We don’t often focus on big band jazz on our show – so it was time to put that right. We featured mostly recent records – including two brand albums from the ever-creative Edition Records. We debuted the superb new album from Yussef Dayes – and you’ll really want to hear this! – and we ended with new jazz from Indonesia. And as we’ve gone to press here, news has reached us of the death of innovative pianist, big band leader, composer and arranger Carla Bley. There’s so much we could say about this important jazz musician but here’s one of her most famous compositions, Ida Lupino, in a version from her album Dinner Music. Lupino was an Anglo-American actress and singer, celebrated as a pioneering female filmmaker and the first woman to direct a film noir – The Hitch-hiker from 1953.
1.Colin Towns Mask Orchestra – The Royal Hunt of the Sun from Drama
We began with an album from composer Colin Towns that was in the running for one of the best jazz records of 2015. When he formed the Mask Orchestra in 1990, Towns brought together both new and established players on the UK jazz scene. Twenty-five years on, the Mask Orchestra released the excellent double album Drama – their seventh album with a line-up that included Alan Skidmore, Mark Lockheart and – on our selection – the late, and very great, Peter King on alto sax. As the title might suggest, the inspiration for Drama is works for theatre, featuring new and original music from Colin Towns’ extensive work in that medium, from classic plays (and films) including One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Equus and Macbeth. We began the show with The Royal Hunt of the Sun, inspired by Peter Schaffer’s 1964 play about the clash of two characters from different worlds, Atahuallpa Inca and Francisco Pizarro. This track also includes a spectacular duet between percussionists Joji Hirota and Stephan Maass.
2. Don Ellis Orchestra – Open Beauty from Electric Bath
Next up was an artist who should be better known but is undoubtedly an inspiration for much contemporary big band music. Don Ellis was an American trumpeter and bandleader who led 1960-70s big bands distinguished by their unusual instrumentation, weird time signatures and an openness towards using rock rhythms and electronics. His band included John Klemmer, Tom Scott and Milcho Leviev who went on to record with Art Pepper in his last years. Electric Bath is a good place to start with Don Ellis – there’s no less than five trumpets, three trombones, five reeds, Mike Lang on keyboards, three bassists, drummer Steve Bohannon and three percussionists. For more Don Ellis, have a listen to his 1973 Soaring album – here’s Go Back Home.
3. Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society – Dymaxion from Dynamic Maximum Tension
Argue’s earlier Secret Society albums have been some of Neil’s recent favourites and this new double CD set is no exception. Argue’s music always has a tightly structured thematic base and this one is no exception. Indeed, it’s the most complex of them all (so far). The music references key 20th century thinkers for ideas that can help us in the present, that we can reexamine and reconfigure for our own purposes, says Argue. These include futurist designer Buckminster Fuller, cryptanalyst-computer scientist Alan Turing, composer-arranger Bob Brookmeyer, actress-screenwriter Mae West and the master Duke Ellington – among others. Argue has said that a lot of the tracks on Dynamic Maximum Tension are reflective of my personal journey in going back to the foundations of this music and trying to find ways to incorporate that into my compositional voice. In a pre-launch interview he went on to reference several of these key influences and inspirations. For example, Tensile Curves is a response to Ellington’s Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blue, in which Argue uses decreasing tempo as an analog to the diminishing dynamics of the Ellington work. Listen to the celebrated 1956 Newport Jazz Festival performance of Diminuendo right here. It features that remarkable tenor solo from Paul Gonsalves that was almost entirely responsible for resurrecting Ellington’s career. Argue admires how Ellington sets up and foils expectations, doing things one doesn’t anticipate, like taking an unexpected detour on a blues form, but that all this make sense when you reflect more deeply about the music. ‘That’s jazz’ we might want to say.
4. Dave Holland Big Band – Last Minute Man from Overtime
Last Minute Man is the only tune we’ve played before on the show – but it’s so good we wanted to feature it as another good example of a contemporary big band at work. Dave Holland is, of course, the celebrated English bassist, perhaps most noted for his tenure with Miles Davis. But Holland has continued to blaze a trail across the jazz mini-genres – from the avantgarde to big band. Overtime is from 2002 (but unreleased until 2005). Holland deploys players who appeared in in his various quartets and quintets – there’s four saxophones, three trumpets and trombones, and vibes as well as bass and drums. The band includes Chris Potter, Robin Eubanks, Antonio Hart, Josh Roseman, and Alex Sipiagin among others. Chris Potter is on typically fine form and the closing track Last Minute Man is an electrifying end to this exceptional record. Seek it out if you can.
5. Nikki Iles and the NDR Bigband – Awakening from Face To Face
This great new album comes from one of the best big bands around at the moment – the NDR. Unique among Germany’s radio big bands, the NDR Bigband is a jazz ensemble composed of premier soloists of diverse backgrounds and influences who create an original and striking group sound. Like many similar bands, they began in a world of traditional radio and TV shows producing what we used to called light entertainment, but for several years they’ve ploughed a much more creative furrow – often with guest soloists, arrangers and composers. Current band members include Julius Gawlik on tenor, Peter Bolte on alto and Claus Stötter and Ingolf Burkhardt on trumpets. Here with UK pianist Nikki Iles – their Composer in Residence for 2023 – is the first fruit of this partnership, the album Face to Face. I love the NDR Bigband, says Iles, and that seems evident in this joyous music. Face to Face will be released in mid-November but you can check out the music and pre-order in all formats on the Edition Records website.
6. Yussef Dayes – Tioga Pass from Black Classical Music
This is one important record – and another example of the fertility of the UK jazz scene. Drummer Yussef Dayes has been making waves since he appeared on the South London jazz scene in 2016 with fellow Londoner Kamaal Williams on the self-titled Yussef Kamaal album. Better still was the collaboration on Blue Note with songwriter Tom Misch, What Kinda Music. Then on Brownswood in late 2020 came the Live at Joshua Tree EP. Now – a year later – we get the ambitious 19 track release Black Classical Music. Dayes’ regular quartet (which Neil had the good fortune to see in Singapore) are just the heart of a huge studio cast – new keyboardist Charlie Stacey, guitarist Miles James and studio guests including UK jazz royalty Shabaka Hutchings, Theon Cross and Sheila Maurice-Grey. The ambition of Dayes is clear and this is definitely one we’ll return to. In the meantime, listen to the opening title track and check out the McCoy Tyner influence – I’m thinking Ebony Queen here. What do you reckon?
7. Jasper Høiby – Love Song from Earthness
More new music from Edition Records that’s not released until late in November. Bassist, composer and bandleader Jasper Høiby is both creative and prolific. It was in his birthplace Copenhagen that he laid the groundwork for his career, founding Phronesis, one of the most influential jazz trios in recent memory. They opened for the Wayne Shorter Quartet at London’s Barbican in 2011 (another memorable concert Neil attended) blending intricate melodies with powerful rhythms and engaging improvisations. Since then, Høiby has gone on to release music in several different groups with musicians including Mark Guiliana, Tigran Hamasyan, and Shai Maestro. His new trio is called 3 Elements and features Noah Stoneman and Luca Caruso.
8. Royal New Zealand Air Force Jazz Orchestra – Bird of Prey from Kaiwhakatere (Navigator)
Ok – so it’s an outlier, but the Royal New Zealand Air Force Jazz Orchestra really do deserve a listen. This is exciting, adventurous big band music with guests including saxophonist Oscar Lavën, whose Questions in Red album made us take notice at the end of last year. The album was co-produced by the Wellington-based Scottish drummer, John Rae. London Jazz News noted that Several observers have already heard the mighty Thad Jones-Mel Lewis band in this team of reservists’ smartly despatched energy and there are echoes of Gil Evans and George Russell in the sense of drama and suspense created. High praise indeed.
9. Alonzo Brata – Night in Tunisia from Giant Baby Steps
We’re always interested in new talent here on Cosmic Jazz and young Alonzo Brata is a great example. On a recent work visit back to Indonesia, Neil came across Alonzo’s music and wanted to feature it here on the show. He may be only just 20, but his rich baritone is reminiscent of Mario Biondi and the infectious This Is What You Are – and that’s a direction he could easily travel in. Brata notes that I’m a young vocalist (born in 2003) with a baritone voice and a diverse range of musical interests from jazz standards to synth-wave. From an early age I was inspired by the great jazz artists and song stylists of the past such as Al Jarreau, Chet Baker, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Louis Armstrong, and Frank Sinatra to mention a few. However, like many of my generation, my musical interests are wide and influenced by the gaming culture. Brata launched his YouTube channel in 2021, recorded his first studio album later that year and was nominated for in the category of Best Jazz Album by the AMI Awards (Indonesia Music Awards). That’s a pretty meteoric rise to date… Right now, he’s finding his feet genre-wise – but he’s already appeared at the huge Java Jazz Festival and will be back in the recording studio soon. Check out more on his website here.
10. Joey Alexander – Blue from Continuance
Also from Indonesia, there’s a similar story at work here. Joey Alexander has been featured several times on the show in recent years since his debut album was released at age 11. Mentored by Wynton Marsalis and Herbie Hancock, Alexander won a prestigious AMI award in 2018 for his excellent take on Coltrane’s Moment’s Notice and now he’s about to release his new record Continuance on which he’s joined by Theo Croker on trumpet, Kris Funn on bass and John Davis on drums. We featured the sprightly Blue but head to Alexander’s Bandcamp site here and listen to his reflective take on Bonnie Raitt’s I Can’t Make You Love Me.
There’s an long tradition of jazz in Indonesia and it’s worth exploring the music of other great musicians from this huge south east Asian country. Try keyboardist Indra Lesmana who has recorded prolifically with jazz artists like Charlie Haden, Tootie Heath and Airto Moreira since the 1980s and his new release – Do the Math – in this 2023 video created and directed by Lesmana himself. And what about Batavia Collective? Their name comes from the Dutch occupation name for what is now Jakarta and the surrounding hinterland, and this trio began playing covers of popular hip-hop and soul songs but have now incorporated drum and bass, jazz and broken beat into their original compositions. Inevitably, Doni Joesran, Elfa Zulham and Kenny Gabriel are often asked what kind of jazz they are playing. Their response – To tell you the truth we don’t know. We don’t even know if our music can be considered jazz or not. We just happen to play jazz and we love to party. Have a listen to Joni Indo here and then check out their Bandcamp site where you’ll find a video for the brilliant Propulsion. And as if that wasn’t enough, there’s a complete live performance on Youtube right here. If you know the music of broken beat pioneer Kaidi Tatham them you’ll really like Batavia Collective. We’ll certainly be featuring them on upcoming shows.
More from Cosmic Jazz soon, but in the meantime, here’s the return of Neil is listening to…
Music this time comes from the usual wide range of sources. There’s a focus on Javanese and Balinese gamelan and music inspired by that extraordinary microtonal universe, a selection linked to new and upcoming Tone Poet reissues from Jackie McLean and McCoy Tyner, Yussef Dayes and Kamal Williams live in the Brownswood Basement, a Keith Jarrett encore from the Tokyo ’84 DVD, Material and Nona Hendryx’s finest moment and – to finish – the all-female group Tokyo Groove Jyoshi with the infectious Funk No.1. Enjoy!
- Yussef Kamaal – Calligraphy (live)
- McCoy Tyner – His Blessings
- Jackie McLean – Boo Ann’s Grand
- Organized Konfusion – Walk Into the Sun
- Colin McPhee – Tabuh Tabuhan (finale – Quieto e Misterioso)
- Keith Jarrett – Tokyo ’84 encore
- Gamelan Salukat – Likad
- arr. Iwan Gunawan – Six Marimbas for Gamelan
- Material – Bustin’ Out (long version)
- Tokyo Groove Jyoshi – Funk No.1
We start the show with our good friends High Pulp, whose music we have featured over the last few years. The new album is a must and, of course, you can track it down most easily 
One of the most recent signings to Edition Records, Arcoleo has sat in on a number of recordings for the label before this, his new EP for the label. Something of a multi-instrumentalist, Arcoleo began his touring life with the legendary saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis when he was sixteen before gaining a place on the renowned jazz course at London’s Royal Academy of Music, winning a Yamaha Parliamentary Jazz Scholarship and the Kenny Wheeler Jazz Prize – which included a recording contract with Edition Records. His debut album for the label, Beginnings, was released in 2012 to widespread critical acclaim, receiving 4* reviews in the Guardian. Arcoleo is also a founding member of the UK band Native Dancer who released their own first record Live in London earlier this year. K.O.K.O references a mantra from Pee Wee Ellis – Keep On Keeping On – and it reflects the big instrumental hooks, heavy beats and glitchy vocal samples found on the record – and on Pee Wee Ellis tracks like 
Ben Wendell is a Vancouver native but was raised in Los Angeles. He’s already recorded with jazz artists such as Tigran Hamasyan, Antonio Sanchez and Eric Harland and is a founding member of the Grammy nominated group Kneebody who also record with Edition. His new album for the label is, uniquely, a series of duets in which he plays with a different musician on each of the six tracks. His guests stick to their primary instruments, but Wendel fills in the space around them with multiple saxophone and bassoon parts, electronic effects, and percussion. It’s a really interesting concept and includes Cecile McLorin Salvant on a version of Gershwin’s I Loves You Porgy and Hamasyan’s dark piano voicings on the original tune In Anima. Blanchard’s trumpet is – as usual – processed against Wendell’s minimalist saxophone backing. Also on this eclectic record are guitarist Bill Frisell and flautist Elena Pinderhughes. The concept and arrangements across this new record are always interesting and it’s well worth a look. Check it out again on the Edition Records website or, of course, 
Finnish pianist Aki Rissanen has released seven albums as leader, including three excellent trio albums for Edition Records, featuring his long-standing collaborators, bassist Antti Lötjönen and drummer Teppo Mäkynen. He’s perhaps best known for his work with fellow Finn, trumpeter Verneri Pohjola (qv) on Edition and ACT Records, and Hyperreal, his latest release, will certainly consolidate his growing reputation. Rissanen switches between acoustic piano and electronic keyboards and Pohjola’s emotive and poignant trumpet sound is very much to the fore. It reminds us of other similarly ethereal trumpet players, most notably Arve Henriksen. Risannen has explained his thinking about the new album: With the rapid transformation of reality to the A.I. generated virtual reality or hyperreality, we have to be aware and adapt to these things and distinguish between what is real and unreal. Pohjola’s playing here is great. We would have expected it on the more atmospheric tunes but on others he’s clearly capable of a really funky approach too. Rissanen’s approach is as varied as we would expect – hushed tones on Code Indigo and dynamic chords and clusters on Breezy. Overall, Hyperreal is highly imaginative and a recommended listen. Check it out 
Jazz or not? We don’t care – it’s just a great tune. Chris Hyson is another Royal Academy of Music alumnus who has appeared on recent albums by Jordan Rakei and Rosie Frater-Taylor. For Sidekick he’s assembled the core unit of Joe Webb on piano with Alex Haines on guitar and brother Lloyd Haines on drums. Saxophonist Josh Arcoleo guests on the rather beautiful and dreamy 
The Wayfarers is the new trio album from Norwegian pianist and composer Eyolf Dale who is again joined by long-term collaborators Per Zanussi on bass (and saw!) and Audun Kleive on drums. Dale sees this album as a journey: Music helps me to understand and realise what my feelings or emotions are about. It helps me to make choices in life. To be in contact with my own compass he says. The music blends Nordic folk, jazz and some classical influences – and although this sounds like a typical ECM label description there’s enough individuality in harmonies and tones here to make this a really distinctive record. Of course, it’s on Bandcamp – 
Halsall is another artist we’ve championed over the years at CJ. Derek and Neil saw Halsall at a small venue in Suffolk many years ago – a far cry from his recent show in the iconic Royal Albert Hall in London. His new album is an evolution rather than a revolution, but it is one of his best. Neil links it back to his similarly atmospheric Fletcher Moss Park from 2012, but with more of a new age vibe – and in a good way. Halsall has talked about the inspirations for the album in a recent Jazzwise magazine interview, noting that the birdsong heard on the opening track was his connection to the times of the day when you hear birdsong – sunrise, sunset – and I pulled out a couple of field microphones on a balcony, and just started playing. It’s not a composition, more of an improvised collaboration with nature. As the feature notes, Halsall’s Manchester-based Gondwana Records has become something of a northern musical powerhouse, establishing GoGo Penguin (before their move to Blue Note) and now hosting Mammal Hands, Chip Wickham and new recruits like Jasmine Myra. The new album was birthed in isolated rural locations in the UK: I wanted my brain to be clear and fresh… setting a tone and mood for the record says Halsall. Water Street genuinely reflects this with its soundworld of flute, harp, kalimbas and glockenspiel. An Ever Changing View is highly recommended and a great place to start if you’re new to Halsall’s music – 
Back to Edition Records and something of a leftfield choice for the label. US trumpeter Marquis Hill has been ploughing a very new age furrow in his recent releases – and Rituals and Routines is no exception. In our view, it’s not his best work and the spoken word messages sometimes just feel intrusive, but the intention is clear: the Bandcamp notes state that The quality of the rituals and routines established in life is directly correlated with one’s meaningful success and the ability to manifest in this 3D realm. We’re not sure here at CJ what that really means but the addition here of vibes player Joel Ross is a very welcome inclusion. As always, it’s 
Wow! They did it – earlier this month, Ezra Collective became the first jazz artists ever to win the prestigious Mercury Prize and richly deserved it is too. We’ve promoted Ezra as fine examples of the new wave of British jazz with its all-inclusive approach to influences from hip hop, drum and bass, broken beat, afrobeat and grime and the resulting album is by far the best thing they’ve ever done. We can’t recommend Where I’m Meant to Be highly enough and, again, it’s 
Sāo Paulo’s Otis Trio released their 74 Club album in 2014 – and then seem to have fallen silent. Surprisingly perhaps, their roots lie the European and American free jazz scenes of the 60s and 70s. Some five years in gestation and recorded on vintage analogue equipment for period authenticity, 74 Club is (as the Far Out press release of the time noted) both deftly subtle and furiously intense with the standard trio configuration of guitar, bass and drums augmented with both vibes and a posse of free blowing horn players who together create a sound which reverberates with echoes of Ornette Coleman, Sonny Sharrock and Pharoah Sanders. Whew! Montag’s Dream may start off as more of a straight ahead modal excursion with vibes very much to the fore – but it’s not long before some Pharonic tenor sax kicks in. We like it and we hope you do too.
Up next was Astrud Gilberto herself from her first recording with her then husband Joāo Gilberto and saxophonist Stan Getz. There are numerous stories around on how this young, inexperienced singer appeared on the record but her appearance inaugurated the whispery, vocal version of that languid, delicate characteristic of the bossa nova – nylon strung guitars creating a reduction/synthesis of samba percussion. Gilberto – who died earlier this month aged 83 – sang on just two tracks on this 1964 album but this was enough to seal her place in musical history. The Girl from Ipanema might be seen as nothing more than a wine bar cliché but the lyrics remain a powerful evocation of Rio’s most famous district. We played the edited 45 single version of the tune which omits the Brazilian lyrics of Joāo Gilberto but emphasises those carioca qualities of the girl ‘who passes by’.
The writer of The Girl from Ipanema, Tom Jobim, is one of Brazil’s greatest composers. The album Wave from 1967 was arranged by Claus Ogerman following his move from Germany to become the house arranger at Verve Records and so co-created hundreds of records including albums by Wes Montgomery, George Benson and Diana Krall. Wave features two of Jobim’s most famous tunes – the title track and the beautiful 
From the heydays of the bossa wave comes a successful cooperation between Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell and American drummer Jimmy Pratt on the unimaginatively-titled album Baden Powell Swings with Jimmy Pratt. Composer of our choice Coisa No.1, Moacir Santos is heard here on baritone saxophone. You can listen to the original orchestrated version of that Santos tune 
Perhaps the most talented of all the bossa nova group of the 1960s, Tamba Trio pretty much created the bossa-pop sound, fusing bossa nova melodies with close harmony vocals. Their take on Jorge Ben’s 
Neil first heard this record when crate digging in the Brazilian section in a small regional record shop in the UK. Ohlos Coloridos or Colourful Eyes is the standout track from her fifth self titled album (1986). It’s based on an infectious guitar and bass riff and the lyrics refer to Sá’s Cape Verdean ancestry – You laugh at my clothes/You laugh ar my hair/You laugh at my skin/You laugh at my smile/But the truth is: you also/Have creole blood. In Brazil, tri-racial people with African, European and Amerindian heritage are referred to as sarará. Check out 
Marcos Valle is something of a Cosmic Jazz hero. Neil has been lucky enough to see him live in the UK and has 
Sabrina Malheiros was born in Rio and is the daughter of Alex Malheiros – bass player with Azymuth and now the only surviving member of the original trio. Title tune Clareia comes from her 2017 album on the UK’s Far Out label. As with much of Malheiros’ music for the label, the tune was written in collaboration with her father and producer Daniel Maunick – son of Bluey Maunick, founder of British jazzfunk legends Incognito. Father Alex plays bass on much of the album and it’s a classy effort that’s well worth exploring. Incidentally, Alex Malheiros continues to record his own material – his most recent album Tempos Futuros emerged in 2021 – here’s the track 
In Japan, springtime cherry blossom (sakura) is widely celebrated as a symbol of rebirth – but is also a reminder of the impermanence of life. Scottish violinist Seonaid Aitken experienced sakura in Tokyo and – after a serious accident that left her unable to walk – she returned to Scotland and composed the Chasing Sakura Suite using jazz, classical and folk idioms. It’s all performed by a string quintet accompanied by saxophone and flute. Neil is really taken with this music – there’s Steve Reich, 20th century classical quartet and some jazzy flute (from Scotland’s Helena Kay) in the mix and it all works. Available 
Christine Tobin notes that The songs of Returning Weather are inspired by my return to Ireland after many years living abroad. I hadn’t planned, nor had I any idea that I was coming home. It was as if a great wave rolled over me and swept me along, delivering me from city to sanctuary somewhere between Boyle, Frenchpark and Ballaghaderreen. I immediately fell under the spell of the quiet beauty of this part of Co
Some of New Zealand’s jazz luminaries have assembled to form an all-star cluster: The Circling Sun. Channeling spiritual/modal jazz and Latin rhythms, they simultaneously echo the greats such as Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane, while maintaining a fresh perspective on ensemble dynamics. There’s a bunch of keyboards, skilfully manned by the likes of Guy Harrison and Cory Champion, along with solid horn choruses throughout. Meanwhile, providing vital foundational support are the percussion (Soundway alumnus Julien Dyne), vibraphone, acoustic bass and full choir arranged by Matt Hunter. This feels like a group that have made music over a decade or more rather than one that’s been recently formed. Highly recommended.
It’s thanks to Scottish promoter Rob Adams (@rabjourno on Twitter) that I’ve discovered Irish guitarist Louis Stewart, who’s been under the jazz radar for decades. The reissue of an expanded version of Out On His Own is a welcome opportunity to give him his much deserved dues. Originally released in 1977, this solo guitar album features a mix of contemporary titles and American songbook jazz standards. At the time of first release, Sunday Times critic Derek Jewell said: Louis is revealed here as a guitar virtuoso already of considerable maturity. A virtuoso in anyone’s language, and … a musician to be spoken of in the same league as Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery, or, among contemporary virtuosos, Joe Pass. High praise indeed – but justified. Listen to his take on our choice for this show – the sublime Wave from Antonio Carlos Jobim. If you don’t know the tune, then 
So – thanks to Jazz Detective Zev Feldman – we have two double albums of previously unreleased performances by the Ahmad Jamal Trio, recorded live at the Penthouse in Seattle. Have no fear though – both sound quality and performances on both these records (available in all formats) is excellent. If you’re new to Ahmad Jamal then then both albums will give you an insight into the way Jamal has reconstructed the piano trio. The key word here is space – and it’s part of the Jamal trio’s soundworld of piano, bass and drums here. The music is unhurried with lengthy interpretations of both originals and standards – like our choice ofJamal’s take on Tangerine. It clearly demonstrates just how his music works, giving each member of the trio space to contribute and impact the music. Bassist Richard Evans is featured only on the 1963 tracks on which he provides able support – as on the opening track 
There have been plenty of projects where artists have faithfully covered entire classic albums but the groundbreaking 1970 Miles Davis album Bitches Brew has been good at resisting such treatment – as much because its cut and paste mixing from producer Teo Macero was entirely unique at the time of release. Add to that the then unorthodox use of effects-laden Fender Rhodes piano(s), Bennie Maupin’s rumbling bass clarinet and the angular howl of John McLaughlin’s guitar. London Brew is inspired by Bitches Brew – but it is no reproduction. Recorded in December 2020 at The Church Studios in London with 12 London based artists who also took on the name London Brew. Benji B, Raven Bush, Theon Cross, Nubya Garcia, Tom Herbert, Shabaka Hutchings, Nikolaj Torp Larsen, Dave Okumu, Nick Ramm, Dan See, Tom Skinner and Martin Terefe are all contributors and the album has been released to acknowledge the 50th anniversary of Bitches Brew. The comments of Shabaka Hutchings are relevant here: For me, that’s what Bitches Brew is. It’s a bunch of musicians making music because of the love of making music, as a social force and as a social construct. They are creating something that expresses unity and motion. That’s what it is to be alive… you know, you have unity, you have motion, and you have vibration. You don’t get any more alive than that. That’s Bitches Brew. The record is available as a 2LP set, on a 2CD pack or download from – yes – 
Label 
1977’s Tribal Dance was the third studio album from American jazz double bassist Henry Franklin, a man who worked with some of jazz’s greatest names including Freddie Hubbard, Sonny Rollins and Pharoah Sanders. Having re-released its Black Jazz label predecessors The Skipper and The Skipper At Home, the Real Gone Music label has now reissued this more obviously spiritual jazz-styled album. Featured are saxophonist Charles Owens, trumpeter Jerry Rush, trombonist Al Hall Jr., pianist Dwight Dickerson, guitarist Kenneth Climax and Woody ‘Sonship’ Theus on drums and percussion. Theus (who took his moniker from John Coltrane’s Sun Ship album) is perhaps one of the best known of the musicians here. Known for his unique drumkits, Theus had a very open, tribal-like tone which often focused on huge high mounted Chinese cymbals. You can hear him 
This tune is the title track from the debut TruThoughts release from Glasgow-based musician, producer, DJ and curator Rebecca Vasmant. It’s a blend of live and electronic music that channels Vasmant’s passion for both jazz and broken beat. She notes: Dance Yourself Free came about when myself and Emilie Boyd (vocalist) were having a music day at my place. We like to sit and listen to music that we love and come up with ideas for lyrics. And that’s just what you get on this track which features Harry Weir on saxophone and Graham Costello on drums – the chatter and laughter celebrate the warmth of friendship and collaboration that radiates throughout this release. Other Glasgow-based musicians feature across the album including vocalist Nadya Albertsson, synth and bass grooves from Dave Koor along with contributions from Norman Willmore on sax, Cameron Thompson-Duncan on trumpet and Danielle Price on tuba.
This superb jazzy house tune newly appears on a second É Soul Cultura compilation from Manchester-based DJ Luke Una on the Mr Bongo label. In May 2022, É Soul Cultura Vol.1 blends new, old, rare and under-discovered music from around the world and Piccadilly Records in Manchester made the album their top compilation of the year, with Rough Trade placing it as their number two. Vol. 1 featured 
All of this is apparent in the music we have selected for this show and we’ve included an iconic compositions from his early days with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers to his later quartet compositions. We begin with Ping Pong which Shorter wrote for Art Blakey. It’s a typical early Shorter tune – memorable, quirky and very stylish. Neil first heard it on an old New Musical Express jazz sampler cassette from the early 1980s and was immediately drawn to this perfect example of hard bop. Familiar with Shorter’s Weather Report compositions, this was the start of Neil’s journey back through the Shorter Blue Note catalogue. Shorter spent four years with the Jazz Messengers and, by the time he came to record his first solo album for Blue Note, he was beginning to become better known as both a composer and unique voice on the tenor saxophone. His run of eleven albums for the label between 1964 and 1970 is one of the most influential series of individual jazz albums from anyone in the jazz world and all titles are highly recommended.
We’ve chosen two tunes – the first is the title track from Speak No Evil, recorded in 1966 and the third of those Blue Note albums. In his excellent
Next is Shorter at his most lyrical – and this one is a soprano sax feature. The album Alegria was released in 2003 and features the quartet that was to form Shorter’s working group for almost the next twenty years. Shorter is on tenor and soprano saxes, Danilo Perez is on piano, and with John Patitucci on bass and Brian Blade on drums this incredibly accomplished quartet released some of the best music of Shorter’s long career. Derek’s choice from this album is as enigmatic as Wayne Shorter himself – a setting of an anonymous 12 century carol that is just beautiful.
We follow this with a first dive into the music of Weather Report, a group Neil was fortunate enough to see twice in two of their very different incarnations. Three Clowns (a typically cryptic Shorter title) comes from 1976’s Black Market, one of the group’s most satisfying records. This tune is rather dismissed by Cook and Morton but it’s actually an atmospheric vehicle for one of Shorter’s excursions with the Lyricon, an electronic wind instrument which had only been developed a few years previously and which allowed him to match the increasingly intriguing sounds being created by Joe Zawinul on his armoury of electronic keyboards. As almost always with Weather Report, the outcome is not bombastic and driven by a desire to impress but rather, the music is subtle, emotive and – above all – creative.
The next tune is one that Shorter has revisited a number of times, including with his later quartet. Neil saw the group perform Plaza Real in a shockingly different version on Shorter’s live tour of 2003 but it actually first appeared on the Weather Report album Procession from 1983. Here Shorter is again on soprano saxophone and using that clear, piping lyrical tone that is so immediately distinctive. The whistling (probably by Joe Zawinul) and concertina (from percussionist José Rossy) is a neat touch. This band were all about subtlety. Unfortunately, the later years of Weather Report are characterised by the marginalisation of Shorter’s nuanced approach to composition and improvisation and if you’re a beginner with the group, the early records are the ones to go for.
In the mid-1970s, Shorter began to extend the Brazilian influence that had been apparent on his later Blue Note records and recorded essentially a duet album with singer Milton Nascimento. Gilles Peterson remembers borrowing Native Dancer from his local library and being enchanted by the combination – and Neil recalls very clearly buying the record on release in 1975 from the late lamented Sunshine Records in Oxford. Airto Moreira is on percussion on our choice Lilia and elsewhere on the album Shorter’s Blue Note pal Herbie Hancock is featured. Nascimento’s wordless vocals are featured along with some very fine concluding soprano from Shorter and with a fabulous groove and organ swirls from Wagner Tiso this is a magical tune.
As we bring this all too short tribute show to an end, we come to another tune that Shorter revisited with his late quartet – the composition Joy Ryder. This take is again very different from the tune’s first incarnation, on Shorter’s 1988 album with the same title. For comparison, check out that 
We end the show with another return to a classic Shorter composition, Nefertiti. Originally, recorded by the Miles Davis Quintet of which Shorter was a key member in 1968, the composition is noted for its inversion of what usually happens in jazz. Here the horn section repeats the melody numerous times without individual solos while the rhythm section (Ron Carter on bass and Tony Williams on drums) improvises underneath, reversing their traditional role. You can hear that magisterial original take with Miles 
First up is one of Neil’s favourite releases of the last year – the excellent full length album from Ezra Collective – part of the huge UK jazz scene that’s really flourishing at the moment. Ezra include some outstanding soloists and on this album they’ve got some special guests too. Let’s name check one of the best key players on the scene – Joe Armon-Jones – and give a shout out to the great Kojey Radical on vocals on this track. Elsewhere you’ll hear Sampa the Great and Emilie Sandé on vocals and a blissful mix of dubwise sounds, Afrobeat, R n B and more. The album includes a funky take on that evergreen classic Smile (written by Charlie Chaplin – yes, indeed!) and a great reading of Sun Ra’s Love in Outer Space to close the record. The record really does all hold together and on orange vinyl makes for a treat on the decks. I can’t recommend this album highly enough. I have it on all formats – but vinyl is the one to get.
It’s another UK band up next but – oh – so different. Vibration Black Finger aren’t well known, and this second album from them pretty much disappeared when released some five years ago – but it’s well worth a listen. Andy Smart is on treated trumpet as he awakens the ghost of Miles Davis from the revolutionary On the Corner album. The album’s eclectic mood is held together by Lascelle Lascelles’ drumming – part Can and part James Brown – but there’s lots of other stuff in the mix too. Lascelles (real name, Lascelle Gordon) was a founder of the Acid Jazz Pioneers The Brand New Heavies – but this is a whole new order of heaviness. If you like this you’d probably enjoy Sextant – a fabulous and under-rated album by the British band A Certain Ratio (or ACR). It’s just been reissued – and for a taste of the music here’s the excellent Knife Slits Water. You can’t have my original album (a mint copy will set you back over $170 on Discogs!) but you can get Blackism from those excellent guys at Bandcamp. Neil snapped it up at Joo Chiat’s Choice Cuts.
Neil’s played Herbie Hancock in an earlier set but there’s no excuses for playing him again. The reissued album on the Speakers Corner label in a lovely gatefold jacket is something of a revelation – the sound on vinyl is way better than on my original copy (and that doesn’t always happen). The remastering is all analogue and it shows. Herbie Hancock had grown up under Miles Davis’s wing but his music here is as abstract as the late quintet but with what we would now call electronica thrown in. Dr Patrick Gleeson was the synthesizer wizard helping Hancock to achieve those other-worldly sounds but on Sleeping Giant it’s the battery of percussion that is the most memorable. This is a 20 minute + track and we played just the first seven minutes – but what a sound!
Jun Seba (瀬葉), who tragically died in a car accident in 2010, was a Japanese record producer, engineer, DJ and remixer who went by the name Nujabes (his name reversed) and released just two albums in his life time. Mostly instrumental – his music sampled hip hop, soul and jazz cresting a kind of triphop vibe but with breakbeat and downtempo elements too. Every single track on Modal Soul is brilliant. This is music you just want to listen to over again – and its earworm value is very high. There’s a similar tragic story behind the work of the Serbian producer Mitar Subotić who went by the name of Suba and who worked with many Brazilian artists. He tragically died in a fire in his studio but not before completing his wonderful São Paulo Confessions album – try 
This is the sunniest music you will hear all year – guaranteed! Neil first came across this great track on a wonderful new compilation from Mr Bongo Records and then tracked down the original album at Retrocrates here in Joo Chiat Road. Compiled by DJ Luke Una this is a great collection – and it wisely kicks off with this cut from Jorge and Olivetti’s self-titled album from 1972. Neil ended up playing it over and again and when he found the re-released album at Retrocrates it was an automatic purchase. Every track is infectious with hooks, synths and great trombone solos. Both Jorge and Olivetti were highly regarded music producers who worked with the best Brazilian musicians – Marcos Valle, Sandra Sa, Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa and many more. The music is full of those 1980s tropes – synths, drum machines, handclaps and more and some might say its too AOR. Actually, this is music of the highest order – impossible to recommend highly enough. Brazilliance for sure! The album is available 
STR4TA is the result of a joint collaboration between DJ and uber-influencer Gilles Peterson and Bluey Maunick, leader of the band Incognito (who’ve played twice at the Singapore Jazz Festival) and several other Britfunk groups including Light of the World and Freez. The music is straight out of the early 1980s – acid jazz at its best. Cheesy listening or easy listening? Either way, this is just a delight. And – if you like this – then check out their most recent 2023 release which includes 
In 1970 French saxophonist Barney Wilen got together a team of filmmakers, technicians and musicians to travel to Africa so they could record the music of native tribes. The result emerged two years later – a dark mix of sound effects, background chatter, African rhythms and avantgarde jazz. Zombiezar is absolutely the funkiest track on the album which you can 
Neil had been wanting to play Sun Ra at The Analog Vault for ages and he was pleased to track down this two record set of music recorded back to back in 1986 in Milan, Italy with a version of the Arkestra including Marshall Allen and John Gilmore on tenor saxes. At age 98 Allen still leads the Arkestra on worldwide tours, making him the oldest living jazz musician still playing and touring. So what can we say about Sun Ra? Well, first up, he claimed that he is literally not of this earth but was born on the planet Saturn and was sent to earth to promote world peace. His music ranges from wild keyboard solos to works for big bands of over 30 musicians. Also in the mix are electronic sounds, chants and spoken word pieces. Neil was lucky enough to see Sun Ra perform in London around the time this record was created – and what an experience! The full band on stage, female vocalists and a huge array of percussionists with Ra controlling everything with sweeps of his free hand while the other one stabs at his keyboards. The music was wild and unruly – free jazz at its best. Here in the UK, Neil has dozens of Sun Ra albums – and he recorded 100s of them, often privately. For an introduction to Ra you can’t get better than Lanquidity from 1978 and the track 
We’re now into a completely different genre of music but one that’s familiar – reggae. Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry was without doubt the most influential producer on the island of Jamaica and this is his early take on Bob Marley’s Exodus. It’s typical of his work – lots of studio effects, found sound elements and tape manipulation that create a looser (and better) sound that on the more processed Marley version. Perry was one of the first Jamaican producers to create alternative dub versions of songs and even whole albums. For an introduction to music on vinyl from his complete career, this new King Scratch compilation is a great place to start. Then check out classic albums like Super Ape (1976) and the wonderful Arkology 3CD box set from 1997 that’s still available on 
We ended the show with something that’s clearly not jazz – but that’s what we like to do! In French the tune’s title means ‘The boss (shop owner) has gone mad’ – referring to the Super Discount of the title. The tracks on this compilation are credited to different French musicians but there’re all produced by Etienne de Crécy who themed the record Super Discount using one of his own DJ names. The music is essentially a French twist on American house music and became known as ‘The French Touch’ and was really popular in the late 1980-90s. Daft Punk, Air, Cassius and others all came out of this scene. De Crécy released Super Discount in 1998 and it’s a great kind of summary of this influential style: samples, repeated hooks and filter and phaser effects all set in a consistent ‘four on the floor’ beat perfect for the clubs of the times. It still sounds great today!
Our tribute begins with Greetings to Idris from that wonderful Journey to the One album. Idris is, of course, drummer Idris Muhammad who went on to release his own eclectic funk-driven albums. On the reflective Kazuko (Peace Child) he incorporates the Japanese koto, just as McCoy Tyner did on his superb Sahara album. Journey to the One also features Coltrane’s After The Rain in a straight reading much like 
Greetings to Idris is appropriately followed by Morning Prayer from 1971’s Thembi, the fourth of those Impulse! albums and featuring Lonnie Liston Smith on keyboards, Michael White on violin and Roy Haynes on drums. Recorded with two different ensembles, Thembi was a departure from the slowly developing, side-long, mantra-like grooves Pharoah Sanders had been pursuing on his earlier Impulse! albums. The tunes are much more concise but also more diverse too – lots of percussion, a bass solo from Cecil McBee (on the track simply called Love) and 
The first of Neil’s choices and a tune which features Sanders’ distinctive screeching over Sonny Sharrock’s hypnotic guitar line and Henry Grimes’ magical bassline. We featured just the second half of this side-long piece. The tune has been sampled and used in a number of different contexts: the bass line in Herbie Hancock’s 
Wisdom Through Music is one the lesser known Impulse! releases but it features some fine music, including High Life – something of an outlier in the Sanders canon. As the title suggests, High Life is a tribute to the music style of West Africa and Sanders really does emulate the high life style with an stellar band including Joe Bonner on piano, Cecil McBee and several percussionists, including Miles Davis alumni Mtume and Badal Roy. This record and Village of the Pharoahs were reissued by Impulse! on a single CD in 2011 and this ‘two for one’ set is worth looking out for. Village of the Pharoahs is probably the stronger album of the two, but both records (released originally in 1973) have their great moments.
Next up is from one of the best of the Theresa label albums, Shukuru from 1985. We could probably do without the synth choir but Jitu is a sparking tune. Support comes from William Henderson on keys (including the rather dated sounding Kursweil 520), Ray Drummond on bass and Idris Muhammad again on drums – and vocalist Leon Thomas on two tunes. There are a couple of standards from the American songbook here – something Sanders would increasingly include in his later albums. So first up is Sanders’ take on Body and Soul (recorded by Coltrane too) which has a spacious, lush and more conventional sound as does the second Coltrane-influenced tune – Too Young to Go Steady, which appeared on Coltrane’s 
The later, more lyrical Sanders is also featured on a more unusual album – a collaboration with Gnawa master guimbri player Maleem Mahmoud Ghania. Peace in Essaouira begins with an extensive Sanders solo – and it’s a good one. Ghania is heard on lead vocals, tbel (tambourine), and Guimbri, a bass-like, hollow-bodied instrument roughly three feet in length. The body, which can be struck by the musician as the strings are plucked, is covered with camel skin, while the strings are made from goat intestines. The title of the album refers to the fact that in Gnawa trance ceremonies (which can last eight or more hours over one night) the Maleem, or master musician, guides the group through a cycle of invocation of seven spirit states, each of which is characterised by a different colour, rhythm, melody and type of incense. Originally released in 1994 on bassist/ producer Bill Laswell’s Axiom imprint, The Trance Of Seven Colors is a wonderful record – and easy to get hold of now that it’s a recent reissue on vinyl – you can track it down 
It was to be expected that Sanders had something of a cult following in Japan, beginning in 1966 when Coltrane took on his first and only tour of the country leading to the Live in Japan recording from 1973. This included less than half of the two concerts which were only released in their entirety in a 4CD set in 1991. Sanders’ playing here is definitely at the more extreme end of his repertoire! More typical of Sander’s later output is this collaboration with Japanese jazzers Sleep Walker on their album The Voyage from 2006. Led by keyboard player Hajime Yoshizawa, Masato Nakamura on saxes, Tomokazu Sugimoto on bass and Nobuaki Fujii on drums. Sanders appears only on the final title track and is superb – but the album is worth getting hold of for the other tracks too (a couple of which feature vocals from Bémbé Ségué and Yukimi Nagano). There are copies available on Discogs – have a look 
We went back to Pharoah Sanders with John Coltrane for the next choice – from the recently unearthed live version of A Love Supreme, recorded in Seattle at the Penthouse Club in 1965. The music on this unique take on A Love Supreme is pretty extraordinary. The recording places Elvin Jones’ drums front and centre but the additions to Coltrane’s regular quartet (Coltrane, Jones, McCoy Tyner and Jimmy Garrison) of Pharoah Sanders on tenor, alto saxophonist Carlos Ward and a second bassist, Donald ‘Raphael’ Garrett, changes both the sound and the feel of the music. The spiritual fire of A Love Supreme is now added to with the more chaotic, ‘out there’ approach brought largely to the group by Sanders. It’s magnificently executed and – as a record of where Coltrane was heading in his later years – well worth getting hold of.
Next up in this Pharoah Sanders special is a live take on The Creator Has a Master Plan from a 1975 concert in Paris from an album 
First up was a track that sounded like it came from Bali – but actually, it’s from the northwest of England. There’s a guy called Seth Sutton who is a percussionist, producer, instrument builder and painter whose band goes by the name Contours. This track uses the balafon – a wooden block instrument from west Africa – along with some gamelan instruments and Sutton’s homemade percussion. Experimenting with balafons and a gamelan alongside his homemade string and percussive instrumentation, then adding in delay and reverb pedals, resulted in a unique organic sound. The music was all recorded in a local house in Cumbria – a more remote part of the UK up in the far northwest. You might still be able to find a 12in EP or the cassette version on Bandcamp. We wanted a pretty chilled start to the show and this delivered – before we gently faded into some classic jazz-inflected rap…
Now this one might be more familiar – or at least the sample should be. It was also used by Massive Attack on their Blue Lines album – and the sample is from US saxophonist Tom Scott – 
So, still in the 90s for the next tune: Flip Fantasia is from 1992 and a product of the British jazz rap group Us3 – Rahsaan Kelly (doing the rap) and with Geoff Wilkinson and Mel Simpson producing. This is basically a big sample from Herbie Hancock’s 
Now we go deeper into dance mode with a track from 1984. The sound may remind you of the classic 
Still staying with Africa, but also the UK too, as Dele Sosimi is from Hackney, London but he joined Fela Kuti’s Egypt 80 band when he was just 16 – what a crazy responsibility that must have been! He then became musical director for Fela’s son Femi in his band Positive Force. Dele is still based in the UK and has recorded some brilliant records with his own band. This 12in single remix is 
And we faded into a second bit of classic afrobeat from the man who invented it – Tony Allen from Nigeria. There used to be a great African record shop in London called Sterns in the 1980s and this is where I tracked down this great EP. Originally on the label Earthworks (which doesn’t exist anymore either!) but reissued recently. You can now get a 
Ok – this is absolutely one of my favourite club tracks – it never fails! Much played in the 80s in those great New York clubs with DJs like Larry Levan and David Mancuso, I finally found my copy last year in a café in London which was selling a DJ’s collection – it was very lucky to see it in the wild like that. This is classic Latin house and comes from Fania superstar Willie Colon – the trombonist you hear in the music. I actually don’t know who created this 12in version – it says it’s produced by Willie Colon but I think is actually from celebrated NY engineer Bob Blank who created what was called the ‘mutant disco’ scene – left field remixes from artists outside the mainstream. I’m talking about Kid Creole, James Chance and Lizzy Mercier Descloux. You can hear the complete Mambo Nassau album 
Is Ron Trent the godfather of Chicago House? Maybe. I’ve certainly long been a fan of his deep house sound but his new full length album is something of a departure. Guesting on this track is veteran jazz violinist Jean Luc Ponty, following on from the long-awaited release of an amazing track called In the Fast Lane that appeared on a 1989 album called Storytelling. You can still 
Now – we need to introduce this track with some back story. Nearly 50 years ago, jazz trumpeter Miles Davis and his new band rocked up at the Festival Hall in Osaka, Japan and played two all-out, no-holds-barred concerts in one day. Both were recorded by Columbia – known as Sony in Japan. The afternoon gig was released later in 1975 as the double-LP Agharta, with the evening set coming out a year later under the name Pangaea. The album titles are both significant – Agharta was the name given to the mythological city located at the centre of the earth and Pangea the ancient landmass that existed before the five continents we know today existed. It’s appropriate – this is massively primitive music that exists in its own unique space. There had never been music like this before and no one has managed to make anything sound like this since. For many people this is not jazz – they can listen to Kind of Blue but they can’t take this! But for me, this is the Miles that sends a shiver down my spine. At the time of these recordings Davis was in a bad state: a few years before he had broken both his hips in a horrific crash in his Lamborghini Miura and was addicted to both painkilling drugs and cocaine. These were to be the last recordings he made before he retired – and he didn’t play his trumpet again for another five years. But what about the music itself? It sounds chaotic but actually it’s tightly structured by Miles Davis himself who gave silent movement cues to the band or signalled when he wanted a change with chords on his electric organ – those are the stabs of sound you hear before the rhythm picks up again. The music is driven by the drummer Al Foster and the young bass player Michael Henderson, who Davis literally stole (didn’t ask permission at all) from Stevie Wonder’s band. On sax is Sonny Fortune (who had played with McCoy Tyner), on percussion is Mtumé and on spaced out guitars are Pete Cosey and Reggie Lucas. The tune we played on the show is called Prelude – and I played just the first half of it… It’s actually based on the opening guitar riff from the Sly Stone tune 
So who might come close to that Miles Davis sound from the 1970s? Maybe this guy – Norwegian trumpeter Nils Petter Molvaer. This is his best album, released in 1998 on the ECM label – but it’s not very much like many ECM albums! There’s ambient sounds here but also – as on this track – a driving breakbeat-approach with heavy bass too. Soaring above this is Molvaer’s trumpet – very Miles-like here with the Harmon mute on the end to give that wispy sound. The electronic effects here are from a guitarist called Eivind Aarset – another Norwegian – and his own albums are worth looking out for. The album title and beautiful art is important here too – Molvaer is referencing the Khmer civilisation which spread across much of south east Asia for over 600 years and created the remarkable Angkor in what is now northern Cambodia.
This is English remixer and solo performer Kieran Hebden – better known as Four Tet – and he’s been releasing music for nearly 20 years – including work with drummer Steve Reid, Burial and Radiohead front man, Thom Yorke. As a remixer, he’s worked with Madvillain, Beth Orton, Bonobo and The xx. Hebden’s first albums were a great mix of hip hop beats, electronica, folk and jazz. Recommended ito get you started on his music would be the excellent Rounds from 2003. Like DJ Shadow and the Avalanches, Hebden often used hundreds of sample on his records– all beautifully knitted together in his home studio. The key sample on Love Cry is – apparently – Brandy’s Almost Doesn’t Count and the track appears on Four Tet’s excellent 2010 album There Is Love In You. 
And so here’s where we end this dance-oriented set – chill out music from American radio DJ Rick Holmes and vibes hero Roy Ayers. This one of those roll call/name check records – as Hannah noted, like Stevie Wonder’s magnificent Sir Duke (which celebrates Basie, Miller, Satchmo/And king of all, Sir Duke) and, like Prescription, this one really works. Holmes was a Los Angeles DJ on KJLH FM (a station which was actually owned by Stevie Wonder!) but his very smooth voice was soon in demand on records too. Look out for any of the three records he made with alto sax player Cannonball Adderley, including the fantastic Soul of the Bible (1972). Incidentally, only two 12in records were ever released on the Gold Mine label – and they even got the label wrong on this one calling themselves Gold Mink Records…
We start, though, with this amazing reflection on the music of Charlie Parker. It doesn’t directly refer to any of Parker’s music and doesn’t remotely sound like it. Instead, it’s an homage in exactly the same way that 
The new album from McCraven won’t be released until late September this year but here’s a first listen to the track Seventh String from that disc. The Chicago-based percussionist, composer, producer, and self-titled ‘beat scientist’ is a musician we’ve been promoting ever since his International Anthem label debut In The Moment in 2015. There have been six other releases in the meantime and we’ve checked out every one of them here on CJ. Truth be told, some of this music isn’t new. McCraven’s ‘organic beat music’ is studio-crafted from existing recordings and patched together in a way not dissimilar to that of studio pioneer Teo Macero in his post-In a Silent Way work with Miles Davis in the 1970s. But there’s more to it than that: McCraven does what he calls ‘fixing’ the music – editing, looping, pitching, layering, and ultimately producing the tracks. As with previous releases, there’s an A-list of new jazz players involved – Brandee Younger, Joel Ross, Marquis Hill and Jeff Parker among others.
Gabriele Pribetti is a London-based Italian saxophonist who says “I see the music like a coin: the beauty and perfection of tonality on one side, with the chaos and roughness of atonality on the other. I like to exist on the reeded edge.” Pribetti certainly uses both of these approaches on this second EP, released last month. Free jazz and post-tonal sounds mix with both acoustic and synth basses and the clean sounds of the flugelhorn are juxtaposed against the distorted tenor sounds. Alongside Pribetti on this EP are trumpeter/flugelhorn player Graeme Flowers, drummer Joshua ‘McNasty’ McKenzie, Tomasz Bura on piano and keyboards and Michele Montolli on double bass. Check it out 
More brand new music from the edges of jazz. XOA are a quartet from London who have released this 12in record (and teeshirt!) with three tracks recorded live in south London. The band are Josh Arcoleo on saxophones, Sam Crowe on keys, Nick Tyson on bass and Joost Hendrickx on drums. Sam Crowe is the only member with Cosmic Jazz ‘form’ – we featured his excellent debut release Synaesthesia in 2010. XOA are very different though – this is a more glossy, digital keys driven sound rather more akin to another CJ favourite Mark de Clive Lowe. Excellent music – and you can pick this up on Bandcamp for a price that you suggest for the digital. Go out and buy!
Drummer ak Laff (born Paul Madoxx) has played with many contemporary jazz greats including Antony Braxton, Oliver Lake, Geri Allen and Wadada Leo Smith, including on Leo Smith’s extraordinary Ten Freedom Summers 4CD set. This tune comes from one of his few records as leader, the bizarrely-titled House of Spirit: Mirth, re-released in 2011 but originally from 1979 on the Passin’ Thru label. This hypnotic closing track is terrific – an all percussion workout that is just a joyful piece of music, and a reflection of the ‘pulse’ approach that came from his friendship with Ghanaian drummer Mustapha Tettey Addy. akLaff was also mentored by Coltrane drummer Rashied Ali – drum royalty indeed!
