Drummer/Composer Phil Haynes reunites his socially conscious “jazz-grass” string band Free Country for their first new album in over a decade
Liberty Now!, out October 17, 2025 via Corner Store Jazz, pairs an album of new compositions touched by protest and grief with a compilation of songs tracing the turbulent history of America; Featuring Haynes with cellist/vocalist Hank Roberts, guitarist Jim Yanda & bassist Drew Gress.
“Free Country fuses grassroots Americana with hip, upbeat arrangements that toggle jazz, bluegrass and country [and] breathe new life into American heritage and traditionalism.” – Glenn Astarita, All About Jazz
“Since arriving in New York from Oregon in 1983, drummer Phil Haynes established himself as a potent force on the downtown composer/improviser scene.” – Bill Milkowski, JazzTimes
Vital, timely and moving, Liberty Now! is, nonetheless, not the album that drummer Phil Haynes and his Americana string band Free Country intended to make when they prepared to enter the studio last December. When the quartet’s first release in over a decade was originally announced, it was under the title Our Music – a celebration of the band’s original music following the completion of its politically and historically minded American Trilogy.
Free Country’s self-titled 1997 debut focused on pre-1900 tunes from the Revolutionary War to Stephen Foster; 2002’s The Way the West Was Won took on the first half of the 20th century, ranging from Aaron Copeland through Hollywood’s cowboy soundtracks; and ‘60/’69: My Favorite Things (2014) tackled a formative decade in eclectic fashion, veering from John Coltrane to The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix to Burt Bacharach and the theme from Star Trek. (In 2013 the band presented several Fab Four classics for the live Something Beatles date.)
“After the American Trilogy and our live record, I felt like the band was done,” Haynes explains. “But the sound of Free Country and the chemistry that the four of us shared never left my head. I thought about what I would want to do if we ever made another record, and I knew it would have to be our own originals. Each of these terrific musicians are lovely and very personal composers, and when a band comes together with this much chemistry, mutual love and respect, you write and arrange material very differently.”
The rechristened Liberty Now!, out October 17, 2025 via Haynes’ Corner Store Jazz imprint, is still an expression of the camaraderie and kinship developed over nearly 30 years by the members of Free Country – Haynes, cellist and vocalist Hank Roberts, guitarist Jim Yanda and bassist Drew Gress. There’s a buoyant hoedown spirit to the rootsy folk-jazz shuffle of Yanda’s “Situation Ethnics” and the slinky groove of Haynes’ “Corner Store Strut;” a blissful beauty to Roberts’ recitation of Haynes’ “Joy,” to Gress’ lovely, ethereal “Diaphana” and to Yanda’s tender, lyrical “Past Time;” and an edgy electricity to Roberts’ discordant “The Wire.”
Yet the music gained additional urgency and profundity that the band couldn’t have foreseen when they wrote and selected the compositions for the album. The first was the dire outcome of the 2024 US presidential election just a month prior to the date. The second was the death of the revered trumpeter Herb Robertson, a friend and collaborator of everyone in Free Country – the news of which reached them at the very moment they were entering the studio.
“You better believe Herb’s death colored the session,” Haynes says. “On the one hand, none of us felt like making music after that – certainly not immediately. On the other hand, that’s exactly what Herb would want us to do: make music. So we were hurting, but that pain turned into beauty and vulnerability.”
While the grief was immediate, the album’s political edge emerged only once Haynes and his bandmates revisited the music after the fact. “I realized that we had made a protest record without intending to,” he marvels. A new title became necessary, and Haynes chose one that reflects and updates Max Roach’s iconic Freedom Now Suite and offers a modern-day insistence. “Given everything that’s happening now, it comes as a sort of relief to discover that the band’s collective subconscious wasn’t tone deaf.”
Political awareness is certainly nothing new to the Free Country four – as spotlighted on the third album of the American Trilogy, the bandmates spent their formative years amidst the unrest and activism of the 1960s. There is a strong undercurrent of social consciousness threaded throughout the band’s work, which Haynes wanted to underline. He decided to pair the new recordings with an album-length compilation of the most pointed cuts from the quartet’s catalogue, crafting an American history lesson in song.
The bravado cowboys-and-Indians fanfare of “The Way the West Was Won” leads through The Beatles’ rebellious anthem “Revolution” to the Civil Rights swagger of “Respect.” The national anthem reverts to its drinking song origins on “To Anacreon in Heaven,” while Roberts’ poignant reading of “What a Wonderful World” strips away the sentimentality to reveal the raw beauty and emotion.
“We’ve been thinking about these issues for a long time,” Haynes says. “It’s nice to have a body of work that will hopefully help people to ruminate on the current environment and also look back and see that the good old days were never totally good old days. I thought this music might offer people some solace and courage to live through this period and find ways to do things that might have a positive impact.”
