In this latest show we dived into jazz history, checking out some classic jazz tunes alongside a couple of remixes that show how jazz is moving forward.
- Charlie Parker – Relaxin’ at Camarillo from Charlie Parker on Dial
We began with one of the architects of bebop, the jazz movement that first marked the start of modern jazz. Charlie Parker was the alto saxophonist who broke the mould and took jazz forward and out of the dominant swing era. ‘Bird,’ as he was known, was an intuitive player who who based his improvisations not on the melody but rather a tune’s key chords. An early reliance on heroin and alcohol resulted in a mental breakdown and six months of confinement at the Camarillo State Hospital. Released in January 1947, Parker soon headed back to New York and engaged in some of the most rewarding playing of his career leading a group which featured Miles Davis and Max Roach. Relaxin’ at Camarillo itself was recorded in February 1947 with Howard McGhee on trumpet, Dodo Marmaroso on piano, Wardell Gray on tenor sax, Barney Kessell on guitar, Red Callander on bass and Don Lamond on drums. Parker’s importance? Simply that if he’d not existed, jazz would be very different.
2. Errol Garner – Caravan from Concert By the Sea
Next up is one of the most popular pianists of the 1950-60s, Errol Garner, with a live take on Duke Ellington’s classic tune Caravan. This comes from a celebrated album with a celebrated cover – Concert By the Sea from 1955. Erroll Garner was another intuitive musician – unable to read music but a brilliant virtuoso with a unique sound. Like Oscar Peterson, he demonstrated that you can be both popular and sophisticated and it’s his free-form introductions, the stunning runs and – yes – his grunting while playing with a huge smile across his face that were all part of the Errol Garner magic. There’s a complete 3CD set of the Concert By the Sea that’s well worth getting hold of – you can find it here on Discogs. For another take of Caravan, check out this trio version with Ellington on piano, Charles Mingus on bass and the aftermentioned Max Roach on drums. This comes from an album that should be in everyone’s jazz collection – Duke Ellington’s majestic 1962 trio record for United Artists/Blue Note, Money Jungle. If you can, find the Tone Poets version on vinyl – it has a vastly superior sound compared with either the original issue or the CD. And finally, check out two great concerts on the Jazz Icons Youtube site – guaranteed to bring a smile to your face and an astonished shake of the head at all that virtuosity.
Yes – truly a genius of modern music, pianist Thelonious Monk once said that The piano ain’t got no wrong notes – and then set out to demonstrate that jazz truth. This early album (his first for Blue Note from 1951) is bursting with classic Monk tunes – Round About Midnight, Ruby My Dear, Epistrophy, Misterioso and Well You Needn’t. Of course, it’s an essential record for your collection – and you can get it in a great Blue Note Classics release from 2024. It demonstrates that – right from the off – Monk’s angular twists and turns on the keyboard along with unexpected changes of key and that percussive attack would shape all his future compositions. We’d recommend some of his Columbia collections from the 1960s too – like Solo Monk (1964), Straight, No Chaser (1965) and Underground (1968) – all three are great listening. And we haven’t yet said anything about Monk as a jazz fashion icon – just check out those suits, hats and sunglasses…
The title was long thought to be a reference to the Chicago Transit Authority, but composer Jimmy Heath is recorded as saying that it was simply the initials of a former girlfriend. Whatever, this tune has almost become a jazz standard with recordings by Miles Davis, Lee Morgan and Chick Corea – here’s the Corea version from his 1993 album Paint the World. The Playboys album dates from 1957 and features trumpeter Chet Baker in partnership with alto saxophonist Art Pepper. It sports a notorious album cover that High Hefner didn’t approve of – and not because of the shameless use of his magazine marque, but rather that it was by two of the most noted heroin addicts in jazz. Jimmy Heath is behind much of this album with three compositions – For Minors Only and For Miles and Miles are also included here. It should be noted here that – along with Jackie McLean and Kenny Garrett – Art Pepper is one of Neil’s favourite alto players. His later drug-free years include some excellent records – try Mambo Koyama and the beautiful ballad Patricia from the 1978 album Today.
Tubby Hayes was the crown prince of British tenor sax players in the 1960s and remains a massively underrated jazz musician who was as good as any tenor player of the day. An early death at the age of 38 cut short his recording career but there’s still a good body of work to check out. Unusually, Neil recommends starting with the later albums and working backwards. If your budget can stretch to it, then an admittedly expensive starting point is the Complete Fontana Albums box set – eleven of ‘Tubbs’ best records including two of Neil’s favourites, Down in the Village and Mexican Green. The tune Down in the Village was later recorded in an excellent jazz dance version by Japanese favourites Quasimode – check it out here.
We’re back to 1957 for this unusual Miles Davis version of a Jackie McLean tune, which originally featured on McLean’s debut album from 1955. You can only find it on the 2CD Legacy version of this album – but it’s easy to track down an inexpensive copy here on Discogs. This was the first record Davis recorded for Columbia/CBS and it featured that classic first quintet – Davis on trumpet, John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Red Garland on piano, Paul Chambers on bass and Philly Joe Jones on drums. Listen out for Paul Chambers’ superb bass playing on this one.
Charles Lloyd was one of the most popular jazz musicians on the American west coast scene in the 1960s and this tune comes from his first album for Atlantic, recorded in 1966. It includes the ambitious reworking of Autumn Leaves into a sequence bookended by two Lloyd compositions, Autumn Prelude and Autumn Echo. Here Lloyd has a stellar band – Keith Jarrett on piano, Cecil McBee on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums. Dream Weaver was followed in 1967 by Forest Flower: Live at Monterey, a wildly successful album that became one of the first million-sellers in jazz and catapulted Lloyd to international fame. Neil s a long-time Lloyd fan and has almost all of records on either vinyl or CD, including all those late iconic ECM releases. Now recording again with Blue Note, Lloyd is just released his latest album – Figure in Blue, a tribute to Duke Ellington. You can hear Defiant, Tender Warrior on the Blue Note website right here.
And now onto those promised remixes. Bird Up is a 2003 album of Parker remixes and – as is often the way with these things – something of a mixed bag. It’s unlikely to feature in any future Penguin Jazz Guide but this take on Relaxin’ at Camarillo is a great twist on the original – probably because it features the great M’Shell Ndegeocello on bass, along with programming by Chris Dave (sometime drummer for Robert Glasper) and Hammond B3 from Ray Angry (most recently on a great project called Plumb with David Murray). Relaxin’ (thinks Neil) is the standout tune on this Hal Winer project but elsewhere Hubert Laws, Ravi Coltrane and Dr. John are can be found contributing to these radical reinterpretations. Ndegeocello was born in West Berlin but raised in Washington DC and played in the city’s go-go bands in the late 1980s before diversifying into a wide range of different genres. Now on Blue Note, her last two albums (The Omnichord Real Book and No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin) are well worth exploring. Apparently, her surname means free like a bird in Swahili…
The Blue Note Revisited project from 2004 is a rather more successful take on the jazz remix album. It has a host of big names hard at work trying to update the jazz experience for Generation Y (and everyone else) – LA Funk Mob, Kenny Dope, DJ Spinna, Jazzanova and 4 Hero to name just a few of those involved. As a result, it works – with Japanese remix royalty Kyoto Jazz Massive’s treatment of Kudu being a notable success. Brothers Shuya and Yoshihiro Okino, both DJs and remixers in Kyoto, have a good track record in reworking this kind of material: their 2021 album Message From a New Dawn included the excellent Revolution Evolution.
