Jazz harpist Brandee Younger was gadding about herself when she discovered the word “gadabout” while on tour, traveling by day and reinventing compositions at shows with bassist-producer Rashaan Carter and drummer Allan Mednard by night. Dating to the early 19th century, the word describes one who goes from place to place in search of pleasure, prioritizing adventure and childlike delight. It was this relentless pursuit of professional and artistic satisfaction that inspired her newest record, Gadabout Season, a celebratory manifesto of self-adventure that blends New Age atmospheres with spiritual jazz spunk.
To be lauded as a successor to harp legends Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane, as Younger has, is no easy feat; these women pushed the instrument into new territories, reframing how the harp can function in jazz ensembles and popular music at the height of the post-Bop era. Younger’s previous albums were indebted to them, with Brand New Life, her most convincing, full of interpretations of Ashby’s compositions. While Younger’s inspirations remain undeniable on Gadabout Season—much of the album was recorded on Coltrane’s instrument—the album seeks to put some separation between the harpists and allow Younger to come fully into a compositional voice of her own. She has writing credits on every track, as if seeking to establish her legacy alongside her idols.
Despite her expanded creative control as bandleader, Younger’s ensemble takes fewer risks than on prior albums. Brand New Life was all about bringing Ashby’s work into a contemporary context: “Livin’ and Lovin’ in My Own Way” featured boom-bap drums and record scratches for a unique blend of harp-driven hip-hop; “Dust,” with Meshell Ndegeocello, threaded Black diasporic music together, letting Younger’s harp flourishes fill the space between the dubby Caribbean reggae drums and Ndegeocello’s silky voice. Even if the hip-hop aspects felt slightly dated or the genre-blending a little heavy-handed, the question of what if Dorothy Ashby made these songs today? was weighty enough to propel Younger toward new frontiers with an instrument that hardly gets enough love in popular music.
Gadabout Season feels less ambitious in comparison, more concerned with meditative circularity than forward motion. Take the title track: It begins with a tasteful vamp, Younger’s tinny plucks dancing around Carter’s thick, inquisitive bassline. What seems like a perfect conduit for exploration is hindered by a rigid structure and brief runtime, leaving little room for unfamiliar ideas or virtuosic improvisation. Even the album’s lulling melodies feel somehow rushed, as if the ensemble had hoped to use music to induce a trance state in the audience but hit a quota on track length. Though the way Younger’s meticulous trills fade and reappear throughout the mellow “Reflection Eternal” is lovely, two minutes isn’t nearly enough time to truly sink into the dreamy atmosphere.
Younger’s dissection of the harp remains sharp as ever, showcasing immense variety through muted notes, staccato picks, and hefty block chords. Her light and airy style relies on these unexpected changes in soft, semi-transparent timbres that float around the other instruments. The tranquil restraint that flute heavyweight Shabaka Hutchings displays on “End Means” is perfectly aligned with Younger’s laid-back, chiffon vision, though the straightforward melody lines stifle possibilities for interesting themes to materialize organically, the way they often do in Hutchings’ rangey solo output. Gadabout Season has none of the unique genre interplay that made Younger’s earlier work special, and little else to grasp onto other than satisfactory playing. Hutchings steals the show here, his notes stuttering and teetering at the edge of Younger’s loose arpeggios as if his flute could set off a tornado.
“Breaking Point,” one of the faster tracks, features Younger’s most exciting playing on the album. The intensity of Mednard’s drumming pushes Younger out of her comfort zone, though his relatively light touch still allows her harp to hold sufficient ground. In the middle of the track, Younger’s controlled glissandi erupt into turbulent strums, a level of dissonance she’s rarely touched in the past. It’s an unconventional approach to an instrument that’s often described exclusively as angelic and beautiful. Moments like these are, unfortunately, few and far between. Younger’s familiarity with her harp opens up many avenues, but Gadabout Season settles for following what’s by now a familiar path: that of the skillful and charming contemporary spiritual jazz record content to linger in the background.
Bruce Springsteen was right. At the risk of simplifying the value of this impressive box set, giving away the main storyline of his new biopic, and flattening decades of mythmaking, the reality is just what Springsteen always claimed. Even when he tried the material with his closest collaborators, using some of the strongest songs he had ever written, the most powerful version of Nebraska is still the one he recorded at home in Colts Neck in January 1982. Just a lonely man in his early thirties with an acoustic guitar, a TASCAM PortaStudio, and an Echoplex, capturing solo demos for what he thought would be a full-band project. Everything that came after was an experiment.
