Music Review: Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea realizes lifelong dream with solo jazz album, ‘Honora’

On his first ever solo album, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ eccentric bassist Flea is full of surprises. He opens with a track that serves as an abbreviated segue between what most fans know him for and what they will get on the rest of his jazz record “Honora.”

Although “Golden Wingship” doesn’t sound quite like something one would expect from the Peppers, of which Flea has been a member since the band’s founding more than four decades ago, the psychedelic instrumental blends the skronking sound of free jazz with familiar rock instrumentation, culminating in discordant cacophony.

It’s really not until the second song, “A Plea,” that the 63-year-old bassist shows his cards and reveals the focus on this, his 10-track jazz album: Flea’s first love, the trumpet, which he plays throughout the rest of the album.

A smooth flute over Flea’s funky bass line and conspicuous trumpet dominate most of