The Line From The Blackbyrds to Oslo Runs Through Sūn Byrd on Changes

An Oslo Band Named for Donald Byrd Sets a Political Message to Trumpet and Saxophone

In 1973, the trumpeter Donald Byrd formed The Blackbyrds from students at Howard University. Five decades later, a band in Oslo took the name as a tribute. Sūn Byrd released Changes on August 28, 2026. It is a political soul single on Jansen Records about the current state of the world, played by seven musicians in a little over three minutes.

Sūn Byrd’s Changes sits in the playlist below, next to the classic soul records it learned from. Earlier coverage is collected on the Sūn Byrd profile. Changes reached this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news desks. Play it once, then keep reading for the line it comes from.

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Sūn Byrd and Changes Come Out of the Live-Band Soul Revival That Daptone Kept Alive

The wave this record belongs to started in Brooklyn. Since the early 2000s, Daptone Records has made soul records the way the 1960s did. A full band and a horn section play the arrangement instead of sampling it. Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings were the label’s flagship act, and Thee Sacred Souls carried the approach into the 2020s from San Diego. Meanwhile, Leon Bridges took the same template to a far wider audience with the 2015 debut Coming Home.

Those names are not a stretch. In fact, Jansen Records set Sūn Byrd beside Leon Bridges, Thee Sacred Souls and Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings when it introduced the band’s second album, In Paradiso, in 2025. The label also pointed to the band’s stage record, which by then ran to over 250 concerts played together.

On the Norwegian side, however, the story runs through two working bands. In 2024 the radio presenter Dan Digs noted that the members came out of Bård Berg Electric Band and Fieh. Their debut album, Sūn Byrd, then arrived that April on Vaco Records. It earned a nomination in the R&B/Soul category at Spellemannprisen, Norway’s main music awards. In Paradiso followed on October 24, 2025, recorded in Norway and Italy. It was nominated in the same category at the 2026 ceremony.

Where Sūn Byrd Sit in That Line

The name is the clearest statement of lineage. In a 2024 interview with Music Arena GH, the band explained that it came to them on the drive home from Italy, where they had recorded the debut. In other words, it honours Donald Byrd and The Blackbyrds. The same conversation named the 1970s records they study, with Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield at the top of the list. Asked what drew them into music, they pointed to Donny Hathaway’s recording of For All We Know.

That list also explains Changes. Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On turned soul toward the news in 1971, and Curtis Mayfield had already done it with The Impressions on People Get Ready. Changes takes up the same job for 2026 as a song about the world as it is now. It also keeps the form short, at 3:06 from the first note to the last.

The credits show how the band builds it. Singer Johan Helland and bassist Markus Hafsund Gundersen wrote the song. Bård Jønland Berg plays drums, Jørgen Kasbo plays electric guitar and Audun Haave Reknes plays synthesizer. Meanwhile, Lyder Øverås Røed on trumpet and Erlend Vangen Kongtorp on saxophone form the horn line. That is a fitting detail for a band named after a trumpeter.

Erlend Mokkelbost produced the single, with mixing by Njål Paulsberg and mastering by Espen Høydalsvik. Mokkelbost was also nominated for producer of the year at the 2026 Spellemannprisen.

The Dap-Kings, Leon Bridges and Fieh Are the Nearest Neighbours to Sūn Byrd on Changes

For listeners mapping where to go next, three neighbours do most of the work. Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings are the reference for horn-led soul made by a band in full. Changes lists a trumpet and a saxophone beside its rhythm section in the same spirit. Leon Bridges, in turn, is the reference for a singer-first take on the 1960s sound. That suits a band whose label puts Helland’s voice at the front of its pitch, before the horns and the bass.

Closer to home, the Norwegian soul-funk band Fieh is the place to hear where some of these players worked before Sūn Byrd. It is also a reminder that the band grew out of a working Oslo scene rather than a studio project.

That makes Changes a fit for listeners who want soul played by people rather than programmed, the organic live sound the band is built around. It also suits anyone who keeps a shelf of message songs from the early 1970s. Furthermore, the band has taken the sound abroad. Their 2026 tour schedule ran from Byens Tak in Oslo in February to the New Colossus festival in New York and SXSW in Austin in March. It then moved through European festivals including Jazz Open Stuttgart, with UK dates in Manchester, Bristol and London over the summer.

What Followed Changes

Changes sits in a run of 2026 releases. Is This What Love Is came first, on June 26, as a digital single and as a 7-inch with a live recording of Gregory Porter’s 1960 What? on the other side. It then returned as the second track on the Changes single. On September 18, the band gathered all three new songs on Don’t Speak of Tomorrow.

So, for a listener arriving now, Changes is the shortest route into both halves of the band. One half is the 1970s message song it studies. The other is the horn-led live sound it has carried from Oslo club stages to festivals across Europe.

From the BlackSounds.News curator team: “Naming a band after Donald Byrd and then giving the trumpet a seat in the front line is a statement about lineage. On Changes, Sūn Byrd hold the 1970s message song to the length of a 1960s single and share those three minutes between seven players.”

Stream Changes and Follow Sūn Byrd From Oslo on Every Platform

Stream Changes on Spotify and Apple Music, or buy it from Bandcamp. Sūn Byrd also share music on SoundCloud and on the band’s YouTube channel.

Follow Sūn Byrd on Instagram and Facebook for tour news from Oslo and beyond. The band’s official site carries the full tour schedule and the In Paradiso vinyl.

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