Cerca:jazz co

The strange and majestic musical beast that is Africadelic was Dibango’s follow-up to Soul Makossa, but it was initially released on Louis Delacour’s library music label, Mondiaphone, before “Soul Makossa” became an international phenomenon. As a
Mondiaphone release, it was aimed at television and film producers seeking atmospheric background music, so the original titles are simply “Theme No 1,” “Theme No 2,” etc, with corresponding rhythmic notations such as “3/4 Africain,” “Afro Beat 12/8” and “Medium Soul Beat,” though once “Soul Makossa” hit the stratosphere, subsequent reissues bore actual song titles. In any case, the album is simply wonderful, a driving mix of Afro soul, funk and jazz, with an undercurrent of Latin percussion throughout, given further shades by rock guitar and soul organ, as heard on “African Battle” and the title track; opener “Soul Fiesta” builds
dramatic percussive tension before Dibango drops a killer vibraphone riff, while “African Carnival” makes the most of the full horn section, Dibango’s sax soloing giving room for complex polyrhythmic percussion breaks. “Oriental Sunset” has beautiful vibraphone from
Dibango too, as well as a thrilling flute melody, “Monkey Beat” and “Wa Wa” are funky soul struts and “Percussion Storm” has the band marching off into the African sunset as Dibango unleashes another killer vibraphone melody. Listening back to the album now, it is hard to believe that the whole shebang was written in a couple of days and committed to tape within the space of a week, but that is all more testimony to the greatness of Manu Dibango, one of African music’s true pioneers. Play loud and often for best effect!

We can’t think of many artists that have had as diverse a career and who have been involved in as many different genres of music as Asha Puthli. A musical pioneer who forged a path through 60's psych, free-jazz, pop, rock, disco, and more.

Asha's 1976 album 'The Devil Is Loose' is maybe her most well-known record. Featuring the beautiful disco-funk-classic 'Space Talk’, Asha's ethereal soaring vocals take us on a journey that almost mirrors Asha's eclectic career. The track was championed by a wide-range of musical scenes and movements, and over space and time it has been commandeered as their own. You would hear it played by David Mancuso at the now ‘mythical’ underground New York party 'The Loft’, in the most discerning disco nightclubs across the globe, in the Rare Groove scene, and also being sampled by hip-hop heavyweights such as The Notorious B.I.G / P Diddy, and The Pharcyde. The appeal and lifespan of ’Space Talk’ keeps on extending and morphing as new audiences gleefully discover it for the first time - it still sounds as relevant and fresh on the dancefloor today - a sign of a true classic.

Here at Mr Bongo we are thrilled to be releasing records by such an iconic musical maverick as Asha, from her roots in India to becoming a globe-trotting artist with a celebrated career in music and acting, whilst always staying true to her art. She has blazed a trail so that others could follow. Whether you are buying this album as a replacement for your worn-out original copy or it's the first time you've heard of Asha Puthli and you're just intrigued and drawn in by the cover, we hope you enjoy this quintessential slice of Asha's world.

• Featuring the legendary ’Space Talk’.
• Played by David Mancuso at the ‘mythical’ underground New York party 'The Loft’.
• Sampled by hip-hop heavyweights such as The Notorious B.I.G / P Diddy, and The Pharcyde.
• Also available on Limited Edition Pink Vinyl

‘PEACEMEAL’ is yet another reinvention for Ron
Gallo - a human being on a lifelong chase of
himself and using music as the main vehicle.
On his third LP, he exits the noisy confines of the
garage and goes outside where there’s no limit to
embracing all aspects of himself.
The result is a colourful hodgepodge of 90’s hiphop, r&b, weirdo pop, jazz and punk. The sounds
change but the sense of humanity, humour and a
truly eccentric worldview is the common thread in
all of Gallo’s music.
Mostly written and recorded during a period of
self-isolation in summer 2019, it’s an uncanny
foreshadowing of the global situation that was to
come and give all the songs a new meaning. This
is feel-good music that attempts to confront and
understand human existence.
Ron Gallo just wants to be himself, destroy
expectations and encourage you to do the same in
a world that does just about everything to try and
box us in - not to mention, this is his best most
fun one yet.

