Jazz bassist Christian Fabian has returned with a new trio album called Hip to the Skip. Fabian plays a variety of styles (he swings hard in the Lionel Hampton Big Band), but for this outing he opted to explore funk and fusion jazz.

The bassist and bandleader’s group is filled out by keyboardist Matt King and drummer Jason Marsalis, who said “This is the first album I’ve ever done where I’m playing in the funk/fusion vein the whole session. This was a lot of fun and listeners will be surprised by the music.”

Along with original songs, Fabian arranged some beloved jazz standards in the fusion style, taking cues from artists like Herbie Hancock, Weather Report, and more.

1. Hip to the Skip
2. Moanin’
3. Mercy, Mercy, Mercy
4. This Can’t Be Love
5. Incognito
6. When the Saints Go Marching In
7. Zig 7
8. (Funky) Four
9. In the Name of Feminism
10. Sidekick
11. Effendi

This genuinely authentic new recording opens on the vibrancy of the titular Hip to the Skip and the stridently flavored Moanin’ and they are then followed by the smoothly lush grooves laid down within Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, the R&B bliss of This Can’t Be Love, and then we get an impassioned fervency that drives Incognito.

Up next is one of my own personal favorites, the laid back, low slung melodies that make up the beloved When the Saints Go Marching In and the funky Hammond work of Zig 7, and they are then in turn backed by the aptly-named (Funky) Four, the lovingly jaunty In the Name of Feminism, the album rounding out on the all-embracing Sidekick, closing on the rhythmic beauty Effendi.

Official Hip To The Skip Music Video