Brandee Younger - LYDIALIEBMAN.COM

Gadabout Season
Release Date: June 13, 2025
Label: Impulse!

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, 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.” Listen to the title track, “Gadabout Season”, out now.

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.”

Album: Soul Awakening
Street Date: June 7, 2019

Surfacing six years after its completion in 2013, Soul Awakening was recorded in 2012 under the direction of producer and bassist Dezron Douglas, and embodies the ambition, vigor and aesthetic ideals of The Brandee Younger Quartet, at and since its inception. A benchmark recording that captures the group’s collective brilliance in its infancy, Soul Awakening is a synthesis of the people, places and moments that impacted Younger most, ahead of the album’s creation. The very first album recorded by the ensemble, Soul Awakening marks the birth of Brandee Younger’s artistic signature and the reemergence of the harp as a pillar of modern popular music. Brandee will be celebrating this new release at the Blue Note in New York City on May 21 and May 22.

Charged with the task of creating timeless works in a time of increasingly disposable content, Younger and Douglas, alongside drummer E.J. Strickland and saxophonists Stacy Dillard and Chelsea Baratz, enlist a who’s who of featured collaborators to best translate their ethos. In doing so, Soul Awakening becomes a full circle release for Younger that combines her band with two of her greatest mentors: saxophonists Antoine Roney and Ravi Coltrane. Other notable contributors include drummer Chris Beck, trumpeter Freddie Hendrix, trumpeter Sean Jones, and vocalist Niia.

Created to convey the stirring energy of the group’s live show, Soul Awakening combines electric and acoustic sounds that showcase the quartet’s aptitude for freewheeling improvisation, spiritual jazz, and experimental music. Stand out tracks include the album opener, “Soulris”, which is penned by Dezron Douglas and is featured on his 2018 EP Black Lion, and the second track “Linda Lee”, which is named for Younger’s mother, Linda Lee McNease-Younger. Other highlights include “Respected Destroyer, a staple of The Soul Rebels’ repertoire which enlists trombonist Corey Wilcox, and the title track which includes flutist Nicole Camacho.

This collection of compositions blends seamlessly two of Younger’s popular live staples: “Games” by Dorothy Ashby and “Blue Nile” by Alice Coltrane –– both harpists and muses of Younger’s, whom she cites as profound influences. The ensemble also covers Marvin Gaye’s “Save The Children” as a tribute to Ana Grace Marquez-Greene, daughter of famed musician and family friend Jimmy Greene and wife Nelba Marquez-Greene, who was a victim in the tragic Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

Soul Awakening is an evergreen compilation of songs that convey the universal relevance and urgency of the 4tet’s core ideals — from social justice to creative freedom — and belie its years on the shelf. The release of this album follows the 2014 Live At The Breeding Ground, the harpist’s 2015 appearance as a featured artist on the Supreme Sonacy album from Revive Music/Blue Note Records and the subsequent full-length album Wax & Wane, which arrived in 2016. Most recently, Younger has been actively working, recording and touring with Makaya McCraven following the release of his new recording Universal Beings. She arranged and performed a track for Impulse Records’ latest release last year: A Day In The Life: Impressions of Pepper - a tribute to the Beatles, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The harpist has been keeping an active touring schedule as well. She recently completed a European tour with her trio as well as a solo tour across Alabama, Washington and Utah. She performed at a number high profile festivals including the Detroit Jazz Festival, John Coltrane Jazz & Blues Festival and the Hyde Park Jazz Festival as part of the Ravi Coltrane Quartet. She has also taken part in a number of university residencies; most recently at DePaul University in Chicago, Michigan State University in East Lansing, and University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Younger has collaborated with a number of high profile artists including Lauryn Hill, John Legend, Moses Sumney. Most recently, she performed on the Tonight Show with The Roots and producer Salaam Remi. An independent artist, Brandee has self-managed throughout the entirety of her career.

Album: Wax & Wane
Street Date: February 19, 2016

Evoking the musical equivalent of rare gems, Brandee Younger emerges from the legacies of Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane as she ushers in a new era that celebrates the unsung titan of string instruments. Born during the REVIVE Music and Blue Note Records sessions for “Supreme Sonacy Vol. 1,” Younger’s latest album, “Wax & Wane” is a testament to her musical forebears that fuses classical technique with the persistent groove at the core of the Black music canon.

“‘Wax & Wane’ represents constant change -- back and forth,” says Younger. “We chose it as the title of the project because it is truly representative of the human experience, as an artist and individual. The high points and low points coloring the continuous struggle for balance at every phase of the journey exist - as they do in daily life - at the core of all of my work. ‘Wax and Wane’ is also the name of one of Dorothy Ashby’s compositions from her album ‘The Rubaiyat of Dorothy Ashby’.”

With “Wax & Wane,” Brandee Younger is poised to take her place as a sonic tour de force and the latest innovator in a lineage of groundbreaking musical agitators leading to the rise of the harp. Spiritually transcendent and perennially fresh, “Wax & Wane” strikes a delicate balance between pushing the envelope and flat out breaking the mold. “I wanted to place the harp in a totally different context than what listeners are generally accustomed to and continue to position the harp in way that’s relevant today,” says Younger. With this seven track collection, Younger presents an altered universe where the fluttering polyphonic exchange of the harp and flute expand and contract against a dense rhythmic display."

PHIL FREEMAN
BURNING AMBULANCE
"Wax & Wane is decidedly more funk than jazz; its opening track, “Soul Vibrations,” is built on a groove that recalls Sly & the Family Stone, and Younger blends into the ensemble at first, rather than immediately seizing the lead. But when she does begin to solo, her sound is otherworldly and science-fictional, and her ability to pluck individual notes at high speed is almost reminiscent of a fusion-era guitarist rather than the shimmering glissandos typical of the harp (though she does that, too)." Full feature here.

RAJUL PUNJABI
THE VILLAGE VOICE
"Somewhere beyond the fairy forests and angel wings that harp music traditionally evokes lies Brandee Younger’s rebellion. She’s classically trained, but a typical week for her is more likely to include a jazz jam session one night and a hip-hop studio recording the next afternoon. There’s no room for coyness in her music, although her eyes betray a glimmer of mischief when she plays — which she’s done for everyone from Alice Coltrane’s family to world- famous rappers." Full feature here.

DAVE SUMNER
BANDCAMP DAILY
"And, no, she doesn’t ignore the lineage of her instrument: Harpist Dorothy Ashby’s ‘60s transition from swing to soul jazz is present, as is Alice Coltrane’s ‘70s shift from avant-garde to spiritual jazz. But on Wax & Wane, Younger runs those influences through the lens of modern groove and present-day melodies. It’s why her singular sound is so very today, even as the echoes of her jazz harpist forebears reverberate through each tune." Full feature here.