We were saddened to hear of the death in August of Latin piano supremo Eddie Palmieri, a musician who exemplified a progressive approach to the Latin genre but whose exploration was always firmly rooted in its tradition. Massively influned by jazz, it was trombonist Barry Rogers who would introduce Palmieri to the work of the then Coltrane pianist McCoy Tyner whose use of block chords became a signature of Palmieri’s own sound. He experimented by employing a jazz aesthetic both in live performance and on his recordings, based on the Cuban descarga (or jam session) concept. Arrangements were opened up with band members as soloists and Palmieri began incorporating a newly developed post-Castro revolution Cuban rhythm known as mozambique. Palmieri went on to create two versions of his hugely influential band La Perfecta, recording the classic Vamonos Pa’l Monte in 1971 – one of Neil’s favourites. In 2005, Palmieri teamed up with longtime trumpeter and band member Brian Lynch to record Simpático. The album has an all star lineup including Phil Woods, Lila Downs, Donald Harrison, Conrad Herwig, Robby Ameen and more. In 2007 it won a Grammy as the best Latin Jazz recording.Neil is listening to…
- Sonny Rollins – Softly, As In a Morning Sunrise
- Carmen McRae – Satin Doll
- Kahil El’Zabar – Trane in Mind
- Lettuce – Rising to the Top
- Eddie Palmieri – Vámonos pa’l Monte
- John Coltrane – Olé
- Da Lata – Pra Manha
- Miles Davis – Rubberband (feat. Ledisi)
- Arvo Pärt – Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten
- Ezra Collective – God Gave Me Feet for Dancing (Tasty or Not Extended Remix)
So let’s get to the music. First up is drummer Hideo Shiraki from his album Plays Bossa Nova from 1962 and from the influential King Records. You can hear how heavily he is influenced by hard bop and particularly Horace Silver (indeed, he gigged with Silver while on a US visit) and – like drummer Art Blakey – he was quick to recognise and reward homegrown talent. So great Japanese jazz musicians like Terumasa Hino, Akira Miyazawa, Jiro Inagaki and more all found their feet with Shiraki and contributed to many of his big selling albums. If you can find it, …Plays Bossa Nova is a terrific record, but this tune also appears on Volume 3 of the superb J Jazz series of records – and we’ll come back to this series throughout this show.
Bassist Yoshio Ikeda is from Osaka but moved to Tokyo and became part of the progressive jazz scene there in 1964. Sketch of My Life from 1978 is another King Records album and features two pianists – Aki Takase and Ichiko Hashimoto (who also contributes vocals to Whispering Weeds) alongside Terumasa Hino’s drummer brother Motohiko Hino. As noted in the comprehensive liner notes on the excellent Spiritual Jazz compilation, Ikeda’s musical philosophy was that a person’s music should be a natural reflection of themselves and their experience – my music is comprised of the state of being natural and what comes out from my daily life.
This extended 15 minute track does indeed feature ex-Coltrane bassist Reggie Workman alongside Takao Uematsu on tenor sax, Hideo Ichikawa on piano and Fender Rhodes, Kiyoshi Sugimoto on guitar, Motohiko Hino on drums and Terumasa Hino on trumpet and flugelhorn. You can find it on the vinyl version of the first J Jazz – Deep Modern Jazz from Japan compilations, issued on the BBE label in 2018. All of the currently four compilations are superb, with the extensive liner notes by the great Tony Higgins and including lots of information about the Japanese jazz scene and the musicians involved. If you are just starting out on your discovery of Japanese Jazz then these are the place to begin. Several of the original albums have been released on the BBE label and are worth checking out with many of them available in all formats vinyl, CD and download.
Saxophonist Akira Miyazawa was known for his deep love of fishing, and here he gives a masterful performance that conjures the image of fish reflecting light through the water of a mountain stream – or that’s certainly what the cover image suggests… Yamame is the Japanese name for a kind of freshwater salmon and was recorded in 1962. It may have been Miyazawa’s first album but Neil thinks it has a surprising modernity. Supporting Miyazawa here is the great saxophonist Sadao Watanabe – one of the most important musicians on the J jazz scene. He was something of a smooth jazz icon in later years, but see if you can track down the superb 1970 album Road Trip recorded with Chick Corea, Jack DeJohnette and Miroslav Vitous which features Watanabe on flute and soprano sax. Also 
Here we go with another excellent tune from the second J Jazz collection but also an album that is readily available on vinyl 
We’ve long been fans of pianist Fumio Itabashi here on Cosmic Jazz and have featured his version of Watarase (see below) several times over the years. This time though, we’re showcasing his album Red Apple, released in Japan only in 1986. A This is a great session on which Itabashi rounds out his trio with guest alto sax and guitar on a few of the cuts, creating a more soulful groove to the set. There’s a great version of Sam Rivers’ classic Beatrice along with a bunch of Itabashi originals.
Shigeharu Mukai is one of the leading jazz trombonists in Japan. He’s recorded extensively with local and international musicians including Astrud Gilberto, Elvin Jones and pianist Yosuke Yamashita. The 15 minute epic Toppu is a relentless jazz fusion assault featuring saxophonists Tomoki Takahashi and Hidefumi Toki, drummer Kenichi Kameyama and bassist Mitsuaki Furuno along with keyboard work by Toshiyuki Daitoku. For My Little Bird is another recommended Japanese release (from 1975) and you can find copies 
Watarase – once heard, never forgotten. There are many versions of this traditional Japanese folk tune with perhaps the most famous interpretations by Fumio Itabashi. Discogs still has available the 
Now this should be one of your top choices from the new reissue programme. Now 82 years old, tenor saxophonist Harper is much less well known that he should be. He’s got a muscular tone on the horn and, while he frequently draws on his blues and gospel roots, there’s a free jazz sense of complex harmonies and Henderson-like breadth of out-there sounds too. In the early ’60s, Harper studied jazz at North Texas State University, where he became (at that time) the only African-American member of the school’s prestigious One O’Clock Lab Band. Inevitably, he moved to New York where he began a long-lasting association with bandleader/arranger Gil Evans. His 1975 album Black Saint was the first recording issued by the label of the same name and his 1979 live in Europe album launched the Soul Note label. Capra Black was his debut record and is a gem. Harper is accompanied by a septet which includes trombonists Julian Priester and Dick Griffin, ex-Coltrane bassist Reggie Workman and drummers Billy Cobham and Warren Smith (augmented on occasion by Elvin Jones). The closing Cry Of Hunger is dedicated to the black-consciousness movement’s demands for social change and is one of the many highlights of this superb record.
Clifford Jordan’s two volumes of sessions under the title Glass Bead Games have long been heralded as some of the most important work of his career. Neil bought the Japanese P-Vine 2LP reissue a few years ago but this essential album will certainly be one of the highlights of the full Strata-East reissue programme. The record features pianist Stanley Cowell, bassist Bill Lee (father of film director Spike Lee), and drummer Billy Higgins. Lee’s composition, John Coltrane is perhaps the best known and includes a vocal chant by Jordan, Higgins and Lee that’s almost as memorable as Coltrane’s own one for A Love Supreme. There are actually two separate quartets on the record, with the second one featuring Cedar Walton on piano and Sam Jones on bass. The complete 2LP record is one of Strata-East’s masterpiece records and deserves to be in any jazz collection.
An unusual record in the Strata-East pantheon, Musa: Ancestral Streams is a solo piano set that’s nonetheless full of the spiritual soulfulness that characterises so many of the label’s records. Equipoise went on to be recorded in many other versions – including ones by Cowell himself. It’s a beautifully delicate tune which lends itself to reinterpretation – as Max Roach (on the classic Members, Don’t Get Weary), Jack DeJohnette, Roy Haynes and Jerry Gonzales discovered. But how about 
In the 1970s, the three Heath brothers, Jimmy on saxes, Percy on bass and younger sibling Albert on drums formed a band with Stanley Cowell on piano. Marchin’ On (1975) was their first record and it’s still one of the strongest. The brothers work together superbly, unsurprisingly. There is a lot of great playing from all four, and especially from Jimmy Heath who is as undemonstratively masterful on flutes as he is on saxes. Equally important, he was an unusually gifted composer, as here, with the four part Smiling Billy Suite which takes up the whole of the second side. Part 2 has been sampled by artists like Dr. Dre, Q-Tip/Nas, Amy Winehouse, The Beatnuts and more. Why? Because it’s one of the most infectious grooves you’ll come across on a Strata-East record, thanks to that combination of the kalimba (or thumb piano) and bass.
Orbits, the second LP from New Zealand/Aotearoa group The Circling Sun, channels the cosmic energy of 1970s spiritual jazz, filtered through synths, layered percussion, and an eight piece choir of Maori and Pacific Island singers. They’re part of a very healthy Auckland jazz scene and this new album (which will be out next month) references an even broader palette than their first record, Spirits, which we also featured on CJ. The Circling Sun are a collective and the personnel on this album includes Cameron Allen on tenor and alto saxes, John Bell on cornet & tenor horn, Guy Harrison on synths, Julien Dyne on drums and percussion – along with a whole bunch of people on horns.
Fellow Creatures is the first new venture for bassist Jasper Høiby since his formation of Phronesis in 2005 and the new Edition release We Must Fight reimagines some of his tunes from that first Phronesis group. There are new arrangement of several Phronesis tunes by saxophonist, composer and arranger, Alex Hitchcock. Featuring a richly textured group including oud player Saied Silbak, flautist Ketija Ringa Karahona, pianist Xavi Torres, and drummer Luca Caruso, bringing voices from London, Palestine, and Spain to join Høiby’s Norwegian background. We Must Fight is an album that recognises the importance of the collective voice and is a kind of musical call to action. The Mojo review notes that Hoiby fashions his pieces so the lines between freedom and form are beautifully blurred, the music flows as a tumultuous organic whole – everything belongs, nothing is forced. Take a listen and see what you think.
This a great new jazz release from Scotland – and it fully deserves a wider audience. Featuring New York-based vibes virtuoso Joe Locke, leading saxophonist Tommy Smith and Johnstone’s Scottish National Jazz Orchestra rhythm section colleague, Alyn Cosker on drums, the quartet formed in 2023. Pianist and Hammond B3 player Peter Johnstone has toured internationally with vocalist Kurt Elling and Vienna-based American saxophonist Andy Middleton and has also worked with guitarists Jim Mullen, Rob Luft and Nigel Price as well as appearing extensively with the SNJO. I wanted to give Joe, Tommy and Alyn music that they would find interesting to play and that would allow them to open up and express themselves within each piece’s form, says Johnstone. The album opens with the lively title track but there’s a wide range in the eight original Johnstone compositions and this is an album we shall return to in future shows. Johnstone noted that I could hear organ and vibes in my imagination as soon as Joe agreed to be in the band. There aren’t too many examples of that instrumental combination that I can think of but the recordings Bobby Hutcherson did with Joey DeFrancesco really excited me and the idea of these instruments combined with the musical personalities involved in the quartet was inspiring. 
Another brand new album, this time headed up by multi-instrumentalist Felipe Sena, a Brazilian-Canadian whose upbringing across the two countries has inspired a jazz album rooted in Brazilian rhythms with a touch of psychedelia. Sena grew up in São Paulo and started playing the guitar at the age of 10 before playing in bands in the underground punk scene but after moving to Toronto, he focused back on Brazilian music. Big influences were my parents, says Sena. We’d do road trips listening to Clube da Esquina and Som Imaginário. My dad’s classic records were from the 70s and it continues to be some of my favourite stuff and a great foundation to explore more things. We think that’s a pretty good place to start.
Hagar’s Song comes from saxophonist Charles Lloyd’s long tenure with ECM Records but unusually it features more standards than Lloyd originals. He’s joined by Jason Moran, who’s been a key part of Lloyd’s quartet since 2007. The title piece is a five-part suite dedicated to the memory of Lloyd’s great-great grandmother, who spent most of her life as a slave. Its various sections reflect the harshness of that life, as well as moments of hope and determination. Lloyd has always celebrated his deep love of jazz and pop traditions, and there are signs of this everywhere here. Billy Strayhorn’s Pretty Girl and Gershwin’s Bess You Is My Woman Now are good examples. We’ve chosen the closing track, a very delicate reading of the late Brian Wilson’s God Only Knows – and it’s just beautiful. Lloyd quotes the refrain and then takes the lyric line, perhaps reflecting on his own time touring with the Beach Boys in the 1960s. Lloyd and Moran have an an almost symbiotic relationship here and on much of their music together – most notably on one of Neil and Derek’s favourite pieces of jazz, the 
Of course it’s a classic Blue Note album but Song for my Father (1965) is not just about that title track. It’s one of the label’s greatest hard bop dates and perhaps the best of Silver’s many superb records. Silver manages to balance jumping rhythms and complex harmonies alongside showing off his penchant for rhythms and modes from around the world. Maybe because of his own Cape Verde background, there’s bossa nova on Song for My Father, an Indian inflection on Calcutta Cutie and the vaguely Caribbean riffs on Que Pasa. Joe Henderson is on tenor on part of the album and he contributes one of his own near-standards, The Kicker. This is a gold standard jazz album and should be in anyone’s collection. If you want great sound on vinyl, your best bet is the BN Classics edition from 2021, mastered by Kevin Gray on silent 180g vinyl. And, yes, the guy on the cover is Silver’s father, John Tavares Silver.
