Tag: Ethio-jazz
This week’s BeatCaffeine Record Rundown spotlights a brilliant new album from Ontario’s Atlantis Jazz Ensemble, the latest EP from Brian Jackson and Masters at Work, and striking debut releases from two boundary-pushing duos: Brazilian drummers Antonio Neves and Thiaguinho Silva, and London’s experimental Ethio-jazz outfit ZENA.
The first BeatCaffeine Weekly Record Rundown of 2025 highlights Jazzman Records’ latest volume of their highly-acclaimed Spiritual Jazz compilation series, diving deep into the vaults of the German SABA and MPS labels, a brilliant Night Dreamer direct-to-disc album from legendary Dutch-Surinamese multi-instrumentalist Ronald Snijders, a must-own 7″ from Mukatsuku Records featuring the funky sounds of Italian supergroup Addict Ameba, and a massive soulful jazzy house album from Chicago’s Vick Lavender.
Following a 15-year long hiatus, Schema Records’ co-founder and musician Luciano Cantone, in collaboration with Gianluca Petrella (ECM, Blue Note, Schema) and a new group of musicians that make up the group The Invisible Sessions have returned to release their highly-anticipated second album Echoes Of Africa Cantone’s newly-launched Milan-based Space Echo label.
New York based Frederiksberg Records has reissued, for the first time, the highly obscure and adventurously eclectic 1984 instrumental album from Ethiopian-rooted group Admas, titled Sons of Ethiopia.
The rightfully proclaimed “Godfather of Ethio-jazz,” Mulatu Astatke teams up again with the Melbourne-based collective Black Jesus Experience on a brilliant new Agogo Records released album, titled To Know Without Knowing.
Finnish multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer Jimi Tenor returns following the release of the his outstanding 2018 full-length Order of Nothingness and last year’s single Vocalize My Luv, with a great new 7inch single on Max Weissenfeldt’s Berlin-based Philophon label, titled Sugar And Spice.
The Leeds, UK based group led by multi-instrumentalist Pete Williams, bassist /guitarist Neil Innes and Drummer Joost Hendrickx have released a great new conceptional soundtrack album on ATA Records, titled In Search Of The Lost City Of The Monkey God.
Over the past decade, Max Weissenfeldt’s Berlin-based Philophon label has released some of the best modern day Ethio-jazz and African-influenced groove oriented recordings, mostly in 7inch form. Recently, the label’s studio group The Band of Enlightenment, Reason & Love have put out their first release under their own name.
What do you get when you combine Fela Kuti, Mulatu Astatke, and David Axelrod? Basically you get the five-piece Belgium band Black Flower, and they just released their much-anticipated third full-length album Future Flora.