Nearly three years on from that release (for Bernice a rapid turnaround by comparison to the seven-year gap between their 2011 debut and Puff), the band return with their third full-length, Eau de Bonjourno, out March 5th from Telephone Explosion and figureeight records. It marks their first collaboration with producer Shahzad Ismaily, the acclaimed multi-instrumentalist who has worked with artists as varied as Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, John Zorn, and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy. While their genre reconstruction remains distinctly Bernice, Dann’s lyrics bring a newfound focus to storytelling in the present moment, compassionately meeting ourselves where we are, and finding joy in spaces that are familiar but ever changing.

Eau de Bonjourno, according to Dann, “openly plays with the shape of a pop song,” drawing on the band members’ backgrounds in jazz, subverting rhythmic formulas, and resting in grooves that sit just outside of predictable. Instead of letting instruments take

extended solos, the tone is set on opener “Groove Elation” with brief blurts of synthesized sax, patient passages of space, or clusters of beats, tenderly held together by Dann and Williams’ intimate vocals. The album’s sound is experimental in its truest definition, chopped up like musique concrète and then delicately placed back together with the loving touch of a scrapbook collagist.

This project is funded in part by FACTOR, the Government of Canada and Canada’s private radio broadcasters.

This album was created with the generous support of the Ontario Creates.

Pianist/composer Maria Kannegaard presents ‘Sand i en vik’, a rapid
follow-up to the album ‘Nadeslas’.
Where that latter album was an experimental and expressive affair, the former sees her return to more familiar musical pastures, although with a different viewpoint and attitude. Kannegaard’s piano playing remains immaculate, never cluttered or wasteful, always conveying the right mood or emotion, the perfectly balanced response to both the composition and the development of it.
The compositions carry their own moods and unique characteristics, their own internal tensions, sometimes haunting, sometimes exuberant, sometimes seeming stretched to a breaking point.
Plaintive ballads sit alongside riff-driven stompers, moments of abstract expressionism interweave with stop-start angular motifs, unexpected harmonizations, and moments that seem to be formless before revealing themselves to be details within a larger, clearer picture.
Frequently sounding like much more than a trio, the album is mixed and mastered by the award-winning Stefano Amerio at Artesuono recording studios.

Legowelt teams up with medieval music expert Jimi Helinga once again for a new album in their 'para-academic' Zandvoort & Uilenbal project. Folk Triumfator is the successor to the cult 2016 GERUIS UIT SOMBERDORP in which they return to appropriate historical instruments and mix it with 'modern'synthesizers. We can hear a medieval Hurdy Gurdy, A Victorian Harmonium, a 1950's Mixtur Trautonium, an electro acoustic thumb harp and much more, all mingled and amalgated into the unique Zandvoort & Uilenbal sound. It all crackles and squeaks like an old haunted ship drifting into a foggy sinister harbour while being obsvereed by Ligottian clown puppets. We can write how conceptual and arty this all is but let's just say this is hardcore dark ambient with lots of medieval drone space jazz influences to trip your mind out into a region where time and your opinions cease to exist.

Songs of Comfort & Hope is inspired by the series of recorded-at-home musical offerings that Yo-Yo Ma began sharing in the first days of the COVID-19 lockdown in the United States. Throughout the spring and summer, Ma’s #SongsofComfort grew from a self-shot video of Antonín Dvořák’s “Goin’ Home” into a worldwide effort that has reached more than 20 million people.

Ma and longtime collaborator Kathryn Stott mark the next chapter in the project with this brand new album, offering consolation and connection in the face of fear and isolation. The album includes 21 new recordings, which span modern arrangements of traditional folk tunes, canonical pop songs, jazz standards, and mainstays from the western classical repertoire. Among the new takes on old favorites are Pulitzer Prize® winner Caroline Shaw’s artful and eloquently arranged “Shenandoah”; Australian composer Harry Sdraulig’s “Fantasia on Waltzing Matilda”; pianist Stephen Hough’s lush arrangement of “Scarborough Fair”, and two-time Academy® Award-nominated icon Jorge Calandrelli’s re-imagining of a pair of songbook treasures: “We’ll Meet Again” by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles, and Violeta Parra’s “Gracias a la Vida.”

Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott share the warmth of decades of music making again with Songs of Comfort & Hope, offering audiences new paths into treasured musical memories and a few notes of hope for a better future.

Originally recorded and released in 1980, "Six of One" beautifully captures the detail in Evan Parker's high frequency split tones for which he is now perhaps better known. Five years on from "Saxophone Solos" and with circular breathing and polyphonics well worn into his live performances, Parker's experimentations here produce sustained passages of brilliant flight. Set into the echoes and resonances of St Judes On The Hill church, the results are stunning. "The recital commences with a split tone line of twining sine waves that expand and contract in telepathic collusion. Pitch dynamics narrow and redefine themselves more emphatically on the second piece where sliding legato rivulets born of Parker's compartmentalized tonguing create the sonic semblance of up to three separate voices emanating from the single reed speech center. It's a feat he's accomplished innumerable times since, but every fresh hearing never fails to open an aperture into a style of improvisatory expression that is at once wholly alien and intensely mesmerizing. There's also something strangely subterranean about the flood of sounds, like the rush percolating water through an underground aquifer system enroute to unknown tributaries. The third piece trades tightly braided tones for leaner and more linear phrases, but a vaporous trail of phantom notes still clings to the central line. And so it goes, with the illusion of repetition guiding the momentum, though Parker never explicitly repeats himself." - Derek Taylor, All About Jazz Transferred from the original master tapes at Abbey Road Studios and released in an edition of 500.

Ella Fitzgerald was, by any yardstick, a remarkable singer. She
had achieved much by the time she signed to the newly created
Verve Records in 1956, but it was the genius of Norman Granz,
her personal manager and Verve founder, in suggesting she
tackle the material of great contemporary composers in themed
albums that sent her career into orbit. As the New York Times
wrote on her passing in 1996, "These albums were among the
first pop records to devote such serious attention to individual
songwriters, and they were instrumental in establishing the pop
album as a vehicle for serious musical exploration." The song
selections ranged from standards to rarities, and the eight-title
series represented an attempt by Fitzgerald to cross over to a
non-jazz audience that may have been unaware of the talents
she first committed to vinyl in 1935.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, De Nor had no choice but to free all its prisoners - even the jazz ones - and shut its gates. But the red beacon shall shine again! Until such a time, we asked some of the artists who were booked to play there this summer to submit a piece for this new publication in lieu of their cancelled performance. This compilation lp contains tracks by Lori Goldston, Hiele, Agnes Hvizdalek, Nubots, Justine Grillet, Thurston Moore, Sami Bergold, Possessed Factory, Stacks, David Edren, Aaron Dilloway & Lucrecia Dalt, Ka Baird, Ben Bertrand, Miaux, Lorie Bevins, and C.O.P. and is housed in a deluxe dye cut linnen sleeve and comes with an insert and a mini Nor cut out made by Gerard Herman. De Nor is a sculpture-pavillion in the grounds of the Middelheim Museum conceived and designed by Dennis Tyfus and FVWW Architecten. In peace time it hosts concerts, lectures, and various presentations throughoutthe summer.

Mike Lundy, Lemuria, Aura. This trifecta of inimitable Hawaiian acts descended upon Honolulu’s state-of-the-art Broad Recording Studio in late 1979 to create what have now become the most coveted Hawaiian funk/soul/jazz albums of the era.

But whereas Lemuria functioned as a short-lived studio band and Mike Lundy saw little success from his album’s release, Aura — comprised of eight siblings from the Mendoza family — remained a key figure in the nightlife scene of Hawaii of the 1970s and early 1980s.