1965 was indeed a stellar year for Blue Note records. The label had been consistently releasing great jazz albums since 1939 but in the 1960s the label found a new breed of musicians who blended bebop and hard bop styles with new freedom and outward looking perspectives. Alongside albums by the label’s established artists Lee Morgan, Dexter Gordon, Horace Silver and Jackie McLean, 1965 saw the releases of classic albums that pointed a new way forward. Classics like Herbie Hancock’s Maiden Voyage, Bobby Hutcherson’s Components, Sam Rivers’ Contours, Tony Williams’ Spring, Andrew Hill’s Compulsion and Don Cherry’s Complete Communion. Among them, there’s one release that’s often forgotten – and that’s Basra, the sole Blue Note album as a leader by drummer Pete La Roca. Steve Swallow is on bass with Steve Kuhn on piano and the ballad Lazy Afternoon features the mighty Joe Henderson on tenor. Something about this restrained performance reminded Neil of another quiet masterpiece featuring British saxophonist Bobby Wellins – time to hear it again.
This must surely be some of the most evocative tenor sax playing in all of jazz. It’s impossible not to like There’s a wonderful piece in Richard Williams’ ever-interesting blog 
And here we are with our final Blue Note classic from 1965 – but it’s not as well recognised as other great Shorter records from the mid 1960s like Speak No Evil and The All Seeing Eye. Maybe because Shorter released six albums between April 1964 and October 1965, it was possible that Blue Note just couldn’t keep up with him. And Shorter was also busy in 1965 with Miles Davis recording ESP, the first of the Second Great Quintet records on Columbia Records. Etcetera closes with its longest cut, the modal-flavored Indian Song, with its mesmeric loping groove in 5/4 time. Cecil McBee’s repeated ostinato bass motif establishes the mood and tempo before Chambers and Hancock enter, followed by Shorter, whose snaking Eastern-tinged melody is followed by a typically exploratory tenor solo that sporadically keeps returning to the main theme. The rhythm beneath him ebbs and flows, mirroring the rise and fall of intensity in Shorter’s improvisations. Hancock takes the second solo, his foraging piano underpinned by excellent drum work from Chambers, while McBee keeps plucking the same bassline until, at around the nine-minute mark, he solos, roaming more freely before resuming the main groove that prompts a recap of the main theme. A small masterpiece.
Neil heard this recently on a radio show and thought it sounded familiar. It actually appears on the excellent Freedom Jazz France compilation from Heavenly Sweetness Records which we’ve featured before on Cosmic Jazz. There’s music from Stella Levitt, Eddy Louiss and American expat Noah Howard elsewhere on the record but this short track has its charms. Behind the band Les Prospection (literally) is veteran French drummer, pianist, singer and vibes player Bernard Lubat who has worked with literally hundreds of European and US musicians over the years including Dexter Gordon, Jean-luc Ponty, Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach and many more.
The Spiritual Jazz compilation series continues to grow – and the latest is due out later this month. Here’s a great little tune from the latest – and it’s all music from behind what was the Iron Curtain. Halb Sirp (translated as Bad Sickle) comes from Estonian band Collage and appeared on their 1975 album Kadriko. The group was formed by Ravio Dikson who recruited students from the Talinn conservatory and school of music, and the name Collage reflects the varied repertoire of jazz, pop, classical and the Estonian folk tradition. Estonia’s geographical position on the edge of the then Soviet Union enabled musicians to watch the diverse musical content of Finnish TV and listen to the wide range of accessible radio stations with more varied playlists than their Estonian counterparts. As you can hear on Halb Sirp, all these influences are reflected in the music. Look out for this latest excellent compilation when it becomes available.
Like other musicians we have featured recently on Cosmic Jazz, Russia-born alto sax player Amelchenko moved to Berlin before relocating to Paris where she is part of the thriving French jazz scene. Her debut album as a bandleader, Shaping Motions, emerged in 2018, followed by Live at Loft in 2021 and Slaying the Dream in March 2023. Now signed to UK label Edition Records, she says: Joining the label feels like a significant achievement in itself, but more importantly, it feels like becoming part of a supportive and inspiring community. Navigating the jazz world alone is challenging, and having a team of people who care about you and your music instills a great sense of confidence. Neil really likes this first Edition release which in addition to Amelchenko’s regular quartet features guest guitarist Matthew Stevens. Howling Silence comes out in July 2025 – but you can check out earlier releases 
This is different. London-based Snowpoet are Lauren Kinsella (vocals), Chris Hyson and Matt Robinson (piano and keyboards), Josh Arcoleo (electric bass) and Dave Hamblett (drums). Kinsella’s pristine vocals float above the music and – as the Jazzwise review notes – the standout track Our World sound[s] like something J Dilla might have cooked up on his beloved MPC 3000, call-and-response synth lines, a bass so deep it’s on the verge of human audibility, and Kinsella’s crystalline voice, all building to a lush, reverb-soaked coda. Heart-warming, uplifting and touching in equal measure. That pretty much sums up how Neil feels about this album – and the cover art is blissful too.
Experience and Judgment, recorded in 1974, is the record that cemented Bey’s reputation as a singer who could be compared with Jon Hendricks, Johnny Hartman and – in more recent times – Dwight Trible. But Bey was not only a singer – he composed much of this album including Tune Up, Hibiscus and our choice, Celestial Blues – also recorded in another version with Gary Bartz. His carefully modulated, compelling vocals with that finely controlled vibrato and long held notes have both dignity as well as power. And he’s supported by a terrific funk band that’s anchored by bassist Wilbur Bascomb, drummer Buddy Williams and keys player Bill Fischer.
Neil saw veteran Brazilian trio Azymuth on their European tour last month (see image above) – and was not disappointed. The original trio of Jose Roberto Bertrami (keyboards/vocals), Alex Malheiros (bass/guitars/vocals), and Ivan Conti (drums/percussion/vocals) were together for nearly 40 years before Bertrami died in 2006 and, more recently, Conti in 2023. Remarkably, they continue with new keyboard player Kiko Continentino joining in 2015, and the latest 2023 recruit, drummer Renato Massa who also features, along with Malheiros, on Marcos Valle’s latest record Túnel Acústico. Despite an early keyboard stand collapse, Azymuth delivered an inspired set with Continentino recreating all the synth sounds that have been part of the band since their first recordings in the 1970s. So what is it that makes their often understated music so joyful? There’s a remarkably successful balance between jazz, funk, and pop, blended with subtle samba rhythms. An early (and pre-Far Out label) record like 1982’s Telecommunication contains much of what makes the band unique – smooth, airy keyboard melodies and funky basslines blended with Brazilian rhythms, all of which combine to create an immersive world of music that varies from contemplative to danceable. We chose Os Cara Lá, a great uptempo jazz-funk tune from their 2020 release Butterfly, an album that’s one of the best of recent albums by the group and does include an inspired cover of Herbie Hancock’s classic Butterfly. The new Azymuth album, Marca Passo is out now. Catch them live if you can.
