Jazz | Fusion 471 Items

Jazz Codes is Moor Mother"s second and latest album for Anti- and a companion to her celebrated 2021 release Black Encyclopedia of the Air. Jazz Codes uses free jazz as a starting point but the collection continues the recent turn in Moor Mother"s multifaceted catalog toward more melody, more singing voices, more choruses, more complexity. In its warm, densely layered course through jazz, blues, soul, hip-hop, and other Black classical traditions, Jazz Codes sets the ear blissfully adrift and unhitches the mind from habit. Through her work, Ayewa illuminates the principles of her multidisciplinary collaborative practice Black Quantum Futurism, a theoretical framework for perceiving and adjusting reality through art, writing, music, and performance, informed by historical Black ontologies.The songwriter, composer, vocalist, poet, and educator Camae Ayewa spent years organizing and performing in Philadelphia"s underground music community before moving to Los Angeles to teach composition at the University of Southern California"s Thornton School of Music. She released her debut album as Moor Mother, Fetish Bones, in 2016, and has since put out an abundance of acclaimed music, both as a solo artist and in collaboration with other musicians who share her drive to dig up the untold. She has performed and recorded with the free jazz groups Irreversible Entanglements and the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and made records with billy woods, Mental Jewelry, and YATTA.

Love in Exile is a new collaborative album by Grammy® winner Arooj Aftab (vocals), influential composer & pianist Vijay Iyer (piano, synthesizers) and renowned multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily (bass, Moog synth).

On Love in Exile, the three world-class musicians meet in New York City to forge a singular voice that takes their distinct backgrounds and vast histories of collaboration as a starting point. From there, they explore one-of-a-kind performances defined by a sense of timeless beauty and sudden surprise alike.





Arooj Aftab (vocals) - Vijay Iyer (piano, synthesizers) - Shahzad Ismaily (bass, Moog synth)

All songs written by Arooj Aftab, Vijay Iyer and Shazad Ismaily

Dishwasher_ are the latest disciples of yet another new wave of talent in the fertile Belgian groove and jazz scene. It would, however, be a shame to limit them to the constraints of any given musical style. Ever since their formation in 2019, the Ghent-based trio have been experimenting with all possible genres to create a contemporary sound they can now rightfully call their own. With their self-titled debut album, to be released in April 2023 via Sdban Ultra, they are closing off an impressive first chapter, delivering a unique and diverse yet coherent collection of groove-driven cuts.



While labeling Diswasher_ as a jazz band wouldn’t do them enough justice, it is a fact that improvisation and a certain free approach turn out to be key in the creation and performance process of the album’s tracks. Werend, Louise and Arno specifically aim to capture their live energy and synergy on the album by experimenting with structures and textures, playing with song lengths and implementing influences from various other styles — electronic music in the first place, but as well traces from (Middle-)Eastern and Balkan music, next to dance, hip-hop and even metal.



As a result, the record tends to be a pure and honest representation of Diswasher_’s musical identity and artistic quest over the past years — both as individual musicians and as a band. Saxophones drenched in effects, diverse layers of synthesizers, a bass guitar hopping from fingerpicking licks to deep and drone-like bass tones, drums can sometimes sound like drum computers, and sometimes as subtle rhythmic chords: it’s pretty clear how deep this trio have dived to search and find something totally fresh and new.



Members of the band are Arno Grootaers, Werend Van Den Bossche and Louise van den Heuvel. Their debut album is coming out on Sdban Ultra, the innovative label of Black Flower, Echt! and Compro Oro (among others). In 2023 they will fully focus on new talent, by signing Dishwasher_, but also KAU (formerly KAU trio) and Schroothoop. Apart from that, you can expect debut albums or EPs by LũpḁGangGang, Bandler Ching, KVR trio and Adja coming out this year. Stay tuned.

Neroli is back with a new album project by long time hero and music mastermind Kirk Degiorgio. This project links the Planetary Folklore aesthetics and Kirk’s praised contribution to The First Circle, the beautiful ‘Leave Everything Behind’, in a very spiritual and ethereal way. Born after witnessing Pharaoh Sanders performance at We Out Here festival in 2022, ‘Robe Of Dreams’ represents Degiorgio’s tribute to the artists that shaped his musical world.

