The Longest Way Round - February 2026
(Ben Rosenblum's Fifth Album)
Streaming links: Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, Tidal
Purchase a physical copy: Online Shop
Videos: Merengue x Fantasy, Last Call, Sheridan's Reel, Círculo
Downbeat Review - 4.5 stars (Scroll below for more reviews)
Purchase a physical copy: Online Shop
Videos: Merengue x Fantasy, Last Call, Sheridan's Reel, Círculo
Downbeat Review - 4.5 stars (Scroll below for more reviews)
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I wanted to officially announce that my next Nebula Project album, The Longest Way Round, will be released in February 2026! I can’t wait to share this music! It will be my first album that is entirely original compositions, including a three-part suite, and it features all the regular members of the band - Wayne Tucker on trumpet, Jasper Dutz on sax, clarinet and flute, Rafael Rosa on guitar, Marty Jaffe on bass, Ben Zweig on drums, and yours truly on piano and accordion - in addition to the amazing Gustavo Di Dalva and Brad Dutz on auxiliary percussion. We recorded the album after a nine concert tour of the US in 2024, so I feel like the album really speaks to the musical closeness we developed on the road with the band. This album also continues to deepen our exploration of jazz with different world music influences, including Dominican merengue, J-Pop, Irish reels and jigs, salsa, West African rhythmic traditions and Jamaican reggae, among others.
The first single was released on December 19th, 2025 on all streaming platforms, the second single on January 16th, 2026 and the third single on February 6th, 2026. Click here to listen on Spotify, Tidal or Apple Music. You can also watch our studio recorded videos of the first three singles and one extra song on YouTube below:
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Reviews:
"While Rosenblum’s piano playing on several tracks is exceptional, and his bandmembers go deep in their numerous solo spotlights, the leader’s mind-blowing and heart-melting accordion chops — along with his uncanny ability to blend his stomach-Steinway with horns and guitar in a hard-bop esthetic — are the main attraction here." Ed Enright, Downbeat (4.5 Stars). Full Review
"The Longest Way Round is a clear winner from start to finish, a luminous and impressive feather in the cap of Ben Rosenblum and his remarkable Nebula Project." Jack Bowers, All About Jazz (Full Review)
"The Longest Way Round works because Rosenblum treats all of these styles as part of his everyday musical language. Writing all of the material himself, he lets the band interpret the songs, and they bring the music to life with energy and plenty of color, hitting every stylistic turn with precision and ease." Tim Larsen, Jazzviews (Full Review)
"The Longest Way Round plays like a passport filled, moving seamlessly through Dominican merengue, West African rhythms, Irish folk, neo-soul, J-pop, and hard bop. What could have been chaotic instead feels cohesive and intentional. Rosenblum demonstrates that self-discovery does not require a plane ticket—only curiosity, craft, and a willingness to explore." Slang of Ages (Full Review)
"Full of revelations. . . . Rosenblum's compositions find deeply personal introspection by way of a spiritual globalism." Bob Osborne, Different Noises (Full Review)
"Rosenblum adds to his growing body of work and significant oeuvre with this beautifully crafted and executed new record. Plangent & exultant melodies compete for your attention and all is infused with jazz & world folk music influences add to the charm and accessibility of this new music." John Hammel, Home Grown Radio NJ (Full Review)
JazzTimes Interview (curated by A.D. Amorosi)
Other reviews:
Era Jazzu (Poland)
Hippopress (A+)
Postgenre
Making a Scene
"The Longest Way Round is a clear winner from start to finish, a luminous and impressive feather in the cap of Ben Rosenblum and his remarkable Nebula Project." Jack Bowers, All About Jazz (Full Review)
"The Longest Way Round works because Rosenblum treats all of these styles as part of his everyday musical language. Writing all of the material himself, he lets the band interpret the songs, and they bring the music to life with energy and plenty of color, hitting every stylistic turn with precision and ease." Tim Larsen, Jazzviews (Full Review)
"The Longest Way Round plays like a passport filled, moving seamlessly through Dominican merengue, West African rhythms, Irish folk, neo-soul, J-pop, and hard bop. What could have been chaotic instead feels cohesive and intentional. Rosenblum demonstrates that self-discovery does not require a plane ticket—only curiosity, craft, and a willingness to explore." Slang of Ages (Full Review)
"Full of revelations. . . . Rosenblum's compositions find deeply personal introspection by way of a spiritual globalism." Bob Osborne, Different Noises (Full Review)
"Rosenblum adds to his growing body of work and significant oeuvre with this beautifully crafted and executed new record. Plangent & exultant melodies compete for your attention and all is infused with jazz & world folk music influences add to the charm and accessibility of this new music." John Hammel, Home Grown Radio NJ (Full Review)
JazzTimes Interview (curated by A.D. Amorosi)
Other reviews:
Era Jazzu (Poland)
Hippopress (A+)
Postgenre
Making a Scene
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Press Release:
Pianist, accordionist and composer Ben Rosenblum’s Nebula Project discovers personal revelations from global influences on The Longest Way Round
(written by Shaun Brady)
Out February 27, 2026 via One Trick Dog Records, the kaleidoscopic The Longest Way Round draws inspiration from Dominican merengue, West African and Caribbean rhythms, Irish folk music, neo-soul, J-pop and hard bop, among other traditions
“Ben Rosenblum is one of the most electrifyingly eclectic voices in jazz.” – Alan Young, Lucid Culture
“A perfect example of what ‘globalized' jazz sounds like these days.” – Marco Cangiano, NYC Jazz Record
(written by Shaun Brady)
Out February 27, 2026 via One Trick Dog Records, the kaleidoscopic The Longest Way Round draws inspiration from Dominican merengue, West African and Caribbean rhythms, Irish folk music, neo-soul, J-pop and hard bop, among other traditions
“Ben Rosenblum is one of the most electrifyingly eclectic voices in jazz.” – Alan Young, Lucid Culture
“A perfect example of what ‘globalized' jazz sounds like these days.” – Marco Cangiano, NYC Jazz Record
“Think you're escaping and run into yourself,” James Joyce wrote in his impenetrably insightful masterpiece Ulysses. “Longest way ‘round is the shortest way home.”
