Jazz | Fusion 357 Items

Almost 2 years after the success of the album THE TONY ALLEN EXPERIMENTS and a few months after the release of the 7inch AMORE, Nu Guinea return to the scene with a new LP published by their newborn label NG RECORDS.
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.

WARNING: We recommend listening to Nuova Napoli while walking in the alleys of Napoli’s historic center, around wet clothes hanging and street vendors on tiny three-wheelers.

This album is inspired by bits and pieces of Ethio-Jazz, Afrobeat, Highlife Spiritual Jazz and dusty funk 45’s. It’s where I’m at now and what has kept this mortal vehicle fueled. I tend to take different paths each musical outing but this one is for the long haul, the one for the blue highways and forgotten byways. It’s the one to get lost to. It’s about the journey, not the destination." Tommy Guerrero continues pushing the boundaries while upholding his San Francisco Bay heritage. Starting from the Bones Brigade skate team in the '80s, he’s made movie appearances, designed for Levi's in Japan, Vans shoes worldwide and Sutro eyewear among others, signed a skateboard contract with Converse, co-founded Real Skateboards and 40’s Clothing, is art director for Krooked Skateboarding, and found time to be a prolific recording artist.

Fifth pressing, this time via Sekito.

In the four years since Green’s initial release, Robohands, AKA. London-based composer/multi-instrumentalist Andy Baxter has released two more albums, quickly becoming a leading force in London’s growing Jazz scene. Compared to his post-bop, avant inspired contemporaries, Baxter’s music is laid back, a modern reincarnation of cool jazz that perhaps might feel more at home being called “chill” than “cool”. With repeating riffs, spacy delay, and warm synth pads, this album blurs the lines between jazz, funk, post-rock, and ambient music to create an album more concerned about mood than genre. Its original pressing sold out almost instantly, and with the prices they’re fetching on the second hand market, we knew we had to repress it! Don’t miss this limited edition repressing of Robohands’ ‘Green’ on limited edition clear green vinyl, available only from P-vine Records!

180g vinyl, half speed mastered, heavy sleeve & OBI Strip. We Release Jazz is delighted to announce the official reissue of Ryo Fukui’s final album, the very personal contemporary jazz offering, A Letter from Slowboat, sourced from the original masters and available on limited edition 180 gram vinyl mastered at half speed for full audiophile sound

Universal Beings is jazz drummer / producer Makaya McCraven's new album - his most ambitious, elegant and refined work yet. Recorded at 2 intimate live sessions and 2 pop-up "studio" sessions across the "new" jazz hotbed cities of New York, Chicago, London, and Los Angeles, Makaya collaborated with an all-star cast of improvisers (15 musicians in total, including Shabaka Hutchings, Nubya Garcia, Jeff Parker, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson,Tomeka Reid, Brandee Younger and Carlos Niño) to create source material for the signature style of "organic beat music" production he debuted on the groundbreaking 2015 release In The Moment. The result is this epic, 2xLP set that represents another breakthrough in Makaya's career as a recording artist, as well as a definitive new work of the exciting global groundswell of next-generation, Black musicians re-vivifying and re-articulating "jazz" in 2018.

The Epic is a 172-minute, three-volume set that includes a 32-piece orchestra, a 20-person choir, and 17 songs overlaid with a compositional score written by Washington.

3LP with download code.

Alan Hawkshaw (piano/Hammond) and Shadow’s drummer Brian Bennett are responsible for some of the slickest, funkiest and most sought-after library records ever made in the UK, particularly ones recorded on the legendary KPM label. Their work has now become the go-to place for sampling in music today. Artists such as Dilla, Nas, and the xx, right through to the billion selling Kanye & Drake have taken Hawkshaw’s and Bennett’s immaculate beat-driven soundscapes for their own usage.

Their new album, in full, iconic KPM cover is a return to the laidback jazz-funk that helped Alan and Brian demonstrate their library chops. The album is classic Hawkshaw/Bennett. It swings, it grooves, moves and thrills with a flair these two have perfected over years.

Standout tracks such as "Hole In One", "In The Clouds", "Interchange", "Oasis", "On The Nile" and "Corcovado" are no mere excursions in nostalgia, for they carry lots of deft studio work that many a producer would give their right arm for. Hawkshaw’s arrangements allow the drums, guitar, bass, strings, Hammond, flute and brass to swirl elegantly around the 12 original tracks; a masterclass in recording.

Cut by Pete Norman, housed in a beautifully designed Richard Robinson sleeve and pressed at 180g by Record Industry in Holland, this release has been afforded the care and attention it rightly deserves. Essential.

Includes four bonus tracks.