Das Südlondoner Speakers Corner Quartet begann 2006 als Hausband der legendären Spoken Word- & Hip-Hop-Nacht Speakers Corner in Brixton und unterstützt seitdem Musiker live und im Studio (u.a. Sampha, Kae Tempest, Tirzah, Dean Blunt, MF DOOM, Lianne La Havas). Sie verfeinerten ihr Handwerk und ihre Vielseitigkeit als multiinstrumentale Produzenten und präsentieren nun ihr Debütalbum 'Further Out Than The Edge' mit einigen der aufregendsten Namen der unabhängigen Szene: Tirzah, Kelsey Lu, Shabaka Hutchings, Coby Sey, Sampha, Kae Tempest, Mica Levi, Joe Armon-Jones, Lawfawndah, Léa Sen und mehr.

“I get something out of listening to Coltrane, Shepp and Coleman; I’m really pleased that young players are trying to change things. If they go back the roots and come up with something new, that’s fantastic.” This comment was made by saxophonist Hal Singer to Gérard Terronès for the magazine Jazz Hot in 1968. Two years later Terronès would issue Singer’s album Blues And News, on his label Futura Records.

Though born in 1919 Hal Singer claims, just like the precursors of free jazz, “to always be looking for something else”. When he started out he played in numerous swing bands, then worked in bop with Don Byas, Roy Eldridge or Red Allen, before joining Duke Ellington’s band. In 1948, he recorded a successful single, Cornbread under his own name, which allowed him to travel to the four corners of the earth with his own group.

Then, in 1965, Hal Singer came to live in France: in Paris, he played at clubs like the C’hat qui pêche’ or ‘Riverbop’; in the studio, he multiplied his experiments and experience. It was one such session that gave us Blues And News: joined by Jacques Bolognési (trombone), Jean-Claude André (guitar), Siegfried Kessler (keyboards and flute), Patrice Caratini (double bass), Art Taylor (drums) et Alain Charlery (percussion), the saxophonist himself goes “back to the roots”, to also “come up with something new”.

Things kick off with “It’s My Thing”, a soul jazz number reminiscent of Cannonball Adderley or Lou Donaldson. After the pretty balled “Lina”, comes “Malcolm X ”, a luminous homage which resists the storm whipped up by Kessler on piano. Getting back to swing, Singer makes music with his communicative ’joie de vivre’ (“Du Bois”, “Pour Stéphanie”) before signing off with a flamboyant blues dedicated to him by Kessler for the occasion: “Blues For Hal”. But was another title possible?... Blues For All!!!'

Carefully remastered from the master tapes by Gilles Laujol. Graphic design by Stefan Thanneur. Heavyweight 180 gr. LP. 425 gsm brownboard outer sleeve. Licensed from Futura records.

First ever commercial releases of New Orleans’ legend Alvin Batiste’s Spiritual Jazz albums created with the college band he instructed and led in Baton Rouge - Goes To Africa With Love and Live at The 1971 American College Jazz Festival Originally given away as souvenirs at Southern University, these albums contains deep Batiste originals and are some of the most sought after albums of Americas 70s jazz underground. Each album contains extensive booklet detailing Batiste’s life and his time spent honing and recording this remarkable band of young students. Goes To Africa With Love was mixed from the original multi-track tapes and is now presented as a 2xLP with never-before-released instrumentals. That one of the great Spiritual Jazz albums of the era could be found in duplicate New Orleans thrift store in the 1980s goes a long way in illustrating the lack of acclaim this special and overlooked album maintained, even in a city where the Batiste name is musical royalty. The Southern University albums Alvin Batiste offered the world were novelies, not worthy of serious consideration, a moment captured, but not necessarily worthy of being collected or preserved by anyone not immediately involved in its creation. That changes now. With the release of the two Southern University albums, Now-Again continues a conversation begun with the late Kashmere Stage Band director Conrad O. Johnson and the issue of his high school students’ music as Texas Thunder Soul, and the continued belief that beautiful music created by youth - even under the most adverse circumstances - can always inspire us.

“Spirale”, initially released in 1976, is one of the essential recordings of Eastern European modal Jazz. The masterpiece recorded by Paul Weiner, a pianist from Timisoara, a city in Romania, has been transformed into a cult LP and not just because it is a source of samples.

Recorded live on Wednesday, November 6, 1974 at Composers Forum in Albany, The Arts Center on the Campus of the Academy of the Holy Names, Albany, New York. Performed by the S.E.M. Ensemble. Recorded by Steve Cellum. Tape transferred by Garry Rindfuss. With liner notes and then some by Mary Jane Leach. Mastered by Jim O'Rourke at Steamroom. Design by Antoine Verhaverbeke. Cover by Andrew Roth: »Untitled (Julius Eastman)«, c.1980.