Flea and his tales of the Jazz Age

Flea runs through Hollywood every morning. Now 30 years sober, he wears out his shoes on the asphalt of Cahuenga Boulevard. Born Michael Peter Balzary in Melbourne in 1962, growing up in the rough neighbourhoods of Los Angeles in a childhood marked by instability and domestic violence, he found in music first a refuge and then a profession. His stepfather Walter Urban Jr., a jazz double bass player, held jam sessions in the family flat in Larchmont, New York State, and little Michael stayed to listen. He had started playing the trumpet, then came the bass, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the stadiums. But in 1991, on the set of Gus Van Sant's Beautiful and Damned - where Flea had a part in the cast, along with River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves - the idea of a trumpet record, something that would bring him back to jazz, took on the contours of a promise.

As he approached sixty, Flea made a rule for himself: practise his trumpet every day for two years, in the middle of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' world tour between 2022 and 2024, and at the end of that period record an album whatever the result. He didn't even have the confidence that he would improve, but the perseverance was enviable: in order to keep to the goal, he found himself practising in hotel rooms very often. The final push came from a quote he read in an interview with Neil Young: 'I made mediocre records and released them anyway, because failure is important'. To prepare himself in earnest, Flea enrolled in lessons with Rickey Washington - a saxophonist, father of Kamasi Washington, whom he met through his son - who guided him to sing and play songs in all twelve keys, learning intuitively rather than academically. "Honora" is the title that pays homage to a family member chosen for the record around which a line-up of musicians gravitating around the Los Angeles jazz scene and the International Anthem label has gathered: Jeff Parker on guitar, Anna Butterss on double bass. Thus, Flea resumes the discourse begun with the 2012 Ep 'Helen Burns', in which he fused electronics, jazz and avant-garde spirals.

Golden Wingship' opens the album, giving way to the syncopated rhythm of 'A Plea', with a bland lyric about political unease. "Traffic Lights" is co-written with Josh Johnson and Thom Yorke; in fact, it recalls a less convulsive version by Atoms for Peace. These are two of the six original tracks on 'Honora', which is completed by covers of George Clinton and Eddie Hazel, Jimmy Webb, Frank Ocean, Shea Taylor and Ann Ronell. Of these, one of the most successful is 'Thinkin Bout You'. Listening to it, it's alienating to know that Flea has always thought of himself as a poor musician, but it also confirms how profoundly sincere he sounds, whether chatting with Rick Beato or wearing Flying Lotus' 'Cosmogram' T-shirt talking about his beginnings in the Netflix documentary 'The Rise of the Red Hot Chili Peppers: Our Brother, Hillel'. On the record, Nick Cave's voice duets with Flea's trumpet on 'Wichita Lineman', yet another demonstration that the two musicians have a serene relationship, both artistic and personal, with the passing of time. It may not be an unforgettable record, but 'Honora' offers some truly moving moments.