'The Choice' disc is hidden in the middle of the packaging, under a corrugated seam. The seam must be cut open to access the hidden disc.

Limited edition for Record Store Day 2018!

Includes a bonus track.

Mildlife's 2018 critically renowened album 'Phase' back in supply.
Nominated for best album at Worldwide FM Awards
Dj from DJ Harvey, Artwork, Gilles Peterson, Bradley Zero & many more.
Only limited copies avail.

Recorded in Madrid in July 2017, Shamal Wind combines Chip Wickham's globetrotting, spiritual jazz expeditions with hard-won schoolings in the funk. Following his critically acclaimed 2017 debut, La Sombra, the record draws on spiritual jazz influences like Yusef Lateef and Sahib Shihab, and rests on Chip's many-sided experience as a musician, spanning left-field beat experiments to hard-hitting funk heavyweights.

After the Latin and flamenco whispers on La Sombra, Shamal Wind adds some Arab-influence percussion to the mix, most notably on the title track. Elsewhere, 'Barrio 71' sees him nodding to Shihab: high energy, lyrical and absorbing, with sax and the vibraphone taking the lead. 'Snake Eyes' taps into the meditative exaltations of modal jazz, while 'Soho Strut' nods to the jazz fusion, funk-influenced side of Chip's playing.

Like the Persian Gulf winds referenced in the album title, which often mark the shift to a new season, this album signals a new chapter for Chip, opening up a newfound energy and inclusiveness in his music, and further expanding on what he achieved in the past year. "Shamal Wind" is a heavy record, built on strong foundations.

Brand new vinyl re-issue for the 2015 album ! While most ensembles are driven by personalities, the Necks are powered by an idea. A very large and simple idea - which now seems completely obvious…. but only because the Necks thought of it and made it work. Now their pleasure (and ours) is sequentially to re-imagine and explore that idea – the prime directive of which seems to be to be that each unfolding step and every passing detail of any performance be allowed to evolve organically out of the musical conditions established at its moment of departure. In other words, we are in the territory of chaos and catastrophe theory; of hurricanes and butterfly wings… And, since one can never step twice into the same river, each beginning has led to wildly unpredictable and variant outcomes; and imperceptibly: you never hear the changes until somehow they have already happened. “We end up, Lloyd Swanton writes, ‘in a very different place from whatever our initial notion … had been.” In the case of Vertigo, we are dropped straight into an almost Feldmanesque musical universe, in which sounds - seemingly disconnected - are already there; creating space rather than inhabiting it. Then, without trying, they mutate. Not mechanically and not according to any pre-determined process - because it’s always clear that what we hear is being played by human beings; that it’s music. A special kind of music that is not pushy or demanding or demonstrative, but rather co-operative, spatial, ambiguous. A music that leaves room for its listeners.

Revolutionary, spiritual jazz from the unlikely city of Houston, Texas: the definitive issue, mastered from the original tapes. Presented in a tip-on gatefold jacket.
Drummer, bandleader and activist Bubbha Thomas had toured America with R&B revues, served as a session musician for Peacock and Back Beat Records, and played straight ahead jazz with legends before the political and social upheaval of the late 1960s led him to a path first charted by Coltrane. Energy Control Center, his third LP with his Lightmen band is his masterpiece: deep-set, maverick jazz on part with the best Tribe and Strata East titles. This is a highpoint amongst the best of the 1970s jazz underground, a collective voice of resistance to the musical and cultural status quo. Contains second disc with bonus tracks: unreleased alternate takes, including two versions of the spiritual jazz classic “All Praises To Allah”, all housed with an extensive booklet with photos and liner notes.

In a career spanning over 50 years the American band Kool & the Gang recorded an
impressive list of hit songs and hidden gems, now bundled on our exclusive Collected
record. Kool & the Gang Collected covers the music from their funk, soul, rock, jazz and
disco period. 27 songs in which you’ll hear their musical diversity and the energetic and
positive sounds they brought to a worldwide public.
After recording three albums Kool & the Gang had commercial success with the singles
“Jungle Boogie” and “Hollywood Swinging”. It meant the start of a fantastic career, in
which they reached their highlights at the end of the ‘70s and beginning of the ‘80s.
Hit singles like “Ladies Night”, “Celebration”, “Get Down On It”, “Joanna” and “Fresh”
are among their most famous songs and are all included on this double LP. With their
fantastic set of bulletproof funk and jazzy arrangements they influenced the music of three
generations. They continuously performed during the pas 45 years and remains one of the
most active touring bands, performing hundreds of shows every year.
Kool & the Gang Collected includes liner notes and the Gatefold sleeve has an embossed
“Kool & The Gang” logo. The release is available as a limited first pressing of 2.500
individually numbered copies on purple vinyl.

