In my last post here I reported four severe Jazz crimes to the Jazz Police. I also announced that I would soon write about the so far worst offender this year. And here we are!
But first let's answer the potential question what the Jazz Police even is:
In German we call them Jazzpolizei. They are the Star Trek canon fundamentalists and the Trve Black Metal gatekeepers of Jazz - a phalanx of fans, writers, snobs dedicated not really to save the purity of Jazz, but in truth mainly rather to loudly verbalize their personal superiority over the lesser jazz-enlightened mob, who doesn't reject what they deem unworthy of being taken serious as Jazz.
As so often with cops, members of the Jazz Police aren't always the brightest. So when non-Jazz band Red Hot Chili Peppers bass player Flea's first solo album was being announced as a Jazz album with him playing trumpet and featuring guests like non_jazz singers Thom Yorke and Nick Cave, naturally parts of the social media Jazz bubble reaction were predictably embarrassing...
In truth however Michael Peter "Flea" Balzary knew exactly what he was doing there, came prepared and made (almost) all the right decisions!
But first let's answer the potential question what the Jazz Police even is:
In German we call them Jazzpolizei. They are the Star Trek canon fundamentalists and the Trve Black Metal gatekeepers of Jazz - a phalanx of fans, writers, snobs dedicated not really to save the purity of Jazz, but in truth mainly rather to loudly verbalize their personal superiority over the lesser jazz-enlightened mob, who doesn't reject what they deem unworthy of being taken serious as Jazz.
As so often with cops, members of the Jazz Police aren't always the brightest. So when non-Jazz band Red Hot Chili Peppers bass player Flea's first solo album was being announced as a Jazz album with him playing trumpet and featuring guests like non_jazz singers Thom Yorke and Nick Cave, naturally parts of the social media Jazz bubble reaction were predictably embarrassing...
In truth however Michael Peter "Flea" Balzary knew exactly what he was doing there, came prepared and made (almost) all the right decisions!
FLEA - Honora (red vinyl 2LP; side D with print) (2026)
[DISCLAIMER: This is not a biased text from a Red Hot "fanboy". Of course I like certain RHCP hits from all over their career, but there's actually only one of their albums in my collection - and you know it's "Blood Sugar Sex Magik", because if you only own one of their albums it has to be this one, right?Anyway, I think it's established now that buying this solo album wasn't an automatic no-brainer for me, but required seeing the video for its first single "A Plea" and being surprised / blown away by it.]
"Honora" is not a spontaneous or commercially driven let's-do-a-Jazz/Country/[insert any hyped genre] album, but the fulfilment of a decades old dream. If you're in need of a positively moving YouTube rabbit hole and have already watched all the cat content, try looking for Flea talking about Jazz! You cannot be more joyful, true and passionate about a topic than Flea expressing his love for music.
His first real contact with music was zoning out to seasoned Bebop players jamming in his family's living room, his musical idols all were Jazz greats and his first instrument was the trumpet.
Only as a teenager, when a friend was looking for a bass player, he kind of "got distracted" by Rock music for a while. He still occasionally played the trumpet, but only a couple of years ago, shortly before his sixtieth birthday, he decided that if he ever wanted to make a serious Jazz record, he had to practice again, and so he did: He played the trumpet every day and took music lesson from Ricky Washington, who among many others also taught his son Kamasi Washington.
That was the preparation. Of course he didn't suddenly become the most stellar professional trumpet player of all time - but he took to heart Miles Davis' lesson that it it's not about the note, but about the motherfucker who plays it. You cannot deny that his trumpet playing is not only technically at least very solid now, but that it expresses plenty of emotions and personality.
So when he felt ready he first recorded demos on his own and later got together with the right mixture of experienced Jazz musicians and guests like the aforementioned singers, as well as some smaller RHCP cameos.
The result is a fifty minutes long Jazz / Jazz Fusion album that surely will be a gateway for many RHCP fans to explore the genre, but which also has merit on its own without context. What was firstly envisioned as an album with Flea playing lead trumpet all the time, has evolved into something richer in variety, with many amazing performances from all players involved, where every track tells a a different distinct story, with a healthy balance of instrumental pieces and songs featuring singers.
Flea himself also appears on vocals, in an almost spoken word way, very raw, but honest and fitting, while "Traffic Lights" with Thom Yorke and the classic "Wichita Lineman" with Nick Cave showcase both singers on the top of their game.
More importantly - even though this is his trumpet record - Flea naturally contributes several amazing electric bass parts, but is wise enough not trying to shoulder the upright bass part, which carries so much in Jazz and is brilliantly executed by Anna Butterss.
"Honora" is roughly divided into two parts: First most of Flea's own compositions, funky, fluid, atmospheric, with a successful balance of fixed arrangements, but also lots of freedom given to the individual players and room for joint improvisation, all demonstrated best in maybe the whole album's central piece, the over ten minutes long "Frailed".
These first five tracks already include a wide range of Jazz styles Flea is paying tribute to, but then he gets even more explicit in the album being a declaration of love to music by including several cover versions of songs important to him, which either come from the world of Jazz or are transferred to it by his interpretation. He turns Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain" from a guitar to a trumpet piece and follows the same approach with Frank Ocean's vocals in "Thinking Bout You".
