Article Contributed by Big Hassle Media
Published on December 15, 2025
Photo by Hannah Gray Hall
7x GRAMMY® Award-nominated guitar virtuoso Julian Lage has shared his latest single, “Talking Drum,” available everywhere today via Blue Note Records. “Talking Drum” is from Lage’s fifth full-length Blue Note release, Scenes From Above, which arrives on Friday, January 23, 2026. The album marks his second one made in collaboration with 3x GRAMMY® Award-winning producer Joe Henry (Carolina Chocolate Drops, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Solomon Burke) and first with a striking new quartet featuring keyboardist John Medeski, bassist Jorge Roeder, and drummer Kenny Wollesen. Album pre-orders/pre-saves are available now in a variety of formats including black vinyl, CD, and digital download, as well as a brown vinyl variant available exclusively on the Julian Lage Artist Store and the Blue Note Store.
The quartet sizzles during “Talking Drum” as Medeski stabs his organ between the beat until he lifts up to ride alongside Lage and “discuss” the melody. There is, as Lage had hoped, plenty to talk about. The track is as close as Scenes From Above gets to groove and jam, but there is a gleeful resistance to it, too, of never sitting still with a solo or rhythm. The band gets into the idea and gets out, too excited by what may still happen to belabor anything they’ve already found.
LISTEN TO “TALKING DRUM”
PRE-ORDER/PRE-SAVE SCENES FROM ABOVE
The album – which follows 2024’s GRAMMY® Award-nominated Speak To Me – was introduced last month with the gorgeous invocation, “Opal,” joined by an official live performance video streaming now on YouTube.
LISTEN TO “OPAL”
WATCH “OPAL” LIVE PERFORMANCE VIDEO
Lage will celebrate the arrival of Scenes From Above with a busy international live schedule, including eagerly awaited quartet performances at Knoxville, TN’s Big Ears Festival (March 29, 2026), Savannah, GA’s Savannah Music Festival (April 1, 2026), and London’s Royal Festival Hall (May 15, 2026). Additional dates will be announced soon. For complete details and ticket information, please visit www.julianlage.com/tour.
Where 2024’s Speak to Me was Lage’s grand statement as an improvising bandleader helming an ensemble through a diverse set of tunes, Scenes from Above is about being a band member himself, about Lage exploring the tunes he has written with a crew he has built with that entirely in mind. Its nine tracks frame a brilliantly open experience, with four astounding players giving and taking space in equal measure as they explore these songs in one space, in real time.
“I came in with a desire to present this as an egalitarian thing, rather than ‘I’m the leader — let’s build something around me,’” Lage says. “This is music that’s connected to our own growth and development individually and within our relationships with one another, with no sense that anybody’s expecting anything.”
The album’s nine compositions resulted from what Lage calls a writing sprint ahead of a residency at SFJAZZ, which marked the live debut of the band. As he thought about each of their qualities as players and hypothesized about how they might interact, he set a timer for 20 minutes, wrote a tune, recorded it once, and then began again.
“My dream with composing, really, is to have something to talk about once we’re together,” he says. “It’s not the end-all, be-all.”
“Julian really thinks about things, has a lot of intention,” says John Medeski. “But it’s a beautiful combination of caring about the concept and direction and of being free and in the moment.”
Scenes from Above radiates both qualities in tandem, and that’s what makes the album so poignant and timely.
Tracklist
1. Opal (Lage)
2. Red Elm (Lage)
3. Talking Drum (Lage)
4. Havens (Lage)
5. Night Shade (Lage)
6. Solid Air (Lage)
7. Ocala (Lage)
8. Storyville (Lage)
9. Something More (Lage)
# # #
JULIAN LAGE – LIVE 2025-2026
DECEMBER
12 – Hiroshima, Japan – Hiroshima Club Quattro *
JANUARY 2026
31 – Brookfield, WI – Sharon Lynne Wilson Center for the Arts †
MARCH 2026
29 – Knoxville, TN – The Mill & Mine @ Big Ears Festival #
APRIL 2026
1 – Savannah, GA – Kehoe Iron Works @ Savannah Music Festival (5:00 PM Set) #
1 – Savannah, GA – Kehoe Iron Works @ Savannah Music Festival (7:00 PM Set) #
MAY 2026
7 – Berlin, Germany – Huxley’s Neue Welt #
9 – Utrecht, Netherlands – TivoliVredenburg #
10 – Liège, Belgium – Jazz à Liège #
11 – Cologne, Germany – Die Kantine #
13 – Eindhoven, Netherlands – Muziekgebouw Eindhoven #
15 – London, UK – Royal Festival Hall #
* World’s Fair – Solo Guitar
† Trio Show
# Quartet Show
