Karriem Riggins to release solo debut “Alone Together,” instrumental hip hop album, on Stones Throw, October 23rd.

Karriem Riggins is best known as a jazz drummer and hip hop producer for artists like Common, Slum Village, Talib Kweli and The Roots, but he doesn’t categorize himself as anything but an artist. He advises younger musicians to do the same.

“You don’t have to put yourself in a box…there’s so many different ways to go,” Riggins says.

A student of late jazz bassist Ray Brown, he tours with another Brown protégé, Grammy Award winner Diana Krall. In 2011, he collaborated with former Beatle Paul McCartney in concert and on “Kisses on the Bottom,” McCartney’s first studio release in five years. Names of some of the jazz artists he’s backed reads like the genre’s …