Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea will release his first solo album sometime next year via Nonesuch Records, tapping into his early love of jazz. He was 11 years old when he started playing trumpet, and even after he traded brass for shirtless slap bass, it’s never been far from reach. There’s the time he joined Nirvana onstage for a wigged-out version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” the Federation Square jam in Melbourne, and the final minutes of RHCP’s 2007 Reading Festival performance, where he indulges in a velvety solo. Not to mention his various trumpet parts in RHCP songs through the years (“Tear,” “Pretty Little Dirty,” “Taste the Pain”). It’s been in his bones since childhood, when he pored over Miles Davis and Dizzy Gillespie records.
While the full album details are unknown, you can hear the vision in the seven-and-a-half-minute single, “A Plea,” featuring Flea on trumpet, electric bass, and vocals. There are also contributions from a “dream band of modern jazz visionaries” — including Jeff Parker, Anna Butterss, Deantoni Parks, Mauro Refosco, Rickey Washington (father of saxophone giant Kamasi Washington), Vikram Devasthali, Chris Warren, and Josh Johnson (who doubles as the song’s producer).
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Flea calls the track a “yearning for a place beyond, a place of love, for me to speak my mind and be myself. I’m always just trying to be myself. I don’t care about the act of politics. I think there is a much more transcendent place above it where there’s discourse to be had that can actually help humanity, and actually help us all to live harmoniously and productively in a way that’s healthy for the world. There’s a place where we meet, and it’s love.”
His daughter, Clara Balzary, directed the video for “A Plea.” In it, a pink-haired Flea moves between sunlight and shadows, with choreography by Sadie Wilking. Check it out below.