While in Pokhara, Neil and Anup had a far-ranging musical discussion which moved from Coltrane to John McLaughlin’s Shakti and many jazz points in between. It was great to have a conversation about spirituality in music with someone who has a fully spiritual life – and to see the development of a meditation centre that will mix silence and sound in equal measure. It seemed appropriate, then, to begin with some of his meditative gong music, recorded on location in front of Macchapuchare or Fishtail, the most sacred mountain of this region. You can find a full length version of this 
We followed that with a track which comes from a musician often regarded as Indian but who was, in fact, Nepali – indeed, Neil met a couple of his students while in Kathmandu. We’re talking about Louis(z) Banks (or Dambar Bahadur Budaprithi) who was born in Calcutta to Nepalese parents and who went on to become known as the ‘Godfather of Indian Jazz’. Song for My Lady appears on the Spiritual Jazz compilation subtitled The World and was recorded in 1978. It originally appeared on the album Explorations: Recorded Live at Calcutta on which the back cover notes state: Louis Banks, Pan Crain and Braz Gonsalves are undoubtedly the best Indian jazz musicians in the country today and when they draw the classical and folk roots of their own country, the sound is original and adds a further dimension to this international music. All three maestros [have performed] in their respective fields for over two decades now and their power of innovation is unique and their creativity exemplary. I’d love a copy of this album but with the 
Speak like a Child (1968) is one of Hancock’s great Blue Note albums. It came after the success of Maiden Voyage from 1965 and while Hancock was deeply involved in Miles Davis’ second great quintet. It feels like he has assimilated both the experiments of that amazing quintet but also Gil Evans’ work with Davis. The brass lineup is really unusual – Thad Jones on flügelhorn, Peter Phillips on bass trombone and Jerry Dodgion’s alto flute – and, along with the rhythm section of bassist Ron Carter and drummer Mickey Roker, there’s a lightness of touch to the whole album. Hancock too is on fine form – graceful and lyrical throughout. Unusually for Blue Note records, the evocative cover image is not by Reid Miles or Francis Wolff but is a photo by David Blythewood, a friend of Hancock who loved the innocence of the image. The Blue Note Classic series reissue will be available later this month – and it should be a must-have in your vinyl collection. And Hancock has a significant birthday to celebrate too – he was 85 on 12 April.
Naïssam Jalal’s tenth album should be in your record store at the end of May. B
Neil has an extensive SunRa collection on vinyl and CD but when he heard about this one it was a must-buy on vinyl. These previously unreleased recordings come from 1986 for the very first time and – even by Sun Ra’s standards – showcase something unique. Created by the technological innovator and rocket scientist, Bill Sebastian during the mid-1970s, the 
Another great recent reissue. There’s been a recent resurgence in interest in another Godfather – this time of the Hammond B3 organ – that’s led to the reissue on vinyl and CD of a bunch of his best records. And perhaps the cream of the crop is this album from 1973, featuring Auger’s takes on Compared to What and Inner City Blues along with his own compositions. There’s a 6LP box and 6CD box called Complete Oblivion that brings together all the Oblivion Express records from the 1970s and includes jazz guitarist Jim Mullen and drummers Robbie McIntosh and Steve Ferrone. You can listen to 
After hearing this on Gilles Peterson’s BBC R6 Saturday show Neil just had to include this infectious slice of UK reggae. When drummer Sam Hobbs and bassist Neil Innes decided to make The Return of the Flying Hats they were building on twenty years of playing together: Innes’s years of nightclub residencies and love of Afro-American dance music, and Hobbs’s intensive exploration of the links between American soul and R&B, Jamaican rocksteady and roots, and the music of the wider Caribbean from Cuba to Trinidad and Brazil. Organist Bob Birch and guitarist Chris Dawkins were the other crucial elements – Birch started out as a jazz Hammond player in the bluesy McGriff/McDuff mould before discovering the more exotic colours of Art Neville and Jackie Mittoo, and Dawkins has been a session guitarist for the cream of British reggae and rock for a generation. The music occupies a space somewhere between The Aggrovators and The Meters, classic New Orleans funk recorded in Kingston, Jackie Mittoo meets I Roy. You get the idea and – if this wasn’t good enough – there are rumours of some dub cuts on the way too.
There’s a new Jazzanova live in the studio record on the way – and you can listen to 
And this is the big one. World Line is 15 minutes of Japanese jazz magnificence from pianist Masaru Imada. Born in 1932, Imada formed his own band in 1964 and went on to release albums in various settings from solo piano, duo and trio records. He recorded three albums for the iconic Three Blind Mice label but also featured on several other labels over the years. His range is huge – from standards to jazz fusion, as on the superb Green Caterpillar record from 1975. If you see any of his over 40 recordings each will be worth buying. His 1981 Carnival album features Michael and Randy Brecker and the follow-up Seaside (1982) includes Grover Washington Jr. and these tend to be more widely available. Ascent was recorded live in Tokyo in 1974 with Ichiro Mimori on soprano sax and Tesuo Fushimi on trumpet (what solos!) and they’re joined by bassist Isoo Fukui and drummer Tetsujiro Ohara on this superb record. Of course – if you can find a good copy – it’s highly recommended.
Pianist Sultan Stevenson, a rising talent in the UK and European jazz scenes, releases his first record for Edition at the end of March – but you can listen to the opening track right here. El Roi is Hebrew for the biblical God of Sight and so links together faith and perception. The title binds together these two themes well. ‘God’ refers to faith, and ‘sight’ refers to how one is seen and how you perceive the world around you, Stevenson explains. The album includes trio performances with Jacob Gryb on bass and Joel Waters on drums, along with guests Josh Short on trumpet and flugelhorn, and Soweto Kinch on tenor sax. Find out more via 
Movements of Air is the fifth album from Daniel Herskedal’s acclaimed trio, featuring Eyolf Dale on piano and Helge Andreas Norbakken on drums and percussion. It’s his tenth release with Edition Records and links to his foundational trio debut, Slow Eastbound Train. Herskedal’s tuba is deployed here to create a series of emotionally resonant soundscapes, often with unusual harmonies and textures. We’ve played tracks from several of his previous releases here on Cosmic Jazz and all have that layering of tuba and bass trumpet that creates (dare we say it) typically cinematic, icy Scandinavian jazz.
