Article Contributed by Gratefulweb
Published on December 6, 2025
Looking Under the Lamppost
Philadelphia’s genre-defying collective Untethered has released a Bandcamp-exclusive project this Friday titled Looking Under the Lamppost—a new session that captures the group’s signature “Spontaneous Creative Composition” at its most unfiltered and electrifying. With a lineup anchored by legendary drummer Grant Calvin Weston, pianist and producer Matt “Honeybee” Little, bassist Rodrigo Pichardo, and trumpeter-composer Paul Giess, the release finds the quartet pushing deeper into the unexpected, the ferocious, and the beautifully free.
The album—available only at Bandcamp—features Weston in peak form, delivering casually volcanic energy that belies his decades on stages with Ornette Coleman, James “Blood” Ulmer, Medeski Martin & Wood, Tricky, Marc Ribot, and the Lounge Lizards. His howling momentum fuels the record’s improvisational core, driving the group into jagged grooves, sudden turns, and ecstatic release.
Keyboardist Matt “Honeybee” Little (Josef Leimberg, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Talib Kweli, Haley Reinhart) brings a heavyweight résumé and an even heavier sonic imagination, adding harmonic fire and textural richness. His work here feels completely untethered—alive, searching, and deeply responsive.
Bassist Rodrigo Pichardo (Gnarbot, The Royal Noise) tears through the session with both precision and abandon. Known for technical command, prog-fusion vocabulary, and big-engine groove, Pichardo uses the freedom of this format to roam, stretch, distort, and anchor when the moment calls for it.
Trumpeter and composer Paul Giess rounds out the ensemble with the melodic imagination and expressive range highlighted in his work at NYC Winter Jazz Festival, Lancaster Ave Jazz Festival, and international stages. His trumpet lines cut through the improvisational swirl with emotional clarity, sometimes pastoral, sometimes searing.
About Untethered
Untethered is built on a concept Weston calls “Spontaneous Creative Composition”—a live-wire approach to improvisation where chamber-music sensitivity lives beside punk-level intensity, and deep-pocket funk sits comfortably next to cinematic stillness. Their 2025 album Grasping for the Moon was named Bandcamp’s Album of the Day, with critic Peter Margasak noting that the music “is in constant flux, opening up and tightening, cooling down and catching fire, riding stasis and exploding with hyperactive motion.”
The group has recently appeared at Turks Head Music Festival, The Chester County Restaurant Festival, and Nublu NYC, earning a reputation for shows that ignite quickly and never settle.
Artist Backgrounds
Grant Calvin Weston joined Ornette Coleman’s Prime Time Band at age 17, touring internationally and recording four albums before moving on to work with James “Blood” Ulmer, John Lurie’s Lounge Lizards, Billy Martin, Tricky, Eyvind Kang, Derek Bailey, Marc Ribot, James Carter, and more. He has contributed to film soundtracks including Get Shorty and leads his project Calvin Weston’s Big Tree. His work with Vernon Reid and Jamaaladeen Tacuma as Free Form Funky Freqs has produced three albums.
Paul Giess is acclaimed for his lyrical and expressive trumpet work, praised by DownBeat Magazine. He has performed alongside Jamaaladeen Tacuma, Calvin Weston, Yolanda Wisher, Guthrie Ramsey, and more, appearing at the NYC Winter Jazz Festival, Timitar Festival in Morocco, the Barnes Foundation, Kimmel Center, and Snug Harbor. His 2021 Ropeadope release Hymns Vol. 1 featured vocalist V. Shayne Frederick. Giess earned the McKnight Visiting Composer Residency and has been featured on WHYY’s “Philadelphia Revealed.”
Matt “Honeybee” Little studied under Barry Sames and Orrin Evans before attending Berklee College of Music. Now based in Los Angeles, he works with Josef Leimberg, Haley Reinhart, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Talib Kweli, Musiq Soulchild, Bilal, Brandy, J. Cole, Dave Chappelle, DJ Quik, Paloma Faith, Anderson .Paak & SiR, and others. Like his nickname suggests, he gathers influences widely and distills them into something warm, inventive, and unmistakably his.
Rodrigo Pichardo emerged through Philadelphia’s funk and fusion scenes with The Royal Noise and later co-founded prog-fusion quartet Gnarbot, known for its daring improvisation and complex compositional language. His work across projects such as Shroomtea, Dual Identity, and Kimpedro’s Ne Gruv showcases a bassist equally at home in groove, jazz-fusion, metal-tinged prog, and free improvisation.
Stream or download the Bandcamp-exclusive Looking Under the Lamppost at:
https://paulgiessmusic.bandcamp.com/album/looking-under-the-lamppost
