FATHERS – s/t

1. EYE LEVEL 3:09
2. PATCHWORK 2:38
3. PEARL 3:51
4. STUB 2:44
5. THE LEAK 4:18
6. TOMORROW, AGAIN 2:12
7. FRONT YARD 3:51
8. FIGURE 8 4:34

Kiefer Shackelford: Keyboards / Nate Smith: Drums / Ben “CARRTOONS” Carr: Bass

Nicole McCabe: Sax (2, 3) / Yasmeen Al-Mazeedi: Strings (3, 6, 8) / Paul Castelluzzo: Guitar (8)

Genevieve Artadi: Vocals (3)

All tracks written by Kenneth Blume, Kiefer Shackelford, Nate Smith, Benjamin Eric Carr

Produced by Kenneth Blume

Recorded by Kenneth Blume & Daniel McNeill in 48 hours at Putnam Hill, Los Angeles, CA

Der Jazz befindet sich in einem ständigen Wandel. Eine neue Generation von Musikern bewegt beständig Genregrenzen und führt die Musik in neue Richtungen. Mit FATHERS präsentiert sich ein außergewöhnliches Kollektiv aus vier Künstlern, die genau diese Entwicklung mitgestalten: Produzent Kenny Beats, Keyboarder Kiefer, Bassist CARRTOONS und Schlagzeuger Nate Smith. Auf ihrem selbstbetitelten Blue-Note-Debütalbum verbinden FATHERS die improvisatorische Offenheit des Jazz mit den Klangwelten von Hip-Hop, Funk, Soul und elektronischer Musik. Das Ergebnis ist ein acht Tracks umfassendes Werk, das ebenso virtuos wie zugänglich, modern wie zeitlos klingt.

Was sofort auffällt, ist die Qualität und Präzision der Musik. Nicht im Sinne technischer Perfektion, sondern die Balance zwischen kreativer Spontaneität, musikalischer Raffinesse und eingängiger Songstruktur. Melodische Hooks treffen auf geschmackvolle Arrangements, organische Grooves verschmelzen mit erstklassiger Beat-Production, und jede Komposition entfaltet sich mit beeindruckender Selbstverständlichkeit. Jazz-Improvisation spielt eine zentrale Rolle, steht jedoch stets im Dienst des Songs und seines Flows.

Die vier Mitglieder von FATHERS gehören zu den spannendsten und einflussreichsten Musikern ihrer Generation. Kenny Beats hat mit Künstlern wie Vince Staples, Denzel Curry, Freddie Gibbs, IDLES oder Rico Nasty gearbeitet, Kiefer gilt mit seiner Verbindung zu Jazz, Hip-Hop und elektronischer Musik als einer der wichtigsten Keyboarder und Produzenten der zeitgenössischen Szene. CARRTOONS bewegt sich mühelos zwischen Jazz, R&B und Hip-Hop und arbeitete unter anderem mit George Clinton, Usher, Freddie Gibbs und Roy Ayers zusammen. Nate Smith wiederum zählt zu den prägendsten Schlagzeugern unserer Zeit und hat mit Künstlern wie Michael Jackson, Brittany Howard, Jon Batiste, Pat Metheny, Childish Gambino und Vulfpeck gearbeitet.

Die Ursprünge von FATHERS reichen zurück ins Jahr 2023, als Nate Smith die Musiker erstmals für seine Residency beim Montreal Jazz Festival zusammenbrachte. Nach gemeinsamen Tourneen in den USA und Japan entwickelte sich aus der ursprünglichen Besetzung ein kreatives Kollektiv mit außergewöhnlicher Chemie. “Wir alle schreiben und spielen, treiben uns gegenseitig an“, beschreibt CARRTOONS die Dynamik der Gruppe. “Die Energie, die jeder Einzelne einbringt, wird gemeinsam zu etwas Größerem.“

Aufgenommen wurde das Album in Kenny Beats’ Putnam Hill Studio in Los Angeles – ursprünglich als einfacher Soundcheck für das neu aufgebaute Studio geplant. Innerhalb von nur 48 Stunden entstanden die Grundlagen für die acht Stücke des Albums. Die spontane Entstehung ist der Musik jedoch nicht anzuhören: Jeder Track wirkt bis ins Detail ausgearbeitet und lebt von der kreativen Wechselwirkung aller Beteiligten. Unterstützt werden FATHERS von Saxofonistin Nicole McCabe, Sängerin Genevieve Artadi (KNOWER), Gitarrist Paul Castelluzzo (HETHER) sowie den Streicherarrangements von Yasmeen Al-Mazeedi. Das Ergebnis ist ein Album für aufmerksame Hörer ebenso wie für entspannte Sommerabende, und ein eindrucksvolles Debüt eines Kollektivs, das seine eigene musikalische Sprache gefunden hat.

LINER NOTES

The first thing that hits you about FATHERS, the self-titled Blue Note debut by an all-star collective of groove-savvy producer-musicians, is how utterly perfect everything sounds. Not perfect as in sterile or clinical or even flawless, but perfect as in completely satisfying — digging into that jazz ideal between the excitement of invention and the comforts of brilliant song form.

