“Cold Turkey Time” from Ernie Hawks’ debut album gets a single treatment here arriving back to back with the 45 only track “Tracking Down”. The latter should make the b-boys move even if heard in the relaxing steams of a Turkish bath, where its breezy melodies eventually point at.
A record that definitely lives up to its title – an obscure Italian sound library session that blends instrumental touches that evoke an America at the start of the 70s with some of the hipper, deeper currents you’d expect from the team of Stefano Torossi and Giovanni Tomasso. There’s plenty of expected sound library funk in the mix here in a way that makes for one of the most unique sound library sessions we’ve ever heard.
Msic From Memory took a deep dive into the archives of obscure British multi-instrumentalist Mike Turtle, resurfacing with a fine double-album of largely previously unheard cuts. Two years on they’ve taken another stroll through Turtle’s well-stocked vault, resulting in another essential collection of quirky cuts. Check, for example, the psychedelic patchwork “Reincarnation”, where backwards drums do battle with exotic Indian samples, or the delay-laden, lo-fi synth-pop pulse of “Uiko’s Return to Jeka”, which boasts strange spoken word vocals from Turtle and South African style juju guitar solos. You’ll find these kinds of imaginative experiments throughout; tracks that really shouldn’t work, but instead entertain, excite and inspire in equal measure.
Back in the day, French pianist, composer and all-round jazz superstar Jean-François Quiévreux, a.k.a. Jef Gilson, was up there alongside the likes of peers John Coltrane, Oscar Peterson, and Sun Ra. In a fitting homage to the decades worth of sublime music, and his sad passing away in 2012, French quarter Palm Unit have released a lively, honest tribute, upbeat and contemporary re-interpretative vision of his legacy.
After touring the world looking for sounds suitable for their vibrations, Nu Guinea decided to go back to square one, Napoli, where Massimo Di Lena and Lucio Aquilina were born and raised. They watched their city from a distance reconstructing its energy from their studio in Berlin, calibrating the synths on the meridian of Vesuvius, the volcano that has always protected and threatened Napoli. ‘Nuova Napoli’ is the result of a long musical research that has become a historical investigation on the sound that shaped Napoli during the ‘70s and ‘80s, starting from the contamination of genres (disco, jazz-funk, African rhythms) which ended up in Nu Guinea’s DNA. In this album the synthesizers fill the spaces between the past and the future, tightening in a single body acoustic instruments, electronics and voices in Neapolitan dialect. It is the first time that the duo has worked with such a large group of musicians, some of whom are exponents of the contemporary Neapolitan scene.
Jimi Tenor is a multi-instrumentalist and music master in general. ‘Quantum Connection’ is Jimi’s contribution to the recent Kraut-Life craze of the Berlin underground. Kraut-Life is the brand-new hybrid of Ghanaian Highlife and German – here extended to Northern Europe, as Finnish kitchen is also kraut-based – romantic melancholy. A heavy and driving Highlife beat, screaming psychedelic sound-fragments and a sung desire for a subatomic love affair makes the song another undoubted original by Jimi.
A volume entirely dedicated to the jazz atmospheres of the Italian movies from the ‘60s, including genres such as noir, melò, giallo, dark comedy and crazy ‘musicarelli’. With a great variety of styles and moods, jazz represented the perfect soundtrack for the Italian “nouvelle vague” season: an element of great innovation that radically disrupted the way traditional scores were conceived. No longer entrusted to cumbersome orchestras but light combos, with a fresh and dynamic sound. This record is the result of a research that focused on the soundtrack archive of RCA Italy and consists of songs that have remained unpublished until today. It demonstrates how Italian jazz benefitted from its relationship with the film industry, which provided a fertile ground to experiment and create to great musicians such as Piero Umiliani, Romano Mussolini, Amedeo Tommasi, Robby Poitevin, Piero Piccioni or Armando Trovajoli.
