The man is busy. Last year alone, Adrian Younge released three albums, his discography is unmanageable, the collaborations and projects like the great “Jazz is Dead” series are countless, which is why a solo work with the title YOUNGE can be considered programmatic. The album begins with “Portschute”, strings and brass embrace each other, a cool clicking drum set the heartbeat, and before you know it, the reserved mood transforms into a classically elegant James Bond theme tune.
It is unmistakable that the 47-year-old from Los Angeles started out as a soundtrack composer; in 2024, Younge designed the score for the TV series “Cross” together with his long-term partner Ali Shaheed Muhammad. With YOUNGE he now poses the question of what a classical orchestra can learn from R’n’B, soul, jazz and hip-hop. The answer: a lot. Younge’s compositions are explicitly intended for the orchestra – in contrast to Kamasi Washington, the other central figure in the Southern California scene who so successfully bridges the gap between jazz and classical music. Strangely enough, the two never collaborated; Washington’s FEARLESS MOVEMENT was only released on Younge’s Young label in 2024.
Now YOUNGE almost sounds as if he wants to clarify once and for all where he sees the differences between his approach and Washington’s. There is no improvisation on YOUNGE; despite the limited length of rarely more than three minutes, each of the nine pieces is composed down to the last detail, lavish and lush, dramatic and epic, effervescent and elegiac. May Adrian Younge continue to stay busy.
