Grammy-nominated harpist Brandee Younger delivers her third album and first with all-original music for Gadabout Season on Impulse! Known mostly for her interpretations of her forbears on the instrument, Alice Coltrane and Dorothy Ashby, Younger continues to mesh R&B, hip-hop, and classical influences with jazz. Gadabout Season is more personal and features Younger’s original compositions, some of which are co-written. The album was engineered and produced by her longtime bassist, Rashaan Carter, not in a studio but in the second bedroom of Younger’s Harlem apartment. This provided more time to work and to blend in more improvising. Operating as a core trio, with drummer Allan Mednard, the album also features guest appearances by Shabaka, Courtney Bryan, Niia, Josh Johnson, Joel Ross, and Makaya McCraven. Younger performs on the restored harp of Alice Coltrane, for which she is now the custodian. Younger continues to weave in electronic textures and employ extended harp techniques, which Carter describes as an “Afrofuturist sonic palette,” aided and shaped by the guests.
The title comes from a word-of-the-day email. A gadabout is a carefree pleasure-seeker, always on the go, seeking fun wherever found. The term is an antidote for Younger, who had encountered personal challenges in the preceding year. She also felt it appropriate for her trio mates, who have been together for two decades, as it describes the trio’s offstage pursuits of art, food, and new experiences.
Opener “Reckoning’’ is full of gorgeous harp strums and slight hints of electronics, almost like an overture that beckons us in. “End Means” has Younger plucking the harp in conversation with label mate Shabaka’s oft feisty flute, as Carter and Mednard develop a solid groove underneath. Straddling the dreamlike and the inquisitive, vibraphonist Joel Ross and percussionist Makaya McCraven join the trio, along with Shabaka, who inserts clarinet lines above the staccato rhythm in the title track. The resonating notes from the vibraphone and the harp complement each other nicely. “Breaking Point” is a prime example of incorporating hip-hop beats into the tune, with numerous resonating features, making it beautifully disorienting, albeit for only a few minutes. “Reflection Eternal,” similar in length, is far more pensive and cerebral.
“New Pinnacle” begins in dreamlike fashion but soon hooks into a groove as Younger alternates strums with plucking single notes over steady rhythms from her trio mates. Let it just wash over you. Courtney Bryant, who shares Younger’s church background, brings a spiritual hue on piano to “Surrender,” summoning the moment of, according to Younger, ‘’going to the altar and giving all. It’s about seeking solace in quiet surrender.” By contrast, “BBL” has a harder edge (if that can be applied to the harp) as it boils over with tension. “Unswept Corners” features a kindred spirit, the vocalist Niia, in another airy piece where Niia’s wordless vocals serve as another ethereal instrument.
Having recently seen Younger live, she ended her show with Marvin Gaye’s “I Want You.” In turn, she closes in soulful fashion with Josh Johnson on alto saxophone with effects, thereby conjuring up soul in a hazy, psychedelic way. The whole album can easily transport one to those outer realms of the mind. It’s a major step forward for Younger the composer and fits in well with the iconic label’s knack for tapping generational voices.