Each tune on their 1979 LP showcases the band’s unmatched musical talent that continues to astonish listeners in the 21st century, including Juno Records: “Raw funk… honey-coated soul… grooves and big smiles… lavish Hayes-level horns… dynamic and luxurious full-spectrum harmonies. Stunning.” Available on vinyl and digital for the first time since its initial release, Aura is a rare example of an album that in today’s crowded reissue landscape really does live up to its mystique.

Mike Lundy, Lemuria, Aura. This trifecta of inimitable Hawaiian acts descended upon Honolulu’s state-of-the-art Broad Recording Studio in late 1979 to create what have now become the most coveted Hawaiian funk/soul/jazz albums of the era.

But whereas Lemuria functioned as a short-lived studio band and Mike Lundy saw little success from his album’s release, Aura — comprised of eight siblings from the Mendoza family — remained a key figure in the nightlife scene of Hawaii of the 1970s and early 1980s.

Each tune on their 1979 LP showcases the band’s unmatched musical talent that continues to astonish listeners in the 21st century, including Juno Records: “Raw funk… honey-coated soul… grooves and big smiles… lavish Hayes-level horns… dynamic and luxurious full-spectrum harmonies. Stunning.” Available on vinyl and digital for the first time since its initial release, Aura is a rare example of an album that in today’s crowded reissue landscape really does live up to its mystique.

Clarinetist, composer, singer & spiritual jazz soothsayer Angel Bat Dawid presents this powerful live document alongside her band, Tha Brothahood. LIVE was mostly recorded on November 1st, 2019, at Haus der Berliner Festspiele in Berlin, Germany, during the 2019 edition of JazzFest Berlin. For Angel and Tha Brothahood - which includes Deacon Otis Cooke (vocals, synth), Viktor Le Givens (vocals, auxiliary instruments), Xristian Espinoza (tenor sax, percussion), Norman W. Long (electronics, synths), Dr. Adam Zanolini (double bass, bass guitar, soprano sax, flute, percussion), Isaiah Collier (drums), and Asher Gamedze (drums) - it was the first stop of their first European tour. Angel and her band experienced a number of difficult, racially charged interactions during their two days in Berlin. But despite, or perhaps in light of the difficulties they faced, they performed a set at Berliner Festspiele that Angel considers to be one of their best ever. "The show was very deep, and really helped me to process all the rage, and uncomfortable things I was feeling... It made me think of all the artists of the past who endured way more than I ever will with this music industry. It was a very freeing and beautiful show... we played our ass off!!"

Clive Phillips, Dominic Goodman, Peter Blundell are Mosquitoes, a somewhat inscrutable London-based outfit in operation for something close to seven years now, and have released music across a host of celebrated and broad-minded underground labels. Give or take the occasional interview in the less-straight parts of the music press, this is as much formal biography as their music has thus far allowed, for there's something essentially unknowable at the centre of what makes Mosquitoes what they are. So murky is their early history in fact, the first two self-released Mosquitoes records seemed to disappear from sight before really becoming visible. As more records have emerged, those first communications accumulate new meanings, acting as vital documents in tracking the evolution of a band who stand at the vanguard of contemporary British music.

The second of these records, recorded to tape in summer 2016 and first released as a single-sided 12" under the name MOS-002, is arguably the first true iteration of Mosquitoes. Now fittingly renamed Mosquitoes for its reissue as a dubplate-style 10" on World of Echo on 5th March, these five cryptically titled, shape-shifting tracks, see the trio embrace a near-genre-less fluidity, and in doing so express a unique combination of both freedom and intent. By design or instinct, Mosquitoes stand at their own inverted rock nexus, presenting a music that's turned inside out, and in doing so, music that twists the listener the same way.