The standard "Willow Weep For Me" (famously interpreted by Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Frank Sinatra) becomes a synth-heavy Tangerine Dream-inspired Kraut Ambient piece, before the album ends with Flea's most Nu Jazz composition "Free As I Want To Be".
And this is the part where I explain the almost in my earlier statement that Flea made (almost) all the right decisions. Not that the closer would be a bad track, even though it's not my personal favorite. Instead of side D being printed with the lyrics to "A Plea" however I would have loved the album to be bookended by one more track matching the energy of that song, since the whole cover section is rather mellow in comparison. There's no lack of quality, but another more punching banger would have provided the whole album with a better overall balance.
So that's my one minor squabble with "Honora" - if we don't count the double LP's painful pricing and impudent, but sadly way too common lack of a download card. But besides that this is just an all around beautiful record, from the cover artwork, which already feels like a not specified homage to times of great film photograph portraits on albums (and actually shows Flea's mother in law in the late 1960's in Iran), to the abundance of character, expression, love carried in its music.
Would it be both as commercially successful and as equally loathed by Jazz Police hardliners? No. But it would still be an excellently produced wonderful modern Jazz release So fuck the police, I love it!
"Honora" is not a spontaneous or commercially driven let's-do-a-Jazz/Country/[insert any hyped genre] album, but the fulfilment of a decades old dream. If you're in need of a positively moving YouTube rabbit hole and have already watched all the cat content, try looking for Flea talking about Jazz! You cannot be more joyful, true and passionate about a topic than Flea expressing his love for music.
His first real contact with music was zoning out to seasoned Bebop players jamming in his family's living room, his musical idols all were Jazz greats and his first instrument was the trumpet.
Only as a teenager, when a friend was looking for a bass player, he kind of "got distracted" by Rock music for a while. He still occasionally played the trumpet, but only a couple of years ago, shortly before his sixtieth birthday, he decided that if he ever wanted to make a serious Jazz record, he had to practice again, and so he did: He played the trumpet every day and took music lesson from Ricky Washington, who among many others also taught his son Kamasi Washington.
That was the preparation. Of course he didn't suddenly become the most stellar professional trumpet player of all time - but he took to heart Miles Davis' lesson that it it's not about the note, but about the motherfucker who plays it. You cannot deny that his trumpet playing is not only technically at least very solid now, but that it expresses plenty of emotions and personality.
So when he felt ready he first recorded demos on his own and later got together with the right mixture of experienced Jazz musicians and guests like the aforementioned singers, as well as some smaller RHCP cameos.
The result is a fifty minutes long Jazz / Jazz Fusion album that surely will be a gateway for many RHCP fans to explore the genre, but which also has merit on its own without context. What was firstly envisioned as an album with Flea playing lead trumpet all the time, has evolved into something richer in variety, with many amazing performances from all players involved, where every track tells a a different distinct story, with a healthy balance of instrumental pieces and songs featuring singers.
Flea himself also appears on vocals, in an almost spoken word way, very raw, but honest and fitting, while "Traffic Lights" with Thom Yorke and the classic "Wichita Lineman" with Nick Cave showcase both singers on the top of their game.
More importantly - even though this is his trumpet record - Flea naturally contributes several amazing electric bass parts, but is wise enough not trying to shoulder the upright bass part, which carries so much in Jazz and is brilliantly executed by Anna Butterss.
"Honora" is roughly divided into two parts: First most of Flea's own compositions, funky, fluid, atmospheric, with a successful balance of fixed arrangements, but also lots of freedom given to the individual players and room for joint improvisation, all demonstrated best in maybe the whole album's central piece, the over ten minutes long "Frailed".
These first five tracks already include a wide range of Jazz styles Flea is paying tribute to, but then he gets even more explicit in the album being a declaration of love to music by including several cover versions of songs important to him, which either come from the world of Jazz or are transferred to it by his interpretation. He turns Funkadelic's "Maggot Brain" from a guitar to a trumpet piece and follows the same approach with Frank Ocean's vocals in "Thinking Bout You".
The standard "Willow Weep For Me" (famously interpreted by Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan and Frank Sinatra) becomes a synth-heavy Tangerine Dream-inspired Kraut Ambient piece, before the album ends with Flea's most Nu Jazz composition "Free As I Want To Be".
And this is the part where I explain the almost in my earlier statement that Flea made (almost) all the right decisions. Not that the closer would be a bad track, even though it's not my personal favorite. Instead of side D being printed with the lyrics to "A Plea" however I would have loved the album to be bookended by one more track matching the energy of that song, since the whole cover section is rather mellow in comparison. There's no lack of quality, but another more punching banger would have provided the whole album with a better overall balance.
So that's my one minor squabble with "Honora" - if we don't count the double LP's painful pricing and impudent, but sadly way too common lack of a download card. But besides that this is just an all around beautiful record, from the cover artwork, which already feels like a not specified homage to times of great film photograph portraits on albums (and actually shows Flea's mother in law in the late 1960's in Iran), to the abundance of character, expression, love carried in its music.
Would it be both as commercially successful and as equally loathed by Jazz Police hardliners? No. But it would still be an excellently produced wonderful modern Jazz release So fuck the police, I love it!
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