Tag: Jazz Funk
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.
In what has certainly been one of the most anticipated releases of the year, Chicago’s International Anthem has unearthed and released the eponymous debut album, titled Step On Step, by the late great producer, arranger, and composer Charles Stepney (1931-1976), featuring never-heard-before 4-track tape demo recordings. During the 60s and 70s, Stepney was a essential contributor to some of the greatest recordings of that time by Earth, Wind & Fire, Terry Callier, Ramsey Lewis, The Dells, The Rotary Connection, Deniece Williams, Minnie Riperton, Marlena Shaw, Muddy Waters, and so many others.
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.
Within about a month’s span, both UK labels We Are Busy Bodies and Be With Records are reissuing (or have reissued) two hard-to-find mid-seventies albums from Nucleus, which was an incredible British progressive jazz-fusion group led by legendary trumpeter Ian Carr that existed in different forms from 1969 all the way through to 1989. Both labels will be putting out the bands 1974 Under The Sun recording, as well as the group’s brilliant 1975 release, Alleycat.
London’s Trunk Records has recently reissued the extremely rare 1978 British jazz fusion self-titled album from Magician, which at the time of it’s release only sold a few copies (rumor has the number around 10).
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.
Youthful virtuosic cosmic drum-keyboard duo DOMi and JD Beck have quickly been one of the most talked about acts this summer, releasing a great new debut album titled NOT TiGHT on Anderson .Paak’s new Apeshit Inc. label, that’s been set-up in partnership of Blue Note Records. This follows four-night sold-out residency this June at the Blue Note Jazz Festival in New York City, and numerous standout performances among the summer’s festival circuit.
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.
Los Angeles-based composer, producer, and pianist John Carroll Kirby teams up with Canadian producer, composer, DJ and sound artist Yu Su (Ninja Tune) on an incredible new cosmic groove-oriented album on the Stones Throw label, titled Dance Ancestral.
Following the release of both their breakthrough 2019 self-titled debut EP, and last year’s standout double A-side 12″ single Baba Ayoola / Carry Me Home, the London 8-piece collective Kokoroko, led by trumpeter and vocalist Sheila Maurice-Grey, returns with their highly-anticipated full length album on Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings, titled Could We Be More.
