A Meters reunion will be one of the likely highlights of Trombone Shorty‘s new album, Say That To Say This, which will be released September 10 on Verve Records.
The album — Shorty’s third since the career-defining Backatown — marks a change of producers from Galactic‘s Ben Ellman to multi-platinum R&B-soul star and Grammy-Nominated artist Raphael Saadiq. Based on the preview track “Fire & Brimstone” (which can be heard here), he seems to be trading the prior’ album’s sample-driven sound for a supremely funky, live-band approach.
The Meters collaboration with Shorty on the new disc, “Be My Lady,” finds the original quartet reuniting with ’70s-era member Cyril Neville. The song is the Meters’ most durable (and practically only) ballad, originally appearing on their final album New Directions. Recent incarnations have played it live, but never with the kind of horn power Shorty could provide.
August 17 will find Shorty appearing at the “Bourbon Street Music Festival” — which, we’re sorry to say, is in Brazil. Though he has no hometown dates scheduled soon, he’ll be crossing the country through mid-August, including San Francisco’s Outside Lands Festival on August 11, and then hitting Europe in the fall.