Just listen: The melodic hooks, evoking precision-crafted pop and electronic gems shot through with fusion-era R&B. The taut, squeaky-clean rhythms, which contain both the tightness of expert beat-making and the organic virtuosity of a best-of-generation studio drummer. The design of the tracks, with their impeccable pacing and alluring way of unfolding from one earworm section to another. There’s plenty of masterful jazz improvisation too, but it’s always deployed in service of the track’s flow.

It’s all so seductive and accessible: futuristic yet retro, cosmopolitan but beachy, musicianly without an ounce of self-indulgence — like party music for smart people who dress well. Which raises the question: Who is capable of making music with this much focus and balance?

Unsurprisingly, FATHERS consists of artists renowned for both their jazz-rooted musicianship and their production acumen — artists with serious performance chops who simply love studio time and painstakingly building tracks. What’s more, they’re all innovators in the state-of-the-art strategies of content creation and social media.

FATHERS’ creative director is the producer Kenneth Blume — better known as Kenny Beats — whose insight has transformed projects by Vince Staples, Denzel Curry, Rico Nasty, IDLES, Freddie Gibbs and so many others. He’s also set the pace online, inviting the likes of Billie Eilish, Doja Cat, Thundercat and Skrillex to participate in his viral concepts across Twitch and YouTube.

Keyboardist Kiefer Shackelford, whose moniker is simply Kiefer, has earned acclaim for his original music, with its uniquely atmospheric blend of jazz, electronic and hip-hop. As a collaborator and producer his credits include Terrace Martin and Anderson .Paak. On the latter’s GRAMMY-winning LP Ventura, he co-produced two tracks, among them the lead single, “King James.”

On bass is the similarly genre-blurring multi-instrumentalist Ben Carr, a.k.a. CARRTOONS. In addition to producer-led projects like his latest, Space Cadet, the well-connected New Yorker has gained traction through his inventive socials, multiple Tiny Desk performances and production work with rap, R&B and jazz heavyweights like George Clinton, Freddie Gibbs, Jadakiss, Usher and Roy Ayers.

Nate Smith ranks among the most respected and influential drummers currently at work, whose meticulous, machinelike understanding of time is matched only by the soulfulness of his pocket. As a musician and writer-producer, his collaborative credits read like a hall of fame of pathbreaking musicians of the late 20th and 21st centuries: Michael Jackson, Brittany Howard, Jon Batiste, Pat Metheny, Dave Holland, Childish Gambino, Vulfpeck, the list goes on. In 2026, he won two GRAMMY Awards for LIVE-ACTION, a guest-laden project showcasing his gifts as a conceptualist and the fulcrum of an astonishing network of artists.

It was Smith who first assembled the core trio in 2023 as part of his residency at the Montreal Jazz Festival. Tours of the U.S. and Japan followed where the trio further developed their chemistry as a working group. “We all write, we all play at a high level, and we’re pushing each other to be better,” says CARRTOONS. “So we know going into anything that there’s going to be an inspiration and a push from everybody else, so that hunger that we all have independently becomes this super-being when we get together.”

FATHERS was produced by Kenny Beats and recorded at his Putnam Hill studio in Los Angeles. “I was 95 percent through building my studio, and I asked Kiefer if he could come by with a band and play some instruments,” Kenny recalls. “We custom-built our recording console and hadn’t heard anything through it yet. So it was meant to be a test day to make sure the studio was up and running. Kiefer happened to be playing shows with Ben and Nate at the time, and in testing out the equipment we recorded these songs in 48 hours. Turns out the board works just fine.”

“When you have writer-producer-musicians, it’s extremely possible to go great distances,” adds Kenny. “Everyone is arranging and producing separately at all times. ‘Faster alone, farther together’ is what they say, but if you leave FATHERS alone they work faster together.”

The eight resulting tracks — credited equally to all four members and featuring additional contributions from saxophonist Nicole McCabe, vocalist Genevieve Artadi (KNOWER), guitarist Paul Castelluzzo (HETHER) and the strings of Yasmeen Al-Mazeedi — certainly project an ethos of high-impact collaboration. But they’re also a vibe: a delightful front-to-back listen that rewards both over-ear headphone time and using the LP as a soundtrack to roadtripping or coffee-sipping. “PEARL,” the lead single, is a marvel of sprightly melody and percolating grooves, conjuring up a lost Brazilian pop-jazz LP in desperate need of reissue.

Throughout the track, God is in the details, with layering and orchestration that invites dissection: the way the wordless vocals and keys double up on the melody, the elegant surges of strings, the blend of Rhodes and cascading acoustic piano, the touches of sax near the close. The thing is, it’s hard to get too musicological with FATHERS, because everything feels so good. “The production on this record is meant to be invisible,” says Kenny. “If you are noticing production tricks, then it’s not working.”

As for the curious name of the project, that’s all Kiefer. “Father” was a funny, quirky way he addressed his collaborators around the studio — “just another weird thing he would say in the long list of weird things,” Kenny laughs. “The project honestly couldn’t ever have been named anything else.”

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