In that sense, Mosquitoes plug into a long lineage of DIY savant iconoclasts, those outliers who would deny orthodoxy in order to excavate new languages and ideas - The Dead C, This Heat, the anti-formalism of No Wave, David Toop's General Strike. As such, Mosquitoes rely on a musical pluralism in order to take it apart - you must know how something is made before you reassemble it anew. Labelling this an EP may possibly underplay the breadth and ambition of what's on show. Later records would arguably be more cohesive, but what stands as particularly startling with this early work is their fearless and all-encompassing dive into the avant garde. Consider the anti-rockism of the scorched earth 90s re-imagined through a distinctly avant filter of free jazz and dub aesthetics. And it's the latter which perhaps shapes Mosquitoes most, dub the perfect vehicle for the articulation of such wilful anti-formalism. Make no mistake, this is music that's unafraid to be tough, to demand something of the listener and to not ask permission. And to bear witness to a rejection of formalism so aggressively pursued is to be reconciled.

Justin Thurgur has been at the heart of the UK's World Music scene for over twenty years, primarily through his collaborations with the Afrobeat maestro Dele Sosimi (former keyboardist for both Fela and Femi Kuti) and with the pianist Kishon Khan. Most recently in Khan's projects Lokkhi Terra and the Afrobeat/Cuban crossover, Cubafrobeat.

Thurgur has worked with Cuban giants Giraldo Piloto, Changuito and Julito Padron, with the Nigerian drum legend Tony Allen and with Damon Albarn's Africa Express project; which included Cheick Tidiane-Seck and Fatoumata Diawara. He's also worked with the likes of Bukky Leo, Francis Fuster, Pandit Dinesh, Baby Akhtar, Inemo, Tony Kofi, Kodjovi Kush, The Soothsayers, The Levellers and The Selecter.

He is perhaps most known as the trombonist from the multi-award winning 'folk' group Bellowhead. Their split in 2016 led to him forming his own band and releasing his debut album as a bandleader, 'No Confusion'.

The album features original compositions written by Thurgur in collaboration with double bassist Max De Wardener, piano/rhodes/Hammond organ player Kishon Khan and guitarist Phil Dawson, with band members including the likes of Graeme Flowers on trumpet, James Allsopp on bass clarinet and Oreste Noda on congas.

Thurgur promoted 'No Confusion' throughout 2016 and 2017, culminating in an enthusiastically received performance at Love Supreme Jazz Festival in 2017. Jazz FM, in particular Chris Philips, gave extensive airplay to the album as well as streaming a live performance from the Jazz FM studios and doing an interview. They subsequently playlisted two of Thurgur's single releases. Lopa Kothari played a track on BBC Radio 3's show 'The World On 3'. The band did a live interview and performance on DJ Ritu's 'A World In London' show on Resonance FM. Beyond this Thurgur has been developing relationships with various other digital radio stations, including Gordon Wedderburn, John Waugh and a number of Global music stations based in Europe.

KerenDun (Buttering Trio) returns with a new two-track single titled ‘Afternoon.’ As always, KerenDun delivers super smooth tunes laced with vibrant colorful lyrics that offer us a peak into her life.
Jazz and soul influences are very apparent in this release; the result of collaborating with drummer/jazz head/producer Yuval Garin & trumpet player/pianist Roee Hermon.
Released together on 7” vinyl, this release is packed with soul and promises a vibeful journey.

The New Philadelphians recorded their sole 45rpm single "Mustang" for the local Quaker City Jazz label in the late 1960s. And what a monster it is. 8 minutes of smokin' soul-jazz at its best. If someone would claim this was an unreleased Jimmy Smith Blue Note recording from 1969, no one would doubt it. More information about Charlie Chisholm and the band can be found on Tramp's "Movements Vol.10" compilation album.

Funkiwala Records presents the third in the series of "Lokkhi Terra meets"albums, with the London fusionistas creating another unique sound-clash, this time with ex-Fela Kuti keyboardist and legendary UK Afro-beat ambassador Dele Sosimi, and members of his critically acclaimed Afro-beat Orchestra.

This particular collaboration has been bubbling away for a few years now, teasing audience expectations with a handful of sold out shows each year in between both bands busy schedules.
Featuring the two pianos of Kishon Khan and Dele Sosimi – Cuban percussionists/vocalists Geraldo De Armas (Yoruba Andabo), Oreste Noda (Ariwo), Javier Camilo (Ibrahim Ferrer) - a horn section led by Justin Thurgur (Bellowhead) featuring Yelfris Valdes (Sierra Maestra) and Graeme Flowers (Kyle Eastwood) to name a few – this is an All-star cast.