‘Melinda Latino’ is taken from the awesome ‘Melinda’ OST written by Butler & Peters, released in 1972. This is a heavy track right from the first beat –harps and breakbeats, leading into a soul piano mood, huge strings and backing vox.

Jimmy Smiths version of Barry Whites ‘I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little Bit More Baby’. A very dope intro break leads into crazy vocal chops before heating the main melody, in true Jimmy Smith style. Taken from his ‘Black Smith’ LP forPride, released in 1974.

Includes two bonus tracks.

Issued on vinyl for the first time, Outernational Sounds proudly presents a monumental spirit music document from the Los Angeles underground – Jesse Sharp’s slept-on deep jazz classic Sharps And Flats.

“He became the Ark leader…he was hardcore. They’d all be quiet and listen to him when he talked.”
Horace Tapscott, on Jesse Sharps

You could be forgiven for not knowing how important saxophonist, bandleader and composer Jesse Sharps is. After all, the only album to come out under his name, Sharps And Flats, was recorded in 1985, and wasn’t issued on CD until 2004.

But despite this seemingly small recorded footprint, Jesse Sharps is a major figure in the history of jazz music in Los Angeles. As the bandleader for Horace Tapscott’s Pan-Afrikan People’s Arkestra (P.A.P.A.) – the Marshall Allen to Tapscott’s Sun Ra – he led Tapscott’s seminal music community through its most cohesive phase. And, after a hiatus living in Europe, his return to Los Angeles in the 2000s saw him build a new group, The Gathering, which linked original heads including acclaimed singer Dwight Trible and legendary trombonist Phil Ranelin with a new generation of LA jazz voices, including none other than Kamasi Washington. Sharps has been around, and he’s made an indelible mark.

Born in Los Angeles in 1953, Jesse Sharps spent his childhood in Watts. He first encountered the visionary pianist Horace Tapscott when he was still at high school – the Arkestra were performing on 103rd Street, and when Sharps heard them he knew what his future would be. Tapscott soon invited the young Sharps to rehearsals, where he played baritone. At college, Sharps studied under Cecil Taylor. When he came back to LA he rejoined the Arkestra on flute and reeds, and eventually took over band-leading duties from the great altoist Arthur Blythe. Trusted completely by Tapscott, as bandleader Sharps turned the Arkestra into a well-drilled unit. This was the time of the classic P.A.P.A. recordings Flight 17, Live at I.U.C.C, and The Call, and Sharps also wrote for the band. The funky, deep spirituality of compositions like ‘Desert Fairy Princess’, ‘Macramé’ and ‘Peyote Song III’ has made his tunes among most celebrated in the whole P.A.P.A. catalogue.

Sharps And Flats was recorded in 1985 for Tom Albach’s legendary Nimbus West imprint, a label Albach had founded specifically to document the work of Horace Tapscott and his circle. Featuring a quintet of P.A.P.A. regulars at the height of their game, Sharps And Flats is one of the great lost Nimbus sessions – it lay unissued until 2004, and never saw a vinyl press.

In line with the original Nimbus CD release, this edition of Sharps And Flats includes ‘McKowsky’s First Fifth’, a stunning 16 minute bonus cut by the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra featuring Horace Tapscott, recorded in 1979. A lost classic of the LA underground, on wax at last!

At last, the vinyl reissue of this masterwork, adding two hitherto unreleased gems recorded solo for Charles Fox’s Radio 3 programme Jazz in Britain, in the same few months of 1980 as the stunning Aida performances.

The phrase ‘in the moment’ is often bandied about with reference to free improvisation, and indeed there’s no better way to describe Derek Bailey’s playing. The acoustic guitar is notoriously lacking in natural reverberation — notes barely hang in the air for a couple of seconds before they disappear — which explains the almost non-stop flow of new material in these stellar performances. Bailey knew from one split-second to the next exactly where to find the same pitch on different strings, either as a stopped tone or a ringing harmonic, and there’s never a note out of place. ‘He who kisses the joy as it flies,’ in the words of William Blake, ‘Lives in eternity’s sunrise’ — and this music is forever in the moment, constantly active but never gabby, kissing the joy.

One of the special pleasures of the BBC set is the guitarist’s own laconic commentary, a deliciously deadpan description of what he’s doing while he’s doing it — “I like to think of it… as a kind of music” — and the interaction between words and music is a particular delight. “You may have noticed a certain lack of variety,” he quips, while unleashing a furiously complex volley. Is it a coincidence that the final seconds recall the famous cycling fifths of the coda to Thelonious Monk’s Round Midnight? Surely not — for Bailey, like Monk, was a note man par excellence. And they’re both still alive and well in eternity’s sunrise.