But what an experiment it turned out to be. For those who don’t know the story, here it is in brief. After the success of his upbeat 1980 single “Hungry Heart” and a long streak of relentless touring and critical praise, Springsteen entered one of the most creatively intense chapters of his life. He began by writing the grim ballads and shadowy lullabies of Nebraska, which he then tried to recreate with the E Street Band and in solo studio sessions before ultimately choosing to release the home demos. He did no press and no tour, which left him free to keep writing, and that work became 1984’s massive commercial hit Born in the U.S.A. During that time, he tossed aside enough songs to fill multiple albums, later shared through collections like Tracks and Tracks II: The Lost Albums. He also found time to help revive the career of early rock’n’roll icon Gary U.S. Bonds, co-writing and co-producing two comeback records, contributing a Grammy-winning song to Donna Summer, and hitting the gym with enthusiasm.
It might sound like a golden moment, but for Bruce, it felt like a creative cage—the kind of brooding, restless chapter that inspires a filmmaker to cast Jeremy Allen White to play you on screen. The twist is that the most crucial moments, from the original Nebraska to the electric and explosive version of “Born in the U.S.A.,” happened quickly and naturally, before anyone could complicate the process. Unlike anything else in his official catalog, Nebraska 82: Expanded Edition offers a clear window into that moment. Within this tight collection is a sharper, more complete image of one of Springsteen’s most legendary and personal records—still the one he treasures most—along with rare insight into his creative rhythm.
The set includes a newly remastered version of the album, a disc of solo acoustic outtakes carrying the same raw emotion, the legendary Electric Nebraska sessions, and a live album and film capturing Springsteen performing the record start to finish in an empty New Jersey theater earlier this year. The live material feels reverent, with beautiful support from former Bob Dylan bandmate Larry Campbell. The remaster reveals that, despite the album’s association with the birth of lo-fi, the sound is richer and more intentional than much of what followed. Listen to the last half minute of “Atlantic City” through headphones and focus on how the acoustic guitars, mandolin, and background vocals fade away layer by layer. It’s a reminder of how much careful craft went into creating such stark beauty.
Unlike his earlier box sets for Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River, this one isn’t about showcasing how many different paths he could have taken. It’s about sharpening the vision. Where Nebraska is known for its unbroken mood, Electric Nebraska jerks between heartland laments and roaring rock songs across its eight tracks. These takes feel like rough sketches more than finished recordings—mostly Springsteen on electric guitar and vocals, Max Weinberg on drums, and Garry Tallant on bass—hinting at an album that could have been more accessible and mainstream in 1982. And yet, this raw version of “Downbound Train,” with its clanging rhythms and unsettling bridge, may be one of the strangest things he ever put to tape.
It’s easy to see why Springsteen thought these sessions didn’t work. Versions of “Open All Night” and “Johnny 99,” which on the original album burn with desperate energy, sound here like something a bar band could fall into with a casual count-in and some good-natured rockabilly riffs. On one hand, it highlights how his delivery gives shape and gravity to his songwriting. (Compare the early acoustic “Thunder Road” to its triumphant album version for proof.) On the other hand, slipping into different musical skins was a key part of his process then. He could turn something as playful as “Pink Cadillac” into a moaning, shadowy reflection of itself, as if the character had returned to earth wrecked and hollow, fixated on one thought.
For devoted fans, these shifts are what make the box set essential: witnessing how songs like “Working on a Highway” transformed from a chilling ballad called “Child Bride” into a loud, laughing, raucous number. Some of the outtakes, like the quietly devastating country song “Losin’ Kind,” have been passed around unofficially for years. But this set also reveals two entirely unheard songs: “On the Prowl” and “Gun in Every Home.” In the first, he ends with a dizzying repetition of “searching,” drenched in slapback echo that mimics the sound of a live band. In the second, he paints a nightmarish portrait of suburban life and ends with a bare, defeated admission: “I don’t know what to do.”
Within a single song, Springsteen might take the role of a killer hiding in the dark or a runaway on the move, either escaping or facing the question of whether being caught is actually a strange kind of salvation. That’s the point of sitting in the dark: you can’t see the exit. Yet sometimes he caught brief glimpses of where it all might lead. Along with the original demo tape, Springsteen sent a letter to his manager, Jon Landau. He went through each track, detailing the grim subject matter, floating arrangement ideas, and occasionally letting a sliver of optimism shine through.
He scribbled a note next to “Born in the U.S.A.,” which appears here in two early forms: a heavy acoustic blues and a full-band rocker stripped of its later synths, leaving no doubt about how the narrator feels. “Might have potential,” he wrote. That small spark of belief carried him through. He knew these songs would take work, and that truly understanding them would take time. But he also trusted that at the end of each hard-earned day, there would still be magic in the night.
