Tag: Jazz Dance
Continuing with a string of essential releases, Paul Murphy’s Jazz Room Records is releasing an incredible new double-sided 7inch featuring covers of both Azymuth’s 1979 “Jazz Carnival” and 808 State’s 1989 “Pacific 707” by jazz-meets-electronic music Tokyo-based duo Cruisic.
Since 2014, Tokyo-based jazz-funk trio Nautilus (named after Bob James’ 1974 fusion classic) has been at the forefront of the incredible music currently coming out of Japan. Led by drummer Toshiyuki Sasaki, and featuring founding bassist Shigeki Umezawa and more recent keyboardist Mariko Nakabayashi, the group is consistently active, releasing highly sought-after full-length and 7inch singles featuring a strong mix of originals and covers of timeless classics. For their sixth release(!!!) of 2022, the band has put out a brilliant new double-sided single on Japan’s Urban Discos label, titled Looking Back / Paint it Black.
The London-based collective Natural Lateral, led by Aziz Mustafa (aka Tom Funk), follows up their breakthrough 2019 debut Cogito Ergo Jam with a brilliant and highly-anticipated new recording on the Social Joy label, titled Tapestry Of Life.
Australian-based keyboardist, composer and producer David Versace, who also plays in the Meanjin nu-jazz group First Beige, has released an incredible debut album on the Melbourne label La Sape Records, titled Okra.
Continuing the streak of putting out must-own releases, Paul Murphy and his label Jazz Room Records are reissuing Carlos Franzetti’s hard-to-find jazz dance classic album Graffiti, which was originally released on Guinness Records (not related to the drink) in 1977.
The Diplomats Of Soul, which is a London-based label (distributed by Expansion Records) run by acclaimed DJs and diggers Mike Allin and Ralph Tee, have recently reissued drummer and vocalist Grady Tate’s very obscure and highly sought-after 1974 soul jazz rendition of Jon Lucien’s “Lady Love”.
Jazz Is Dead’s brilliant series continues with multi-instrumentalists, composers, producers, and JID masterminds Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad teaming up with one of Los Angeles’s most innovative collectives in Katalyst. Based specifically out of the Inglewood area, Katalyst is a 9-piece band that was established back in September 2014, and includes a collaborative group of producers, composers, session musicians, and writers, who continue to be at the forefront of creative music and art currently coming out Southern California.
Following the release of two outstanding EPs from last year, Ah-Free-Ka and Ja-Maye-Ka, Marc Mac, who is half of the groundbreaking broken beat duo 4hero, continues his exploration into sounds from around the world with a superb new EP, titled Br-Azil-Ah.
Following the release of Brian Jackson’s first solo album in 20 years on BBE Music, simply titled This Is Brian Jackson, the legendary jazz-funk multi-instrumentalist and songwriter gets the remix treatment from two of today’s best producers in Louie Vega and Josh Milan(aka Two Soul Fusion) on the track’s superb second single “Little Orphan Boy”.
With each incredible release, Paul Murphy’s Jazz Room Records has quickly become the source for essential jazz dancefloor reissues. The London-based label has most recently put out a welcomed reissue of the extremely obscure 1977 private-press jazz-funk album from South Florida trio Jazzberry Patch, featuring the late great Mike Longo as a special guest on Fender Rhodes.
