Bobby Vega - What Cha Got (2023)

Bobby Vega was in the right place, the Bay Area, at the right time; his first major project was recording with Sly Stone in 1975. He ended up playing with almost all of the great musicians in his home town. As he put it, “This whole project is about me growing up in the Bay Area and playing with all these people and gathering all these different things and now it comes out here.”

Here would be his long-awaited CD, What Cha Got, out 11/30 from Little Village, a nonprofit record company devoted to diversity. What Cha Got is an instrumental funk-soul-rock-jazz encyclopedia of wonderful songs, from the most melodic bass and drums piece you ever heard (“Can’t Wait”) to a lovely duet with banjo (“Jellyfish,”) to a storming funk masterwork (“Kimmie”). As his fans have long known, Bobby delivers.