Snarky Puppy Shares New Single Featuring David Crosby

Jazz act Snarky Puppy are gearing up to release Family Dinner Volume Two on February 12. The CD/DVD follows the Grammy-winning first installment of the series and contains a number of collaborations including contributions from David Crosby, Becca Stevens, Jeff Coffin, Ivan Neville, Nigel Hall and others. Today, the band has shared a video for the track featuring Croz.

Crosby came across the band’s music on YouTube and instantly became a fan. He’s tweeted dozens of times about his appreciation for Snarky Puppy and finally came together with the group at the New Orleans concert where Family Dinner Volume Two was recorded. A portion of the proceeds from the sales of Family Dinner Volume Two will be donated to the charity organization Roots Of Music. David Crosby spoke with Rolling Stone about Snarky Puppy and the track “Somebody Home”:

“First of all the song … ‘Somebody Home’ … the title is a phrase I have been using for years, meaning there is a human soul, an aware intelligence, present in a person. When you look in their eyes you get the sense there is someone home there looking back at you. There is a mistake that people make, men particularly, about only seeing the physical woman and not seeing or getting to know the human inside. Our whole society is tilted that way … surface over substance. We mistake the wrapping paper for the real gift which is inside the wrapping. We celebrate the looks and miss the soul and heart where the real, lasting beauty lives. So, in a way, I am trying to apologize to all women on behalf of all us men.

“Secondly … when I was wandering around YouTube looking for music I had not heard yet, I ran into the band Snarky Puppy and loved them immediately. Fine players having a blast playing intelligent, beautifully written compositions that swung hard. I started tweeting about them … ‘OK here’s your Snarky Puppy song of the day’ or ‘Time to get Snarked again’ … and I’d rant about how good they are.

“Eventually word got back to them about this and I finally wound up on the phone with the composer, bandleader and bass player Michael League, who asked me if I would like to sing with them on the Family Dinner benefit record they do each year where they invite various other musicians and singers to join them. My wife Jan and I went to New Orleans and had one of the best weeks of our lives. These guys are musicians all the way though. That have devoted their whole lives to music. They didn’t do it to get rich or on the cover of Rolling Stone or famous. They do it because it is their life’s work. We became friends and the song went very well. As I write this, Michael is producing, writing, playing and singing with me on the new solo record we are making. A great deal of joy has come into my life from all this. I am very grateful.”

Watch David Crosby & Snarky Puppy’s “Somebody Home”: