Jazz | Fusion 299 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.

Sons Of Kemet are born of many vital elements – including a name that nods to ancient Egyptian culture, and a line-up that comprises some of the most progressive 21st-century talents in British jazz and beyond. Band-leader/composer/sax/clarinet don Shabaka Hutchings (himself named after a Nubian pharaoh-philosopher) brings together his fiery vision alongside London-based bandmates Tom Skinner and Max Hallet (forming a dynamo duo on drums) and Theon Cross on tuba. On their third studio album, Your Queen Is a Reptile, they bring a genre defying approach which celebrates the restless exploration of identity within the Caribbean diaspora within the U.K. The collection was recorded in London with a host of guests spanning the breadth of the UK scene including jungle legend Congo Natty and poet Joshua Idehen.

Debut full-length album from the Los Angeles jazz bassist, multi-instrumentalist, and producer Sam Wilkes (Knower, Pratley, Jacob Collier).

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!

Limited edition for Record Store Day 2018!

A primer on London’s bright-burning young jazz scene, this new compilation brings together a collection of some of its sharpest talents. A set of nine newly-recorded tracks, We Out Here captures a moment where genre markers matter less than raw, focused energy. Surveying the album’s running order, it could easily serve as a name-checking exercise for some of London’s most-tipped and hardworking bands of the past couple of years. Recorded across three long, fruitful days in a North West London studio, the results speak for themselves: they’re a window into the wide-eyed future of London’s musical underground.

The album bottles up some of the vital ideas emanating from that burgeoning movement. A reflection of how London’s jazz-influenced music has reached outward into new spaces, the sound of the record draws from a wide pool. There’s plenty of crossover between each of the groups, too, speaking to the close-knit circles which make up the scene; shared line-ups reflect the mutual cooperation and DIY spirit which are second-nature.

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.

Rerelease with three extra killer tracks from the original album sessions!

The best jazz musicians, guitarists or otherwise, do what they need to do, and not necessarily what is most expedient. But to an observer of the jazz scene in 1996, when Kurt Rosenwinkel made his first record, a jazz guitarist could have gone down any of several different routes, or ongoing traditions. Some were old and some were new, but they all had their votaries. Because “jazz” was no longer a monolithic entity to anyone, the jazz-education movement had gotten in full swing, and the information age was just starting, all of these traditions were fairly well-mapped. More than a little of East Coast Love Affair is historicist-classicist material. It’s a trio with the bassist Avishai Cohen and the drummer Jorge Rossy that was not a working band, though the paths of all threemusicians intersected within the general orbit of Smalls; the album was recorded at Smalls, but mostly during the day, so that you can’t hear an audience, though you can hear the club’s intimate dimensions, dry room-tone. It is studious and calm and quiet and full of standards. But is also rich and modern and just slightly volatile. There is a lot going on here. “Pannonica” and “Round About Midnight” come from Thelonious Monk, whose harmo-nies have fascinated New York guitarists over the last few decades—Bobby Broom, Peter Bern-stein, and especially Bill Frisell among them. Walter Donaldson’s “Little White Lies” was a pop semi-standard of the ‘30s and ‘40s, the most unusual choice among the older songs on this record. But Rosenwinkel’s own tunes on the record, “B Blues,” and “East Coast Love Affair”—the two tracks recorded before an audience, that same evening—are its slow, strange, smash-hits. The former is suspenseful and structurally weird, broken up into 21-bar sections. The latter, a 12/8, 32-bar composition, remains one of the best things he’s written. It uses a wider range of his instrument than most of the rest of the record. It is shadowy and full of hesitations, clipped or modest or slightly rough statements; when Rosenwinkel heads into a limited series of virtuosic runs and sprays in the second half of his solo, it amounts to a deviation from the track’s norm of open space and understatement. It is an advanced lesson in moderation. —Ben Ratliff, 2018

Style is not a given. Not many musicians reach the level of artistic personality where you can unmistakably recognize them. It takes character, roots, honesty, soulfulness. Nathan Davis had style.
His tone on tenor was unique. So was his soprano sound and his distinctive approach to flute. His musical world was equally original and knew no boundaries.
This concert in Paris is audible proof that as a performer, his fluid phrasing, distinct articulation, booming bottom register, growls and shrieks were fuelled by tremendous drive and furious invention - the man was on fire!
These live sessions demonstrate the limitless invention of Nathan’s solos. Holding no punches, weaving signature phrases, shouts and riffs into his solos, he was a fierce and fervid performer. With a sort of hollow resonance at the heart of his reedy and warm sound, Nathan Davis was a highly original artist, from an era when having a distinct sound on your instrument was the grail of jazz artistry. Harold Land, Jimmy Heath, John Gilmore, Paul Gonsalves, Charlie Rouse, George Coleman, Booker Ervin, Clifford Jordan ... Jazz is made of such giants and Nathan Davis was one of them.

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.

Anne, the second album By Toronto saxophonist and composer Joseph Shabason, is
a tonal essay on degenerative illness. Delicately and compassionately woven with
interviews of Shabason's mother from whom the album takes its name, Anne finds
its creator navigating a labyrinth of subtle and tragic emotions arising from his
mother's struggle with Parkinson's disease. Across the nine vivid postcards of jazzladen
ambience that comprise the album, Shabason unwraps these difficult themes
with great care and focus revealing the unseen aspects of degenerative diseases that
force us to re-examine common notions of self, identity, and mortality. Shabason's
uncanny ability to manoeuvre through such microscopic feelings is mirrored by his
capacity to execute a similar tightrope-walk through musical genres. His music
occupies a specific space that is as palpable as it is difficult to pin labels to. R.I.Y.L.
Brian Eno, Jon Hassell, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Laraaji, Robert Rich, Harold Budd

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.

Includes one bonus track!

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!

One of the outstanding Jazz fusion album from the late 70s includes timeless classic and Jazz dance anthem. Dynamite Cuts releases a quality limited edition double pack release which gives you 4 of those masterpieces, all are first time on 7”!

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.