Early this month, jazz fans got another great new addition to 2025’s new albums field when The Big Bad Bones released its new album, Sliders. Released under the moniker of the Bigger Badder Bones, the 11-song record offers audiences plenty to appreciate from beginning to end. That is due to the diversity in sound and style exhibited throughout the record’s one hour, seven-minute run time. Right from the outset, audiences get a light, bluesy arrangement in the album’s title track. The smooth, relaxed composition is completely opposite from, say, ‘You Heard That Right,’ which serves as part of the album’s midpoint. That song and the album’s opener are also quite unlike the album’s penultimate entry, ‘ Stuff Like This.’ All three songs are unique in themselves from one another and from the rest of the album’s entries. When the whole is considered collectively, they make Sliders in whole easily one more of the year’s top new jazz albums that will appeal not only to trombonists, but also to jazz fans in general.
Sliders, the latest album from Big Bad Bones (in the case of this album, Bigger Badder Bones), is a record that trombonist and jazz fans in general will equally appreciate. That is due in no small part to the diverse musical arrangements featured throughout its hour-plus body. From one song to the next listeners get plenty to appreciate in that diversity even in the songs that swing. Right from the record’s outset audiences get a fun work in its own right in the record’s title track. According to the liner notes included with the album (penned by Brett Stamps), the song “reflects the jazz double entendre derived from the blues, where the title can mean several things.” According to Stamps, the reference here is meant to point directly to the trombonists who perform the song. If that is indeed the case, it is a great way to celebrate them as the richness of each musician’s performance brings so much joy with the collective bluesy swing throughout. Meanwhile, drummer Doug Mantera adds his own touch with his subtle but still swinging time keeping. The whole of the group’s performance generates a great big band vibe even despite the group being an octet.
As the album progresses, the group changes things up continually, with another notable entry being ‘You Heard That Right.’ Unlike the album’s opener, with its blues-tinged approach, this arrangement is more funky than blues. The shuffle that Montera uses with his ghost notes and his overall work on the drums serves (at least to this critic) as the song’s backbone. It and the use of the keyboard line collectively throw back to clear influence of the funk style and sound of the 1970s. A truly close listen could even make valid, a comparison to works from the late, great Vince Guaraldi. The whole herein is subtly different from the album’s opener and just as unlike the rest of the album’s entries. To that end, the whole makes obvious that diversity noted earlier.
As the record nears its end, the diversity in sound and style continues just as much in yet another entry, the album’s penultimate track, ‘Fleeting Moments.’ In the case of this song, Stamps writes more in music theory than anything in the liner notes. He writes that the song “is unique in that it uses root relationships to create tension and releases rather than dominant-tonic relationships.” Supposedly that would mean that the connection of each line at its base and how those bases are connected was used to compose this easygoing song, which once again presents a welcome big band vibe even as it has more of a light danceable presentation. The approach taken here is just as different from the other noted song as the whole is from the rest of the album’s entries. All things considered, Sliders proves a work whose diverse big band-esque compositions are sure to appeal to so many jazz fans.
Sliders, the latest full-length studio recording from Big Bad Bones, is a fun record that is sure to appeal to a wide range of audiences. This is proven from beginning to end of the hour-plus record, as is shown at least in part through the songs examined here. When that whole is considered along with the rest of the album’s entries, the whole therein makes Sliders one more welcome, early addition to 2025’s field of new jazz albums.
Sliders is available now through Summit Records. More information on this and other title from Summit Records is available at:
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