That Eric Alper

It all started with a word-of-the-day email. Harpist Brandee Younger, bassist-producer Rashaan Carter and drummer Allan Mednard were on the road when they learned about the gadabout — a carefree pleasure-seeker who is always in motion, seeking out fun no matter the circumstances. The word of the day turned into the word of the tour, and seemed to describe their mission. These three simpatico travelers, whose shared history as trusted collaborators reaches back two decades, were always chasing and finding joy both onstage and off — through music, art, food and new experiences.

For Younger especially that joy was a healing force. Over the past year she’s faced personal challenges, so the gadabout concept acted as a helpful reminder that life happens to everyone — and that pursuing radiance in the midst of struggle is essential. “When it came time to write a piece to represent happiness, ‘Gadabout Season’ felt like the perfect title,” says the harpist, a Grammy nominee and NAACP Image Award winner who has garnered widespread acclaim for her soulful, spiritual meld of jazz, R&B and hip-hop’s essence.

Gadabout Season, Younger’s third for the legendary Impulse! label, releasing June 13, 2025, is her most personal and exploratory album to date – a reflective, imaginative body of work on which she has written or co-written nearly every composition. “The album reflects the journey — the search for meaning and beauty amid life’s most complex moments, ultimately emerging with a deeper sense of self,” says Younger. “Musically Gadabout Season is more creative and slightly more cerebral than my other works.”

Known for her revelatory interpretations of harp legends Alice Coltrane and Dorothy Ashby, Younger now steps boldly into her own compositional voice, crafting music that carries her forebears’ language forward without paying direct tribute. “This writing process forced me to be completely honest,” she says. “I’m not hiding behind someone else’s work.” Self-taught as a composer, Younger draws instinctively from a hybrid of influences — jazz, classical, old-school R&B, and hip-hop.

Younger wrote most of this new music at her cousin’s cabin in bucolic upstate New York — a place where she could focus and where “you get a lot of peace and quiet and birds chirping and you can see the stars at night,” she says. Eventually, Carter and, later, Mednard joined her to workshop the new tunes, and the game plan coalesced: Carter would produce and engineer the entire album himself at Younger’s Harlem apartment. The bassist turned Younger’s second bedroom into a makeshift studio, and Gadabout Season was tracked over several months in the second half of 2024. “I’m used to doing one and done in the studio,” Younger says. “This recording process was slow and intentional, allowing the sound of the album to reveal itself over time and mirroring a journey of discovery.” The trio dedicated time at the end of each session to sketching out ideas and improvising, which led to the tracks “Reckoning,” “Discernment,” and “End Means.”

Along the way, Younger found transcendence in an instrument she calls “life-changing”: the harp that belonged to Alice Coltrane. Younger became its custodian last year, after it’d been restored in honor of “The Year of Alice,” a series of high-profile releases, events, and exhibits co-sponsored by Impulse! Reflecting on how the harp’s energy guided her performances, Younger explains that it took time before her comfort matched the instrument’s majesty and power. “It had to become my own,” she says. “This was not my first time playing the harp, but as this new music was unique to me, I had to become one with it at home.”

Gadabout Season also showcases Younger’s evolving use of electronic textures and extended harp techniques, culminating in what producer Carter describes as an “Afrofuturist sonic palette.” Additional sonic brilliance arrives courtesy of some extraordinary guests. The alternately dreamlike and inquisitive title track — an expression of Younger’s fun, quirky “external personality” — features vibraphonist Joel Ross and Makaya McCraven on percussion, as well as Shabaka drawing clarinet lines atop the staccato groove. “Surrender” was written for and features pianist-composer and MacArthur Fellow Courtney Bryan, a frequent Younger collaborator who shares the harpist’s rich church background, as well as her willingness to bring a church spirit to any musical context. Inspired by Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, “Surrender” summons up that moment of “going to the altar and giving all,” says Younger. “To me, this is the most revealing piece on the album. It’s about seeking solace in quiet surrender.”

Another highlight, “BBL,” is both airy and laced with a smoldering tension. “I think of it as a musical confrontation,” Younger says. “If it had lyrics, it would have an advisory warning. I left no room for a civil conversation.” At the recommendation of Younger’s friend and collaborator Meshell Ndegeocello, saxophonist Josh Johnson contributed to “Discernment,” where his dubby harmonies imagine classic soul in a psychedelic haze.

Shabaka also lends his flute to the ether of “End Means,” and his presence here comes on the heels of his own recent Impulse! release, Perceive its Beauty, Acknowledge its Grace, on which Younger appears. “I think of us as being part of the Impulse! continuum,” the harpist says.

Gadabout Season is a welcome new development in the Impulse! story, bolstering the label’s reputation for fearless original music from generation-defining voices. “When you take a step back and look at what was and what is now,” Younger reflects, “it’s really kind of beautiful.”

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.

Track Listing:

1. Reckoning [2:05]
2. End Means Feat. Shabaka [4:12]
3. Gadabout Season [4:45]
4. Breaking Point [2:43]
5. Reflection Eternal [2:18]
6. New Pinnacle [4:49]
7. Surrender Feat. Courtney Bryan [5:26]
8. BBL [4:55]
9. Unswept Corners Feat. NIIA [4:34]
10. Discernment Feat. Josh Johnson [6:51]

Tour Dates:

May 3, 2025 – Flushing Town Hall – Queens, NY
May 16, 2025 – Carnegie Hall with Ravi Coltrane – New York, NY
May 23, 2025 – International Harp Competition – Bloomington, IN
June 19, 2025 – Groton Hill Music Center – Groton, MA
June 21, 2025 – Jimmy’s Jazz & Blues Club – Portsmouth, NH
July 3, 2025 – Ljubljana Jazz Festival – Krizanke, Ljubljana, Slovenia
July 4, 2025 – Ghent Jazz Festival – De Bijloke, Ghent, Belgium
July 8, 2025 – Montreux Jazz Festival – Montreux, Switzerland
August 10, 2025 – NoMad Jazz Festival – Sofia, Bulgaria
October 5, 2025 – Jazzfest Brno – Cabaret des Péchés, Brno, Czech Republic
October 7, 2025 – Enjoy Jazzfestival – Kulturhaus Karlstorbahnhof, Heidelberg, Germany
October 10, 2025 – Jassmine – Warsaw, Poland
October 18, 2025 – Hopkins Center for the Arts – Hanover, NH
November 3, 2025 – Jazzfest Budapest – Eiffel Art Studios, Budapest, Hungary
November 4, 2025 – Conservatori del Liceu Auditori – Barcelona Jazz Festival, Barcelona, Spain
November 6, 2025 – Teatro Isabel la Católica – Granada, Spain
November 8, 2025 – Rockit! Festival – De Oosterpoort, Groningen, Netherlands
November 13, 2025 – Bowker Auditorium – Amherst, MA
November 14-16, 2025 – SOUTH Jazz Kitchen – Philadelphia, PA