Future Classic: MAST “Love and War_”
via Alpha Pup: Alpha Pup Records announces the release of MAST’s second full length album Love and War_. “Love and War_” is a highly conceptual and deeply personal new work based on jazz trained multi-instrumentalist MAST aka Tim Conley‘s eventful love life over the last 2 years. Set up as …
Future Classic: Krakatau “Tharsis Montes / Apogean Tide EP”
The Melbourne-based quartet take their Jazz and Funk influences and meld them into two wonderfully executed jams. I can’t honestly say I have heard a single bad piece of music come out of Australia. Everything and everyone who is from there seems somewhat otherworldy, although usually unaware that they are completely …
Forgotten Treasure: Yusef Lateef “The Centaur and the Phoenix” (Riverside, 1960)
The history of Jazz is full of eccentric and unique thinkers (more of the former and the latter). Women and men such as Charles Mingus, Melba Listen, Terry Pollard, and Cecil Taylor are just a few that immediately come to mind. However, musicians like Sun Ra, Pharaoh Sanders, Alice Coltrane, …
Future Classic: Mark de Clive-Lowe “#bluenoteremixed volume 1”
Armed with a crateful of classics from Blue Note Records’ genre-defining years, Mark de Clive-Lowe has created a live-remix mixtape weaving from jazz to hip hop classics, to underground house and broken beat. Equal parts jazz musician, composer, DJ and production wizard, MdCL’s live performances are always a treat as …
Forgotten Treasure: The Prestige Jazz Quartet LP (1957, Prestige)
Recorded and released in 1957 on the independent Prestige Records label, The Prestige Jazz Quartet is a typical oddity. The four compositions work as a pendulum between the tail end of bebop era, the coming hard-bop medium, and the beginning of the avant-garde period of 1950s-1960s Black Classical music. Probably …
Tribute(s) to JOHN COLTRANE – Selected by Miguel Colectivo
Text by Jesus Rodriguez There are no liner notes, essays or books that could ever really put just how vast the influence of John Coltrane is. Maybe a multiple-tome encyclopedia. Maybe. These liner notes will be no such attempt towards that. However, with this brand new mix conceptualized by Colectivo …
Future Classic: Shabaka And The Ancestors “Wisdom of Elders”
via Brownswood: Tradition shapes your work. For saxophonist and bandleader Shabaka Hutchings, that’s something he’s long understood. After years spent in the orbit of London’s jazz circuit, he examines and reimagines his influences with a dexterity that’s unique. Drawing out the vision underlying his new album, he says, “I see …
Future Classic: Ross McHenry “Child of Somebody”
Jazz is in a great place at the moment. With artists like Kamasi Washington and Robert Glasper gracing their talents over in the US, Ross McHenry is contributing to the culture on the other, other side of the pond… Australia. Known in Australia for his leadership in the afro-jazz band …
JAZZ AMNESTY SOUND SYSTEM #03 – Ellington Disguises
Duke Ellington is jazz royalty. He has released too many records to count, had innumerable jazz greats pass through his orchestra, and he performed constantly from the 1920s to the early 1970s, an unstoppable touring machine that played the world over. During this fifty year burst of creativity Duke also …
Future Classic: Steve Lehman “Sélébéyone”
via Pi Recordings: Hailed by The New York Times as “a state-of-the-art musical thinker with a reputation for sure-footed futurism,” and “a quietly dazzling saxophonist,” Steve Lehman has built a career creating innovative new music that packs a visceral wallop. His most recent album Mise en Abîme (Pi 2014) was …
Forgotten Treasure: Air “Air” (1971, Embryo)
It’s always nice to see hard to find gems getting the proper reissue treatment these days. After doing an amazing job with releases by Leon Ware, Ned Doheny and Letta Mbulu, among others, London’s Be With Records are adding an important piece to their impressive catalog this summer. Long Island’s …
JAZZ AMNESTY SOUND SYSTEM #02 – 80s Jazz
When I first started really getting into jazz I noticed that my personal tastes would hit a ceiling around 1976. After that year it seemed jazz went too fusion and the clean production sound combined with use of new technologies turned me off. Since the formation of the Jazz Amnesty …