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Ryan Montbleau: For Higher

Self-released

On his new record, For Higher, Ryan Montbleau steps away from his namesake touring band and turns his attention to New Orleans. After Montbleau wrote a few songs for Trombone Shorty, the horn player’s producer Ben Ellman (Galactic) invited Montbleau to record in New Orleans. Ellman assembled some of the Crescent City’s finest—keyboard/ B3 player Ivan Neville, guitar master Anders Osborne, drummer Simon Lott and Meters bassist George Porter Jr.—for the two-day session. The result is 10 tracks with a distinctive New Orleans’ flare, including four soul-drenched covers: A take on Eddie Hinton’s “Yeah Man,” opens with swelling B-3 organ and a rolling bass groove and a cover of Bill Withers’ “Heartbreak Road” perfectly captures the essence of loneliness, while “Here But I’m Gone” rides the same smoky, slow funk groove of the Curtis Mayfield original. Montbleau Band concert staples “Head Above Water” and “Deadset” get the Cajon treatment with brassy horns, and the closer “Full Grown Man” is a melancholic, Dr. John-style piano ballad.