Short but very beautiful. Here’s pianist Stanley Cowell with a kalimba-fronted piece that first appeared in piano form on his debut album Blues for the Viet Cong and then in this version on the Musa: Ancestral Streams release on the Strata East label. In 1971, Cowell co-founded the Strata-East label with trumpeter Charles Tolliver and the label would go on to become one of the most successful Black-led, independent labels of its day. Some of these classic Strata-East records have been re-released in recent years – top choices would include Cowell’s Regeneration, Gil Scott-Heron’s Winter in America and Clifford Jordan’s Glass Bead Games.
If the tune sounds familiar that’s because it’s one of Wayne Shorter’s most beautiful compositions. Infant Eyes appeared first on Shorter’s superb 1964 Blue Note album Speak No Evil and has since become something of a modern standard. This version comes from a great digital collection of over 20 Shorter compositions, all recorded by contemporary jazz stars giving their interpretations of Shorter’s unique approach to writing. There’s no hard release for this record but you can pick up the digital version (of course) 
Ron Trent is one of the original house music superstar DJs, having gained his first success with Altered States whilst still in high school. But his new album (released just a few days ago) is nothing like that 13 minute techno jam. Now, over thirty years later, Trent may still be part of the deep house scene but has moved into a new approach to music making with his own keys, samples and – on the new record – a host of live guests, including on this track electric violinist Jean-Luc Ponty. We featured Ponty on our last show and his contribution here is instantly recognisable. Look out for this new record with contributions from Ivan Conti and Alex Malheiros from Azymuth – it’s well worth 
And continuing Derek’s tradition of concluding with music from a different genre here’s reggae singer Candy McKenzie with the excellent Remind Me. Candy McKenzie (1953-2003) was a north west London-based vocalist from a Guyanese family heavily steeped in musicianship . Her father was a jazz bass player – a musical tradition continued by her brothers Bunny and Binky. Candy would marry young in 1970 at the age of 17, but just one year later her brother Binky (who had played with guitarist John McLaughlin on his superb 
First off is some atmosphere – with Neil back from Singapore, it seemed appropriate to kick off with something from Asia and the 108 Gongs group go deep into their Indonesian heritage with this Balinese gamelan extract. Why 108? It’s a holy number in Zen Buddhism and a number of other world religions too – 108 is the number of Tibetan holy books, the number of steps at many Buddhist temples and the number of times a bell is rung in Japanese temples to signal the end of the year – and so on. Despite popular mythology, 108 is not a Fibonacci number – but that’s a whole other story. But what about the band themselves? Unfortunately, the sleeve notes on this excellent compilation reveal nothing…
And on we go – to Scottish saxophonist Brian Molley and his Quartet. This time for their fourth album they have tabla player and percussionist Krishna Kishor in tow – and the results are transformational. The quartet first worked with Chennai-based Kishor while touring India in 2017, performing a headline show together for Madras Jazz Festival and Intercontinental was recorded remotely between Glasgow and Chennai in 2021. Kishor will travel to Scotland for the first time in summer 2022 to perform as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Molley has a great singing tone on tenor and the quarter provide admirable support – Tom Gibbs (piano), Brodie Jarvis (bass) and Stuart Brown (drums) have been with Molley for three albums now and it shows. But the wild card is the addition of Kishor who adds rather more than just another musical layer. Instead, he drives the quartet into different territory as can be heard on Vasudeva’s Invitation which started life as a folk tune from Tamil Nadu. We’ll ease you in with the first track on this recently released album, but expect more in subsequent shows. The album is available (of course) on Bandcamp – check it out 
We’re big fans of another UK saxophonist, Nat Birchall. Once part of Matthew Halsall’s group, Birchall has led his own groups and – like John Surman – has multi-tracked his sax along with percussion, bass, synths and more on several recent releases. This is the third in that format and – bravely – he kicks off this album with his very lyrical take on John Coltrane’s iconic Acknowledgement from A Love Supreme. It’s not exploratory but it is rather beautiful and allows Birchall to overdub both tenor and soprano parts. It all works – and, as if this wasn’t enough, there’s another brand new album just announced. Without the restrictions of Covid, this one is a group performance – look out for Nat Birchall and his Unity Ensemble’s Spiritual Progressions release in August.
In the mid-60s London scene, the NJO was one of those big-band groups that (at some time or other) included almost everyone of note on the English scene at the time. Behind it all was composer Neil Ardley, but included in this lineup are Ian Carr, Barbara Thompson, Jon Hiseman, Trevor Watts and more. With an average age of just 23 this was their first album, recorded in March 1965 before an invited audience in London. At different times the band included 
It’s sometimes difficult to keep track of all the excellent Japanese jazz reissues currently available. Aside from the excellent BBE label Tony Higgins/Mike Peden J Jazz compilations we’ve selected from on previous shows and the individual Jazz Masterclass album releases that have followed these, many others have appeared too – and this is one to definitely look out for. Count Buffalo was led by drummer Akira Ishikawa and featured some notable Japanese jazzers in the lineup, particularly Takeru Muraoka on saxophones. Mago-Uta is also known as Komoro Maga-Uta and is based on a traditional Japanese melody. There’s another very different version of Mago-Uta on an excellent Japanese reissue from Hosan Yamamoto – check it out 
Don Pullen is one of Neil’s favourite pianists, and is both an ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ player – often at the same time. He can play very lyrically and then switch to those multi-tonic Coltrane chords and that unique ‘unzipping’ piano style with its superficial resemblance to Cecil Taylor’s playing. This is a more restrained version of a tune Pullen first recorded at full tilt in a side long piece with Chico Freeman on saxes, Fred Hopkins on bass and Bobby Battle on drums on one of those excellent Black Saint records – 
Neil is indebted to Joss Yerbury at Ballantine Communications for this one – a first western release for music from Port Sudan on Africa’s Red Sea coast and the centre of Beja culture. The music is performed by Noori and his Dorpa Band with the unique tambo-guitar at its heart. Combining a traditional four stringed instrument with the neck of an electric guitar added, Noori’s music has a surprisingly jazzy centre – listen out for the improvisation on this track, Al Awal. The EP is 
Now here’s an under-rated Hammond B3 organist. Brian Auger is now 82 but still involved in music – and listening to Cosmic Jazz! Oblivion Express were formed in 1970, releasing several albums of which Closer To It! is one of the best. Over the years Auger has performed with a huge number of jazz artists – including Ronnie Scott, Tubby Hayes, Frank Foster, John McLaughlin, Tony Williams and Carlos Santana. Closer To It! even contains a 
Now this one brings back memories! Neil first heard In the Fast Lane on a Jez Nelson Jazz FM show sometime in 1989, recorded it from the radio and listened to it often as part of a Somethin’ Else cassette compilation. He was really pleased to see it re-released in late 2021 on vinyl with an Opolopo cover of the tune on the B side. Originally appearing on Ponty’s Storytelling album, In the Fast Lane is a triumph of the then leading edge midi technology with the Synclavier and violin meshing together over a hypnotic offbeat groove. The track was a huge success on UK jazz dancefloors and a perennial hit at the famous Dingwalls nights in Camden, London. Listening to this track you can just see 
Mark de Clive Lowe has a new project – and this is one of two tracks available before the complete 2LP/2CD album is released next month. Recorded live at the now defunct Blue Whale in LA, Freedom is a tribute to Pharoah Sanders with Teodross Avery on saxophones, Dwight Trible on vocals, Corbin Jones on bass, Tommaso Cappelatto on drums and Carlos Niño on percussion. De Clive Lowe is there on keys and subtle electronics, triggering them from behind his array of onstage devices. You could predict the set list – it’s all the Sanders classics including Upper Egypt, Thembi, Astral Traveling and more. We’ll leave you with the words of de Clive Lowe on one of his heroes: We gathered at Los Angeles’ Blue Whale jazz club to perform some of our favorite Pharoah