A new stunning chapter of the Esterno series, dedicated to the rediscovery of rare and unreleased soundtracks and library music from Italy. While the previous volumes consisted of unreleased material from the mythical RCA Italy archive, the research has been extended thanks to some new mysterious sources, unveiling some of best kept secrets from the ‘60s and ‘70s. The result is a deep journey into the secret history of Italian Library music, dedicated to sounds that were designed for a cityscape pervaded with action, car-chases, and hightension scenes set in smoky nightclubs. Jazz-funk, deep breaks, prog and psych flavors from some of the most hip names from the Italian scene: Alessandro Alessandroni, Piero Piccioni, Carlo Pes and I Marc 4, Sandro Brugnolini. This all-star cast is completed by Silvano D’Auria, here with another terrifying unreleased track after the shocking ‘Sortilegio’, presented for the first time in volume UNO.
Reissue of the sought after birth act of the Afro- / Jazz-Parisian scene that fascinated so many musicians and music fans throughout the 70s and 80s. Comes in a heavyweight tip-on sleeve.
A mixture of live recording and studio post-production, ‘On Jupiter’ sounds unique to any other album Sun Ra made. The Arkestra reflects a disco pulse right back on itself, and delivers one of the most cohesive albums of their career. The title track is a masterpiece of gentle atonal harmony, while ‘UFO’ pushes along at a cracking disco-ish pace with fierce brass and spacey dub effects. This a timeless Ra classic.
Fortuna Records brings some soulful Middle Eastern jazz cuts by Yemenite-Jazz legend Tsvia Abarbanel. This is one of the first ever attempt at combining traditional Yemenite compositions with funk and jazz.
Leeds soul and funk label ATA Records announce the new single from The Sorcerers. This single is a driving Ethiojazz track aimed squarely at the dancefloor, backed by the Yorkshire Film & Television’s original recording of “The Anderson Spectrum”. Taking influences from Ethiopiques Ethiojazz as well as the soundtracks to the European horror films of the 60s and 70s, The Sorcerers seamlessly blend these disparate elements into one cohesive package.
Seems strange that Tommy Stewart’s seminal rare groove funk anthem ‘Bump And Hustle Music’ has never had a 45 release but Mukatsuku has set out to re address this issue with volume 2 of their First Time On A 45 Classics series. On the flipside we find the sublime version of Stella ‘ from Bridge via the originally unreleased album ‘Crying For Love’ recorded in Boulder, Colorado in 1981. First Experience reissued that album in 1999 but this is the first time ‘Stella’ written by Paul Tillman Smith has been made available as a 45.
A new colossal star rises in the twilight of funky soul jazz as Ernie Hawks aka Erno Haukkala releases his debut album ”Scorpio Man” on Timmion Records. The impressive trombonist/flutist, is known to hold no punches, when performing live in the ranks of The Soul Investigators. Here he delivers a fierce selection of S.O.U.L. and Cymande flavored instrumentals that also bring to mind some of the finest sample-fodder library music. The album’s name, ”Scorpio Man” might come from the stinging and slightly intimidating style Hawks handles the trombone slide, known to pierce the hearts and souls of the ladies in the front row during his live performances. On this album, Ernie rides to battle equipped only with the flute, but this does not mean we will be exposed to some smooth jazz snooze fest. Rather Ernie handles his instrument with muscular rawness at times and moody ambiance at others, sliding with ease into any groove that the extended Soul Investigators band lays down. ”Scorpio Man” is no one trick pony, and the listener will be shifted around from the exhilarating psych funk of ”Scorpio Walk” all the way to the airy moods of ”Street of Tears”. Take a chance with the Scorpio Man, his sting will give you a funky high much better than what they sell in the streets.
Strut and Art Yard present another exclusive from the vast catalogue of cosmic jazz pioneer Sun Ra: a previously unreleased radio session most likely recorded at the WXPN FM radio studios in Philadelphia, 1974-5. This newly discovered session features a new version of Ra’s earlier ‘Island In The Sun’, a romping, raucous rendition of ‘Unmask The Batman’ and the first studio recording of ‘I’ll Wait For You’ There is no bass player on the sessions and Ra’s left hand beats out a rhythmic bass pattern on the piano. All tracks are remastered directly from the original tapes. The album package features a newly commissioned painting by legendary Bristol urban artist Guy Denning and new sleeve notes by Paul Griffiths. Recently discovered in the Sun Ra archive, the recording forms part of a series of sessions that Ra and the Arkestra recorded for WXPN-FM between 1974 and 1980.