Kishon Khan's Lokkhi Terra have over a number of years now been quietly establishing themselves as one of London's more unusual heavyweight outfits, described as "Stunning Headliners… A majestic multi-cultural blend of sounds… effortlessly builds bridges between rolling Indian raga rhythms, Afro-Cuban grooves, Acid Jazz/funk and free flowing improvisation" (Timeout London). Included amongst the band members are London's top Cuban musicians, adding their infectious rich musical history to the city's melting pot.
When the band wanted to explore Cuban links with another of their favourite traditions, Afrobeat, who better to bring in then one of the Afrobeat originators – maestro Dele Sosimi – "Sosimi creates some of the most bewitching grooves in modern African music" E Jazz News.
Bringing together two Yoruba speaking musics - with different accents, from different sides of the Atlantic - Havana meets Lagos in London – A Cuban-Afrobeat-Experience. CUBAFROBEAT.

Introducing the first 7" single from bassist & composer Shay Hazan and his quintet from Tel-Aviv, Israel.

Dedicated to saxophonist Albert Beger, a mainstay of Israeli jazz and Hazan mentor, 'Berber's Cha Cha' is an uptempo piano-led waltz, redolent of classic Prestige Records soul-jazz, especially when some urgent horn charts turn up the heat. It's a corker!

While on the underbelly, 'Old Tart' sounds like nothing less than a lost gem from the Brecht/Weil songbook. Lugubrious and magnificent, this world-weary vocal cut is more than a match for the nominal A-side.

Destined for the hippest jukeboxes in the hippest joints in the country, this milestone tenth release in Jazzman's estimable JAZZ45 series keeps standards impossibly high.

Our JAZZ45 label features original artwork and original music on each and every release, and are limited to just 600 copies worldwide!

Previously unreleased recordings by various lineups drawn from Derek Bailey, Tristan Honsinger, Christine Jeffrey, Toshinori Kondo, Charlie Morrow, David Toop, Maarten Altena, Georgie Born, Lindsay Cooper, Steve Lacy, Radu Malfatti and Jamie Muir.

Journalists often make the brief history of Free Improvisation conform to the idea that the history of music is a nice straight line from past to present: Beethoven… Brahms… Boulez. Thus Derek Bailey, Evan Parker and John Stevens — together with Brötzmann and co across the Channel — were the trailblazing ‘first generation’, forging a wholly new language alongside contemporary avant-garde and free jazz. Figures like Toshinori Kondo and David Toop, willing as they were to incorporate snippets of all kinds of music, were the pesky ‘second generation’, happily cocking a snook at the ‘ideological purity’ of Bailey’s non-idiomatic improvisation.
‘Company 1981’ shows up the foolishness — the wrongness — of such storylines. Check the eclectic collection of guests Bailey invited to Company Weeks over the years. He had clear ideas about the music, but he was no ideological purist.

One of the founders of Fluxus, Charlie Morrow injects blasts of Cageian fun into half the recordings here, whether blurting military fanfares from his trumpet, or intoning far-flung scraps of speech. Cellist Tristan Honsinger and vocalist Christine Jeffrey join in the joyful glossolalia, while Bailey, Toop and Kondo contribute delicious, delicate, hooligan arabesques, by turns.
The remainder are performed by a different ensemble: Bailey, bassist Maarten Altena, former Henry Cow members Georgie Born and Lindsay Cooper on cello and bassoon, the insanely inventive Jamie Muir on percussion, and trombonist Radu Malfatti, showing his mastery of extended technique. Were that not enough, there’s the inimitable purity of Steve Lacy’s soprano ringing high and clear above the melee. Glorious!

There’s always been this idea that Free Improvisation is somehow Difficult Listening, but when the doors of perception are thrown open and prejudice cast aside, you realise that it’s not difficult at all. “Is it that easy?” chirps Morrow, at one point. Indeed it is.
Enjoy yourself.