Pianist, accordionist and composer Ben Rosenblum has found resonant truth in those words, a favorite quote of his mother’s. So much so that he’s adopted them as the title of The Longest Way Round, the third and most venturesome release to date by his globally influenced ensemble, the Nebula Project. (Rosenblum readily admits that he has yet to read Joyce’s famously daunting novel, but what better way to commit yourself than to adopt its words for your album title?)
Rosenblum is a world traveler both literally and musically: he spends more days on the road than at home– touring with Grammy winners Rickie Lee Jones and Catherine Russell and contemporary Indian singer Kiran Ahluwalia, among others – while as a composer he delights in the juxtapositions between musical traditions from around the world. From those experiences he’s discovered that the most direct way to find yourself is to journey far from home. “As you travel, you inevitably bump into all of the parts of your character and perspective that are fundamentally tied to the place where you grew up,” Rosenblum explains. “You just keep running into this familiar part of yourself, no matter how far away you go from it. On my emotional journey, I find that no matter what world music forms I'm drawing from, I always come back to these musical foundations that are intrinsically, inescapably me.”
Set for release on February 27, 2026 via One Trick Dog Records, The Longest Way Round is full of such revelations. Rosenblum’s compositions find deeply personal introspection by way of a spiritual globalism. In the members of the Nebula Project, the composer has surrounded himself with traveling companions who share his restless curiosity and bring their own diverse influences and backgrounds into this explorative mix. Returning from the band’s previous outings are trumpeter Wayne Tucker, saxophonist Jasper Dutz, guitarist Rafael Rosa, bassist Marty Jaffe and drummer Ben Zweig, joined for this outing by percussionists Gustavo Di Dalva and Brad Dutz.
“I chose the name of this band while picturing a spiral nebula,” Rosenblum describes. “As musicians, we’re all rooted in straightahead jazz improvisation and have experience in a lot of different genres. But beyond that, all of these world music influences are on the periphery, spiraling around this foundation.”
The Nebula Project made its debut with 2020’s Kites and Strings, Rosenblum’s third album as a leader. It was followed in 2023 by A Thousand Pebbles, which DownBeat magazine’s Josef Woodard hailed as, “a tapestry into which sounds and modes from Eastern Europe, northern Brazil and points Afro-Caribbean and Celtic, not to mention his native New York, are integrally woven.”
While those far-flung influences have been a formative element of the Nebula Project’s music since the band’s inception, on The Longest Way Round Rosenblum endeavors further and in more divergent directions, experimenting with distinct traditions on nearly every piece. The leader’s agile, eloquent piano graces several tracks, but the uniqueness of the album’s settings provide an ideal showcase for his singular accordion playing.
“It's a very misunderstood instrument,” Rosenblum says, “especially in America. A lot of people associate it only with certain folkloric styles – many of which I love. But while the accordion can be the most rough, raw instrument, it can also be the most beautiful classical concert instrument, and everything in between. It blends beautifully with horns and the hard bop aesthetic. I love finding ways to integrate the accordion into a larger musical vision.”
Those folkloric influences pervade The Longest Way Round, but not always in the most expected ways. Opener “Merengue x Fantasy” clearly draws from Dominican merengue, but that ‘x’ – a naming convention borrowed from Japanese anime – is a nod to the tune’s J-pop inspired chord progression. It’s followed by “Sheridan’s Reel,” an Irish-inflected piece with a hint of blues/funk in the groove. The piece is dedicated to the late Michael Sheridan, a classical guitarist and friend who shared Rosenblum’s roving tastes.
The suite “Scenes Frozen in Time” compiles three pieces written at key points and places in Rosenblum’s musical development. The first, “Berlin,” is the most recent, penned while the composer spent an isolated period in the titular city in late 2021. The origins of “Old Friends” stretch back to high school, while “Onslaught” is a revised version of a piece written during a hectic time in his college years.
“Círculo” is built upon West African rhythms shared by Zweig after a trip to Cameroon, while “Blue Water” treks to the Caribbean for its reggae/ska rhythms. “Albatross” and “Fool’s Gold” are the album’s most straightahead pieces, direct nods to the hard bop style in tribute to Mulgrew Miller and Horace Silver, respectively. Finally, “Last Call” was written with trumpeter Wayne Tucker in mind, taking advantage of his experience in the realm of neo-soul and R&B.
That an album with such a head-spinning blend of influences can sound this cohesive and personal is a testament to Rosenblum’s ability to infuse his own ideas, concepts and, above all, emotions into each piece, as well as to the inherently uniting nature of jazz itself.
“Jazz is a convergence to begin with,” Rosenblum concludes. “West African rhythmic and harmonic traditions fused with European styles in New Orleans, developed their own culture and then traveled on to Chicago, New York and beyond. We’re already coming from a music that is a melting pot, so jazz lends itself to fusion beautifully because it has that aesthetic built into its foundations.”