At the heart of this show is an extended piece – Reminicent Suite by American pianist Mal Waldron and Japanese trumpeter Terumasa Hino. Originally released in 1973 on the famed Victor label and was one of several Japan-only albums recorded and released by Waldron over a thirty-year period, most of which have never been available outside Japan. The album has just two extended tracks, both taking up a side each of the original LP. Mal Waldron started out in the early 1950s working extensively on the Prestige label with notable figures such as Gene Ammons, Jackie McLean and Charles Mingus but he left the US in the mid-60s, relocating to Europe where he established himself as a major figure working across many countries including France, Italy, and Germany. Terumasa Hino is one of the most important figures of post-war modern jazz in Japan. In the 1970s he began to explore a more open, freer sound, mixing psychedelic and rock elements with freeform and post-bop jazz and in the early 80s his jazz funk tracks were dancefloor smashes on the UK jazz dance scene – try 
Two tunes now from Scottish promoter Rob Adams – the first a really unique and ambitious project from a group called Playtime. They began ten years ago as a weekly session where four of Scotland’s most-established jazz musicians – saxophonist Martin Kershaw, guitarist Graeme Stephen, bassist Mario Caribe and drummer Tom Bancroft – tried out new music and new ideas together. During Covid their sessions continued via Zoom, and now included a bunch of high profile guests too – trumpeters Laura Jurd and Byron Wallen, Japanese piano-trumpet duo Satoko Fujii and Natsuki Tamura, and Dutch cellist Ernst Reijseger. Our choice features UK vibes player Corey Mwamba but the whole album is a hugely impressive set of collaborations and is well worth investigating. Access the music 
New signing to Dublin-based Livia Records is the label’s first new contemporary release in nearly 40 years so this is something of an occasion. The Irish tenor saxophonist Michael Buckley (who has played with The Mingus Big Band and Septet, saxophonists Dave Liebman and Lee Konitz, guitarists Kurt Rosenwinkel and John Abercrombie, pianists Jason Moran and Jason Rebello, drummers Joey Baron and Lewis Nash) is backed here by Greg Felton on piano, Barry Donohue on bass and Shane O’Donovan on drums. Thanks again to Rob Adams for this one – and what a great find!
We’ve featured Edition Records’ SRC several times in previous shows and the new St Valentine’s Day single release The New Way is a collaboration with Manchester-based vocalist Caoilfhionn Rose. Noted for their trip hop electronica influenced jazz, SRC are following up their 2024 Silver Shadow record with a different kind of soundscape. Layers of piano and synths from label founder Dave Stapleton and guitar from Stuart McCallum support the live drums of Elliott Bennett before some lyrical sax from Nicholas Kummert ends the tune. Available from 
Avant-garde American musician, composer, guitarist and producer Rafiq Bhatia has just released a new EP created in collaboration with pianist Chris Pattishall. Each Dream, A Melting Door sees Bhatia and Pattishall improvise across five tracks to create environments of sound that unfurl like a short film – perhaps not surprising given that Bhatia’s previous work was co-scoring 2023’s Academy Award-winning Best Picture Everything Everywhere All At Once with his bandmates in Son Lux, where they earned Oscar and BAFTA nominations for their innovative score. Check out this new EP 
After the beat-tape jazz focus of his debut album Facing, Hamburg drummer Silvan Strauss decided to refocus on the rhythms and roots of playing with a core acoustic jazz setup – whilst still deploying various guests pairing UK hip hop, electronica, neo-soul and Moroccan gnawa with more conventional jazz expression. The result is his second album Flukin’ which sees him here with Ezra Collective’s Joe Armon-Jones on the tune Sky. Strauss says It’s not so much me being on the laptop producing, it’s more interplay, more improvising. My drumming felt more free. I search for those moments of interaction, not always the real flashy moments, but the ones where the flukes become really lucid and strong. Alongside Strauss on drums and electronics are Giorgi Kiknadze on acoustic bass and Adrian Hanack on sax and clarinet but the result still isn’t a straightahead jazz album – intriguing… Thanks to promoter Duncan at Ballantyne Communications for this one.
We have played this tune on the show previously – way back in February 2009 and soon after its release. Saxophonist and flautist Finn Peters had long immersed himself in dance, hip hop, Afro-Cuban, electronica and contemporary classical musics, before returning to his jazz roots with the excellent Su-Ling album in 2006. The follow-up Butterflies album featured pretty much the same quintet as Su-Ling but added (in a very subtle way) strings, a Balinese gamelan ensemble, kora, synths, a few choruses of birdsong and some inventive sound processing. The result was a jazz album – of sorts. There’s an emphasis on composition, and the birdsong elements inevitably remind us of Hermeto Pascoal from Brazil or the contemporary classical sounds of Olivier Messiaen – yes, it’s that kind of record. Guitarist Dave Okumu, pianist Nick Ramm and Peters himself – mostly on flute – solo around some beautifully subtle rhythms. Butterflies is based on the traditional Balinese tune Butterfly and includes elements of gamelan. Significantly, the producer here is eclectic composer, remixer and band leader Matthew Herbert whose own albums have often included sounds from all kinds of sources – including on Plat de Jour, the food industry… For a, er, taste of the music try 
Recorda Me is one of Neil’s favourite Joe Henderson compositions, and he’s here on this record with Tyner on piano, Ron Carter on bass and Al Foster on drums – what a quartet! This was recorded in 1991, some 28 years after Tyner and Henderson first recorded together on Henderson’s debut Blue Note record Page One in 1963. This record is an no-overdubbing all-tube amplification recording on the Chesky label – and it shows in the highly detailed sound. There’s a mix of standards and originals including Cole Porter’s What is This Thing Called Love? and Victor Young’s Beautiful Love. This is not Tyner at his most fiery or Henderson at his most squally but it’s great to hear this quartet together. Sadly not available on vinyl but you might be able to track down the CD.
I think we all thought that there would never be another Alice Coltrane record after Transfiguration, recorded in in 1978. But – some 26 years later – Coltrane released what was to be her last album, Translinear Light. Coltrane’s son, saxophonist and composer Ravi, produced the record and plays saxophone on 5 of the 11 tracks. The rest of the band is pretty star-studded: Charlie Haden and James Genus appear on bass and Jack DeJohnette and Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts are on drums. Alice Coltrane plays her signature Wurlitzer organ and piano. There’s real beauty on this record – the traditional 
The spiritual vibe is continued with this powerful slice of Japanese jazz, courtesy of the Jazzman label’s Spiritual Jazz series. Their 8th collection was a 4LP/2CD release and one of the highlights of this ongoing series. Tachibana was a rare record, even by Japanese standards. Initially, a private pressing by jazz enthusiast Yojiro Tachibana who wanted to make a recording in the venue he owned. As the excellent liner notes tell us, the band was three students – leader and pianist Tohru Aizawa was studying medicine at graduate school, while drummer Tetsuya Morimura and bassist Kohzo Watanabe were studying law. Saxophonist Kyoichiro Morimura (Tetsuo’s brother) was a teacher. The resulting music is surprisingly accomplished and a testimony to the adventurous jazz spirit of these four musicians. The Tachibana record was subsequently reissued on the BBE label in 2018 – you can find it 
Neil’s selection ends with another tune played back in 2009, the lyrical II (Suspended Variations) from Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stańko. Stańko, who died in 2018, began working with this trio some ten years before the release of Suspended Night in 2004. Pianist Marcin Wasilewski went on to record several great records for the ECM label but he’s here at his most Bill Evans/Keith Jarrett-like supporting Slawomir Kurkiewicz on bass and Michal Miskiewicz on drums. There are ten Suspended Variations on the album, each of which offers their own inventive charms but – for Neil – the standout is the rhythmically compelling Variation II. This is a highly recommended record and – if you don’t know the work of Tomasz Stańko – a great place to start.
