Tag: Jazz
The London-based label Time Capsule has recently released a great new compilation EP featuring an eclectic collection of modern tropically influenced sounds that range from jazz, reggae, psych, and indigenously rooted instrumental music currently coming out of Japan.
Chicago-based composer, drummer, and producer Makaya McCraven has over the past half-decade, been one of the most groundbreaking artists in jazz, due to his unique recording approaches and post-production editing and mixing processes. The “jazz beat scientist” has just released an insightful documentary and new material from the same sessions that produced the 2018 critically-acclaimed Universal Beings album.
Legendary composer and trumpeter Charles Tolliver, who also launched and ran the now groundbreaking Strata-East label with pianist and longtime collaborator Stanley Cowell during the seventies, has just released his first studio album in 13 years, titled Connect on Gearbox Records.
London-based composer, multi-instrumentalist, DJ, and producer Emma-Jean Thackray follows up two breakthrough EP recordings, including 2018’s Ley Lines and Rain Dance, which was released earlier this year, with a brilliant direct-to-disc session on the Night Dreamer label, titled Um Yang.
Soul Jazz Records has released an incredible new expansive compilation, titled Kaleidoscope: New Spirits Known & Unknown, featuring many of the groundbreaking artists that are fueling the UK jazz scene.
With some remarkable releases over the past decade on Jazzman and Gondwana Records, as well as his recently brilliant collaborative work with dub producer Al Breadwinner, Manchester-based saxophonist and composer Nat Birchall has made his mark as one of UK’s most forward-thinking musicians.
An hour long mix featuring a selection of soulful jazz-funk gems, including many that have Bay Area roots like the all-female jazz group Alive!, Oakland’s spiritual jazz ensemble Sons And Daughters Of Lite, saxophonists Bishop Norman Williams and Pharoah Sanders whom both resided for a time in the Bay Area, recording for El Cerrito-based Theresa Records. There is also some funky global jazz grooves from France, Spain, Brazil and beyond!
London-based pianist Greg Foat has dived into a wide range of sounds over the last few years on some incredible releases for both Jazzman and Athens of The North, experimenting with soul-jazz, cinematic library music, techno, pastoral acid folk, and ambient electronic tones. For his debut release on Strut Records, titled Symphonie Pacifique, Foat brilliantly brings together all of these different elements to produce his most musically expansive and forward-thinking album to date.
Highly accomplished UK-based DJ and producer, Lascelle ‘Lascelles’ Gordon, who was also a founding member of legendary acid-jazz group The Brand New Heavies, returns with a brilliant new Vibration Black Finger full-length album on Jazzman Records, titled Can You See What I’m Trying to Say.
On Saturday, June 20th, Kerem Gokmen invited to me to put together a guest mix for his weekly Dubmission show on the Pittsburgh, PA based independent radio station 91.3FM WYEP. Given that it was a little while since my last mix, I was honored and excited to compile a mix for this broadcast.
For this week’s Listen Here post, we are sharing a fascinating and informative episode from the Classic Album Sundays and Studio 360 podcast series This Woman’s Work, which highlights classic albums by female artists who have made a lasting impact on music and pop culture. On this episode, iconic activist and scholar Angela Davis, and drummer/composer Terri Lyne Carrington discuss Nina Simone’s 1970 classic album Black Gold, and it’s significant impact during the civil rights movement in the US.
The London-based quartet Ruby Rushton, led by composer, flautist, and producer Tenderlonious (aka Ed Cawthorne) and featuring trumpeter Nick Walters, keyboardist Aidan Shepherd, and drummer Tim Carnegie have just released a new limited-edition seven-inch single featuring two incredible Afro-tinged jazz-funk tracks including “Sun Khosi” and “Chrysalis”.
Spiritual jazz legend and multi-percussionist Kahil El’Zabar teams up again with longtime collaborator and tenor saxophone great David Murray on a brilliant new recording on Spiritmuse Records, titled Spirit Groove.
