Tag: Jazz Funk
Following a string of essential releases in 2022, legendary UK jazz and Northern soul DJ Colin Curtis continues to add to his impressive “Presents” series by putting out EPs from two acts that are at the forefront of the current UK jazz dance scene in Roderick Stewart and Ben Sinkie-led Juju ensemble, and producer and percussionist Glenn Worthington, aka GeeW.
Over the past decade, Berlin, which for years was known as a breeding ground for innovative techno and electronic music, has quietly become a creative melting pot for musicians and artists from all over the world. This has led to some of the most innovative genre-defying recordings. One of the artists at the forefront of this evolving scene is composer, producer and keyboard Joel Holmes. He has just released a superb and highly collaborative new album, titled Into The Abyss on Toy Tonics sister label Kryptox.
Toronto-based record label We Are Busy Bodies has reissued the extremely rare 1979 soulful jazz-funk album Thrust by guitarist Wilbur Niles and his then-girlfriend, Machelle McNeal.
From the late 70s and 80’s, legendary UK-based Paul Murphy became a innovative pioneer DJ among the jazz dance scene, performing at now-historic venues like Horshoe, Wag, and Electric Ballroom. He was arguably the first to put on jazz-focused club nights in London and surrounding areas. Influential DJ/radio broadcaster Gilles Peterson once stated, “Paul Murphy found almost every jazz dancefloor classic.” Building on the foundation of both his superb label Jazz Room Records, and the outstanding first compilation he compiled for BBE in 2019, he returns with the much-anticipated follow-up, The Jazz Room Vol.2.
Highly active Los Angeles-based Italian-rooted drummer and composer Tommaso Cappellato, who also runs the impressive Domanda Music label, has teamed up with Italian break dance collective Pavimento Fertile for a dance-oriented cosmic soul recording, titled Dancing Around Fire.
Pianist Greg Foat, who has been who has been at the forefront of the UK jazz scene for the past decade, has teamed up with 83 year-old London saxophone great Art Themen on a superb new album for the Athens Of The North label, titled Off-Piste.
In arguably one of the most anticipated releases of the impressive Jazz Is Dead series, Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad have teamed up with the king of cosmic jazz, in the legendary composer and pianist Lonnie Liston Smith.
UK-based label and online record vendor KingUnderground has just reissued the previously out-of-print 2018 breakout debut album Nim Quartet, led by London bassist and composer Nim Sadot.
An all-star Trans-Tasman collaboration of multi-instrumentalists and producer in Julien Dyne, Horatio Luna and Surprise Chef’s Lachlan Stuckey, along with vocalists Mara TK and Toby Laing have come together as The Lahaar to release an incredible self-titled debut EP on London’s Soundway Records.
Italian-based producers and multi-instrumentalists Lorenzo Morresi and Luciano Cantone (aka Le Isole) have teamed up to release a superb new album, titled Pop Flop on Space Echo Records, that pays homage to 1970s Italian library music that groundbreaking artists like Piero Umiliani, Sandro Brugnolini, Amedeo Tommasi, Alessandro Alessandroni and others helped pioneer.
