{"id":567644,"date":"2026-03-27T10:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-27T10:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/567644\/"},"modified":"2026-03-27T10:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T10:59:08","slug":"flea-honora-review-chili-pepper-turns-piper-taking-up-trumpet-for-a-soulful-jazz-odyssey-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/567644\/","title":{"rendered":"Flea: Honora review \u2013 Chili Pepper turns piper, taking up trumpet for a soulful jazz odyssey | Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

While some rock musicians fill the boredom of long tours with nefarious activities, bassist Flea spent Red Hot Chili Peppers<\/a>\u2019 global jaunt of 2022-24 practising the trumpet, an instrument he first played as a child before funky rock pulled him away. Now, the 63-year-old\u2019s daily routine and open spirit has produced his own deeply meditative and groovy jazz odyssey.<\/p>\n

The artwork for Honora<\/p>\n

Named after a family member, Honora brings together a star-studded cast of peers and LA jazz and experimental luminaries for 10 tracks spanning Flea-penned instrumentals, chanted mantras and imaginative reinterpretations. The bassist doubles as narrator for spirited track A Plea<\/a>, a yelled call for sanity (\u201cLive for peace! Live for love!\u201d) amid global madness and takes his trumpet to Eddie Hazel\u2019s famous guitar solo on a beautifully plaintive remodel of Funkadelic\u2019s Maggot Brain.<\/p>\n

Radiohead singer and Flea\u2019s Atoms for Peace bandmate Thom Yorke<\/a> co-writes and sings the dreamlike, elastic-grooved Traffic Lights<\/a> and Nick Cave<\/a>\u2019s rendition of Jimmy Webb\u2019s Wichita Lineman sounds exactly as you\u2019d expect. Honora is never dilettantish, though: it\u2019s sincere, exploratory and soulful. Tortoise guitarist Jeff Parker and bassist Anna Butterss power the frisky Morning Cry. Frailed\u2019s minimalist dub groove allows Flea\u2019s thoughtful trumpet-playing room to breathe and he blows Frank Ocean\u2019s Thinkin Bout You<\/a> over a bed of strings to gorgeous effect. Although there are fleeting contributions from Chilis\u2019 bandmates Chad Smith and John Frusciante, it\u2019s a joy to hear the bass man venturing so far from the day job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While some rock musicians fill the boredom of long tours with nefarious activities, bassist Flea spent Red Hot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-567644","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}