Neil recognised that a tune from this album was played on the show in May 2013. The record has, sadly, probably gathered dust on Derek’s shelf ever since. This is undeserving and so it’s long overdue a revival. Steve Turre is a player of the trombone and seashells (see below), born to Mexican-American parents but brought up in the San Francisco area. He’s played with some significant people in the jazz and Latin worlds, they include: Ray Charles, Art Blakey, Dizzie Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Tito Puente, Mongo Santamaria, Pharaoh Sanders, Max Roach, Horace Silver and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Phew! It was the latter who introduced him to seashells as an instrument and this 2004 album is made up of Kirk numbers except for one Turre original (One for Kirk). In the liner notes Turre writes that every time he played with Rahsaan he made the audience FEEL something and that Rahsaan’s spirit is alive. He’s still touching people through his music, and it still stands up. That observation still stands today. The musicians here include Vincent Herring, Dave Valentin, Mulgrew Miller and Buster Williams.
The African diaspora though the Americas is an area of great interest and concern to Grammy award-winning Puerto Rico-born saxophonist David Sanchez and this is reflected in the title of this selected tune Africa Y Las Americas. Like Steve Turre, he has worked with an impressive list of musicians from the jazz and Latin worlds and this 1995 album includes: the late Roy Hargrove on trumpet, Danilo Perez on piano, Larry Grenadier on bass, Adam Cruz on drums, Milton Cardona and Jerry Gonzales on percussion. It is more jazz than Latin but a Latin sensibility is infused throughout. The sleeve notes refer to Sanchez playing straight ahead jazz but here he’s chosen to employ a more indigenous style – the folk element of his country. Africa Y Las Americas begins with prominent, but subtle, percussion to underpin the track but there’s also Sanchez and Roy Hargrove merging and inter-changing their sounds. Music of its time, but still relevant today.
This album brings forth a number of surprises. To find saxophonist Davis Murray, with a reputation for the progressive and even the avant-garde, playing the songs of Nat King Cole may not be what you expect. To learn that Nat King Cole, who did not speak Spanish, recorded all these numbers is perhaps even more surprising. For Derek, to find this album on his shelves was also something of a surprise – but what is life without surprises? The tunes are taken from two albums that Nat King Cole recorded on 1958 and 1962 in Spanish and Portuguese. Cole had a huge following in South and Central America and his friend and manager Carlos Gastel suggested that to make such recordings was a way to acknowledge that audience. David Murray is clearly another Cole admirer as this album, released in 2011, testifies. He assembled a group of top Cuban musicians and in 2010 he recorded the tracks with this band in Buenos Aires, adding tango vocalist Daniel Melingo. Two months later he went to Portugal to add strings. This track (quizás meaning maybe or perhaps) was composed by Cuban songwriter Osvaldo Farrés in the 1940s and includes the husky, after-hours voice of Daniel Melingo, who went to Spain to score films for Pedro Almodovar and returned to Argentina in the late 1990s, to promote tango. Many of our listeners may know the tune as Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps – recorded by many including Doris Day and Gregory Porter.
Derek is almost ashamed that he has not played music by the late Michael Brecker for some time. The BBC Radio 3 jazz profile describes him as the most influential saxophonist in the post-Coltrane tradition – a view few would disagree with. He played with a variety of people and in a variety of styles from hard bop with Horace Silver to fusion with Billy Cobham and Steps Ahead, to pop/rock with James Taylor and the Brecker Brothers Band with trumpeter brother Randy Brecker. Their band was more likely to be played on a soul rather than jazz show and heard on the dance floor rather than in a jazz club. We are, however, pleased to report that we have squeezed one time, a tune of theirs into a Cosmic Jazz show. Like many of Derek’s selections this time there is more than a hint of Latin rhythms in the tune El Niño, written by pianist Joey Calderazzo. You can also find Don Alias on percussion providing some Latin textures and (again) Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts on drums. A great tune, with great artists – and something more that needs to be re-visited.
Derek has two albums by pianist Rodney Kendrick. They both deserve greater exposure. The Randy Weston tune Gnawa in Paris is on this 1993 Verve recording and reiterates so much that has been found in Derek’s selections and is what he certainly loves. We have here a leader who comes from a family of musicians, who has played with musicians from different styles – Abbey Lincoln, James Brown, George Clinton, Harold Melvin, Clark Terry, Frank Morgan, Stanley Turrentine, Freddie Hubbard, George Benson and more. There is a statement of the African American diaspora, there is a solid dose of percussion (three percussionists in fact on this track – Chi Sharpe, Aeron Walker and Big Black) providing a festival of rhythm. But above all there is memorable, inspiring, improvised music. Rodney Kendrick takes a pounding lead on piano, Graham Haynes is on forceful and uplifting cornet, Houston Person on tenor saxophone, there is Tarus Mateen on bass along with those three percussionists. Derek has got the message – search through those shelves a bit more…
More from Phil Bancroft whom we featured on CJ in May in a duo with tabla player Gyan Singh. Bancroft has been rethinking his music in recent years and this record from his new Beautiful Storm trio is a good example of where he’s currently heading. Bancroft is on tenor saxophone and effects and is joined by long-time associate Graeme Stephen on guitar and the aforementioned Delhi-based Gyan Singh on tabla. Across this really imaginative album, the musicians explore a range of rhythmic and harmonic cycles, their improvisation-led approach amounting to far more than the simple cross-pollination of Indian classical music, post-bop jazz and evocative Celtic-inflected melodies that the group’s line-up might initially suggest. The opening tune Finding Hope Part II is actually an edit of the last six minutes of Finding Hope (When There Seems None), a long-arc free improvisation heard in full at the end of the set. While the complete version charts the linear process of the artists wrestling with uncertainty as they search for inspiration, the edit focuses on the moment of breakthrough. Playing with a steely clarity and sense of inner peace reminiscent of Pharaoh Sanders’ Harvest Time, Bancroft sees the narrative of this record as symbolic of his own recent journey. Highly recommended and available on Bancroft’s website 
Neil has long been a fan of the US group Resavoir and this live track comes from a live studio session that you can see 
Spirit Fall, the new Edition Records album from bass player John Patitucci, draws inspiration from the rich tradition of New York trio music, echoing the innovative spirit of legends such as Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, and John Coltrane – but here with Chris Potter on saxes and Brian Blade on drums. Deluge on Seventh Avenue captures the essence of a memorable week performing at the Vanguard amidst heavy rains. Across the record, Patitucci deploys his six string electric bass to enrich the harmonic texture, allowing the bass to both lead and support, This trio is a true reflection of my journey as a bandleader, says Patitucci. It’s about distilling the influences of the greats I’ve played with – like Chick Corea, Wayne Shorter, and Herbie Hancock—into something very personal.
