Notes From The Wine Cellar, the extraordinary new album from Jazz Vocalist and Composer Carmen Lundy, is set for release August 21st via Afrasia Productions. Created over the course of the past several years but recorded in January of 2026, the record’s arrival coincides with Carmen being named a 2026 NEA Jazz Master, the highest accolade a Jazz artist can receive.

Drawing from a lifetime of artistic and personal reflection, this collection brings together songs inspired by love, faith, family, social consciousness, and the enduring search for purpose. Rooted in the creative spirit of New York City’s jazz scene and shaped by decades of growth, the album bridges past and present through compositions that have evolved over time alongside newly written works.

Blending jazz, gospel, and soul traditions, these songs explore unity, identity, loss, forgiveness, and hope with honesty and grace. Together, they form a deeply personal yet universal statement, celebrating the transformative power of love as life’s greatest and most enduring truth.

“Notes From The Wine Cellar is a suite of 10 songs. I spent the past several years recording and making sketches of these songs by playing numerous instruments including drums, piano, electric keyboards, synthesizers, acoustic and electric guitars, orchestrating with strings, woodwinds and brass, writing and re-writing the music, to make this musical statement.”
— Carmen Lundy