increase in 2025. If you like what you read,Continue Reading

By:
On:
In: Album of the Week, ALBUMS, BLOG POSTS

Imola Vida-Veres is a new artist and she’s got an exquisite voice and compositional chops. She sings in both Hungarian and English, naturally with a slight, but charming accent reminiscent of the fabulous Polish songstress, Basia from the 1980s. Imola’s got an airiness to her vocals that can go from a gentle wind to full gusts pretty quickly showing both grace and power. The accompanying musicians are all locked in and include several Hungarian string players as well as GroundUP/Snarky Puppy stalwarts Bob Lanzetti, Keita Ogawa, Marcelo Woloski, Bobby Sparks and André Ferrari (Bokanté). Nic Hard, Snarky’s long term soundContinue Reading

By:
On:
In: Album of the Week, ALBUMS, BLOG POSTS

New Cool Collective is one of my favorite bands of the last twenty years. Every single album is top notch starting with Soul Jazz Latin in 1997! Now, Everything is OK! is one of my top albums of 2024! NCC from Amsterdam, is one of today’s leaders in Afrobeat music and the name of that debut album set the stage for the evolution of their sound. In 2005, they collaborated with legend Tony Allen (cofounder of Afrobeat with Fela Kuti) on their album Trippin’ and they’ve never looked back. Today, if you consider an Afrobeat spectrum from happy to dark,Continue Reading

By:
On:
In: Album of the Week, ALBUMS

Eliane Elias is one of the most glorious, distinguished jazz vocalists of our lifetimes. She’s complied 32 albums with eleven Grammy and Latin Grammy nominations with two Grammys and two Latin Grammy Award wins to date. Time and Again has been nominated for another Grammy in the Best Latin Jazz Album category to be announced early next year. I’ve been a listener and fan of this wonderful Brazilian artist sing she arrived in New York in the early 1980s. Initially, I was drawn in when Eliane was a member of the cutting edge band Steps Ahead which was formed byContinue Reading

By:
On:
In: ALBUMS, BLOG POSTS

Claro e Escuro (Light and Dark) is the first collaboration of Justin Stanton and Chris Bullock together as a duo. Stanton and Bullock are members of the instrumental collaborative, Snarky Puppy and have each released prior solo albums. Both are multiinstrumentalists, with Stanton regularly playing keys and trumpet and Bullock all saxophones and flute as well as synths so this was bound to be an interesting combination. In addition, Stanton relocated to Portugal a few years back and Bullock traveled extensively in Brazil and South America so that flair naturally ended up on the record. Claro e Escuro, was recordedContinue Reading

By:
On:
In: ALBUMS, BLOG POSTS

Kinga Głyk has put out a truly transcendent album “Real Life.” It’s easy to lose yourself along the complex, multipath journey that is comprised of twelve individually adventurous songs. Kinga is a young Polish-French bassist and composer that was unfamiliar with until very recently. She was scheduled to perform at GroundUP Music Festival but was unable to because of an accident and then I was supposed to see her at North Sea Jazz in Rotterdam but was unable to attend. With Snarky Puppy’s Michael League as my sherpa, I know he’ll always lead me to some of the world’s absolutelyContinue Reading

By:
On:
In: BLOG POSTS, Snarky Puppy

Shaun Martin, the vibrant, entertaining keyboardist passed away last week after a long illness. He was renowned for his work with Snarky Puppy and Kirk Franklin as well as his fantastic solo albums. Shaun was a very special talent but an even more special person and I’m proud to say, a friend of mine. One of his superpowers was making everyone around him feel special. The evidence is all over social media, as news spread of his passing, hundreds of people posted pictures with Shaun, always smiling and always ready to chat (like the main picture, taken just prior toContinue Reading

By:
On:
In: BANDS

Last week, I covered the annual GroundUP Music Festival in Miami Beach coming up February 2-4. It’s the greatest adventure for musical exploration in the U.S.  Since its inception in 2017, in addition to the main festival performances, there have been artist workshops during the day, pre-festival brunches with artist performances and late night parties after the festival closes. This year’s brunches and late nights are as spectacular as ever with extra-special performances including individual artists and late-night performances. Here’s the rundown of each – I plan to attend as many sets as my body will allow. BRUNCHES Bill LauranceContinue Reading