In the late 1990’s label manager Nik Weston was working for Island Records and in particular the label imprint Island Blue set up by Ross Allen. It was here that he first heard the timeless jazz version masterpiece of Amalia from Kirk Degiorgio’s As One. The track featured on a promo CD but never made it to a commercial release for Island Blue and was later featured on the full length album release for San Francisco label Ubiquity Records a few years later in 2001. ‘Amalia’ is a sultry jazz classic featuring gorgeous keys from Jamie Odell aka Jimpster. As relevant today as it ever was when initially made and here presented as a single in it’s own right for the very first time. On the flipside another track that never made it to single in this version was the unique jazzual ‘Spiritual Rotations’ by Butti 49 from Norway. Nik had later worked with Butti 49 whilst working for Exceptional Records for the Habit album in 2004 but ‘Spiritual Rotations’ itself initially featured as an exclusively album only track for Future Sounds Of Jazz Volume 8 in 2001 for German label Compost.
Jakko Eino Kalevi’s 2011 CD-only-album finally released on LP. From start til end, this highlights the song aspect of jazz with well written melodies, a traditional, softly executed & crafted musical approach. Produced & composed by Jaakko Eino Kalevi it features a solid stack of musicians as well as a variety of atmospheres, twist and turns.
These days, Hanad Kalkaba is a retired Army colonel and track and field athletics administrator in his native Cameroon. Yet back in the mid 1970s, he was a musician with dreams of potential super-stardom, trying to update traditional Cameroonian “Gandjal” music for the funk generation. To that end, he recorded a small number of singles and EPs alongside his backing band, the Golden Sounds. It’s those thoroughly obscure and overlooked releases that make up Hanad Kalkaba & The Golden Sounds, a retrospective of his pioneering work. Sitting somewhere between Afro-beat, Afro-funk and Afro-jazz, with a distinctively Cameroonian rhythmic swing, the music showcased on the album is undeniably special.
This 2XLP album, Europa, is dedicated to and inspired by events in 2015 & 2016, which saw the spectre of global crisis come knocking at Europe’s doorstep. During this time, more than a million migrants and refugees fled their homes in the Middle East, Northern Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and other conflict ravaged areas in search of a better life. For many, hopes of a future for themselves and their families lay in continental Europe. One of the most well- trodden paths on this journey was the Balkan route, a trail leading through Turkey, Greece, and the former Yugoslavia. This route was not without its dangers, and the dreams of thousands upon thousands were dashed by impassible security fences and discordant EU politics, as one by one they were turned away at borders, or worse, forcibly returned to their countries of origin. Europa was recorded during long jam sessions in Belgrade as the media spotlight started to dim. The city became the purgatorial destination for a large number of migrants, whose journeys had been cut short. This double LP reflects the atmosphere of disillusionment and uncertainty about the future, which descended on the Serbian capital. Dark and melancholic saxophone playing on top of heavy kicks and Mediterranean percussions dominate the epic 17 minutes title track. The collaboration with Jerusalem in My heart continues the melancholic atmosphere, adding to it JIMH signature delayed baglama sounds, to create a 12 minute emotional journey, tearing away abstract concepts of ‘longing’ and ‘home’ with ever growing tension and magnitude. Genre-less, illusive and not easy to categorize, Tapan’s debut album on Malka Tuti is an original soundtrack of a fragment in time and space, capturing a moment and transcending it musically for the rest of the world to experience.
First Word Records present you with ‘The Offering’ – the debut album by Darkhouse Family, a Cardiff-based duo consisting of Earl Jeffers & Don Leisure. Previously releasing music under their respective monikers, Metabeats and Jamal, they’ve produced an assortment of sounds over the years, from Hip Hop to House to D’n’B. Connecting as a duo almost a decade ago, this merger logically saw the birth of their own unique style, comprised of a bonafide fusion of genres. Recruiting friends Daf Davies on drums, Jonathan Williams on strings and cameos from Henry Wu; a keen eye on the soulful jazzy details is maintained throughout as swooning, sunny side keys, dusty samples and gorgeous vocals from the likes of Vanity Jay, Jessy Allen and Esther wrap themselves around their hybrid of chopped beats and Daf’s lavish, highly swung drums. Highlights include the Soul II Soul style “Journey To Love”, the twinkling slo-mo bruk of “GAEA”, the slinky slap bass and Rhodes tickle of “Modaji Suite” and the spiritual climax of the finale “The Accession”.
The Hipodrome Of Music 