Guitarist, producer, composer and arranger Greg Sanders has been involved with numerous world, jazz and fusion groups that formed at London’s SOAS University from 2008 and then explored afrobeat, latin and live hip hop in a range of different bands. He created the jazz/world ensemble Teotima, releasing two critically acclaimed LPs on First Word Records. The first of these, had a huge range – arrangements that were reminiscent of David Axelrod, Arthur Verocai-like grooves along with evocative vocals from Ellie Rose Rusbridge and praise came from DJs like the BBC’s Gilles Peterson and Jazz FM’s Mike Chadwick. The new album Perfect Strangers will be out later this month and features Greg Sanders on guitar, Sam Ripley on tenor sax, Tom Herbert (from The Invisible and Polar Bear) on bass and Ben Brown on drums, with Cuban trumpeter Yelfris Valdés guesting on one track. Recommended – and, btw, – Lophae is pronounced ‘lo-fi’.
This is an interesting one – Ryan Kerberle and his group Catharsis have been around for over ten years and, as Kerberle has acknowledged, has allowed us the unbelievably rare opportunity to form a shared musical language and deep level of musical trust that I am incredibly grateful for. As on previous albums, Keberle contributes all piano/keyboard parts and some vocals too as the band explores nuances of modern jazz/singer songwriter terrain, with a distinct influence of MPB (or M
MOMO. released his 8th album Gira on Batov Records and brings together musicians and guests from London’s thriving jazz community, recorded and cut to tape at East London’s Total Refreshment Center. Gira was recorded with guests likely familiar to CJ listeners, including Alabaster DePlume on tenor sax, Jessica Lauren on keys, Tamar Osborn on baritone sax and Nick ‘Emanative’ Woodmansey on drums. Born in Rio de Janeiro, MOMO. now calls London his home, where he lives with his young family, and whose creative spirit has inspired him for the last three years. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the new album marks a real departure. Recorded live in October 2024 at Total Refreshment Centre – a creative hub that is also a concert space, artist workshop and studio – the title of the record means ‘to move’. It made sense to start with the grooves, the patterns, then start filling in the melodies, MOMO. explained. So drummer Emanative, along with co-founder of Penya, percussionist Magnus Mehta, and fellow Brazilian immigrant and bassist Caetano Malta, worked together to anchor the resulting grooves, while other contributors add additional interest. Rosie Turton’s brash, brittle trombone embellishes Summer Interlude and the first single, Jão. Dance influences are all over this record beginning with the album opener Pára which features Jessica Lauren’s keyboard vamp and Tamar Osborn’s resonant baritone sax.
We’re back to Scotland for this last track with the Brian Molley Quartet and his new record Journeys, recorded with the Asin Langa Ensemble which will be released in February. There’s a mix of original material and Rajasthani folk songs , including the single release Kama which features the vocals and sarangi playing of Asin Langa. The record is a co-production with the Rajasthan International Folk Festival (RIFF) in Jodhpur, India and was recorded in a custom built desert studio in the heart of Western Rajasthan. Molley’s quartet blends perfectly with the traditional instruments of the Rajasthani artists fuses 
We’re starting off with Charles Lloyd and 
Up next is a new album from Edition Records – one of many from this UK label that we featured over the year. Finnish pianist Alex Tuomarila released the ambitious Departing the Wasteland from which we chose 
Brazilian guitarist Fabiano do Nascimento and L.A. soprano saxophonist Sam Gendel collaborated on a genuinely charming duo album just called The Room, where they seem to just coil themselves around seeming to just coil themselves beautiful melodies. There’s no effects, no percussion and no grandstanding – just two musicians weaving magic in a way that recalls the work of Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell and – to a lesser extent – the deftness of Stan Getz. Gendel is on the soprano horn throughout and so the music has a lightness of touch that perfectly complements Nascimento’s seven string guitar. Try 
Cloudward is the latest release from from guitarist Mary Halvorson and her Amaryllis Sextet. Derek saw the group live in Amsterdam where they performed music from this great new record. On the tune 
We loved Still Blunted, the new album from Hungary’s Jazzbois – just check out 
Their last album Where I’m Meant To Be really delivered – and then Ezra Collective went on to be the first (and perhaps only) jazz act to win the 2023 Mercury Music Prize. Right from the beginning, we’ve promoted them 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 was by far the best thing they’d done – until now. In addition to Yazmin Lacey, the new LP titled Dance, No One is Watching also features collaborations with Olivia Dean, M.anifest, and Moonchild Sanelly. 
Laíz is a new star in the making. Born in the 
Yellowtail feat. Mark Murphy and Seasons In My Mind (Emanative rework feat. Jessica Lauren) is from the EP Seasons in My Mind (Remixes) comes from Milan’s Right Tempo label and is a delight from start to finish. A version of this tune first appeared on the label’s compilation album The Congregation – Jazz Alliance International with Mark Murphy on vocals in an ‘unreleased’ Patchworks remix. Thankfully this version of the tune is also included along with six others in a limited edition 12in EP that emerged a few months ago. It’s on Bandcamp 
Perceive Its Beauty, Acknowledge Its Grace was the 2024 release from Shabaka (now first name only). Shabaka Hutching has been associated with the tenor saxophone since his earliest days in jazz but a surprise announcement in 2023 revealed that he would be taking an indefinite hiatus from the tenor and focus on a range of different flutes. The reason for this volte face was explored in an excellent 
We’ve always loved Vijay Iyer‘s trio records. whether on the ACT or ECM labels – and his 2024 album Compassion didn’t disappoint. He’s often chosen to tackle tunes from outside the jazz genre and this time he has a go at Stevie Wonder’s 
There’s always been great jazz music from Japan and you can find some of the best of this on the excellent J Jazz anthologies from BBE Records, which we’ve consistently promoted since the arrival of Volume 1 in 2018. These compilations are all due to the crate digging of Tony Higgins along with his vinyl companion Mike Peden. We’re now on J Jazz Volume 4, but this Aki Takase tune featured on the previous collection. This year it was time for a re-release of the complete1981 Song for Hope album from pianist Aki Takase – and we chose the superb title tune 
French guitarist Franck Balloffet and Southern California-bred keyboardist-percussionist Phil Bunch are the fusion duo Tea. Their third release Grand Cru from 2018 had several influences including jazz and soul and featured ‘the godfather of Acid Jazz’ Brian Auger on Hammond B3. After producing Auger’s solo album Language of the Heart, Tea continued the collaboration with Grand Cru but really nothing there comes close to