Author: TJ Gorton
Legendary UK jazz DJ Paul Murphy and his Jazz Room Records label continues it’s unearthing of jazz dance gems with the recent reissue release of Youngstown, Ohio’s Tony Lavorgna and The St. Thomas Quartet’s 1982 soul jazz album Chameleon.
Highly innovative and active Panamá-born, Chicago-based drummer and DJ Daniel Villarreal, who also notably plays and co-leads in a number of groups including Dos Santos, has recently released an incredible collaborative cosmic psych-jazz debut (under his own name) on International Anthem.
Glasgow’s highly-talented Nimbus Sextet follow-ups their impressive breakthrough debut Dreams Fulfilled, with a superb sophomore release on the Acid Jazz label, appropriately titled Forward Thinker.
The remarkable UK-born, Madrid-based flautist and saxophonist Chip Wickham has joined Matthew Halsall’s Gondwana Records, and just released an incredible new EP on the label’s spiritual jazz 12 series, featuring fresh new reinterpretations of Lonnie Liston Smith classics.
London’s Kalita Records, who consistently unearths essential gems, has recently reissued the obscure 1980 soulful disco-funk masterpiece Ultra/Sound from The IgG Band, which was made up of medical students at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee.
Another incredible reissue recently issued by Frederiksberg Records, is the highly obscure 1973 deep spiritual jazz private press recording by New York-based quartet Compass, titled Compass Rises.
After 10 outstanding releases over two years featuring new music by Roy Ayers, Azymuth, Gary Bartz, Doug Carn, João Donato, Brian Jackson, and Marcos Valle, Jazz Is Dead’s masterminds Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad are just getting started, as they have kicked off the second series of releases with an incredible new compilation highlighting standout tracks from the next wave of releases.
In what is another essential compilation release of 2022, the UK-based Música Macondo label has teamed up with DJs Tahira (São Paulo) and Tim Garcia (London) for Brasil Novo, which is collection of previously unreleased contemporary dance floor Afro-Brazilian gems.
UK-based DJ, radio broadcaster, and selector Luke Una, who made his mark in the underground scenes of Manchester beginning in the mid-80s, has teamed up with the Mr Bongo label and record shop for a brilliant and wildly eclectic new compilation, titled É Soul Cultura.
Over the last couple years, New York’s Frederiksberg Records has put out some of the highest quality and rarest reissue releases. That certainly remains the case with their official reissue of trumpeter Milt Ward’s extremely obscure 1977 adventurous cosmic jazz-funk album Milt Ward And Virgo Spectrum.
Future Jazz Ensemble, which is the innovative solo work of Italian multi-instrumentalist and producer Nicola Penna (aka Nasty Boy), has just released a new outstanding electronic-meets-jazz EP for Ten Lovers Music, titled Rough Time.
After being shelved for 47 years, an incredible 1975 live session for New York City’s listener-supported WBAI radio station featuring saxophonist, flautist, and composer Alan Braufman and his superb sextet receives an official release.
Legendary Brazilian jazz vocalist Flora Purim, who has rightfully been declared by many as the “The Queen of Brazilian Jazz”, giving the world all-time classic gems like “Open Your Eyes, You Can Fly”, “500 Miles High”, “Light As a Feather”, “Casa Forte”, “Moondreams”, “Angels”, “Samba Michel” and so many others (often collaborating with her husband and percussionist great Airto Moreira), has returned and released her first new full-length album in 15 years on London’s Strut label, titled If You Will.
