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Abdissa Assefa
Nicola Conte: Umoja
by Chris May
Nicola Conte continues on his journey from acid-jazz bohemian to spiritual-jazz sophisticate with this immaculately hip album, fronted on half of its tracks by London-based soul-jazz divas Zara McFarlane and Bridgette Amofah. Conte began his trajectory with the acid-jazz template Jet Sounds (Schema, 2000), boosted it with Jet Sounds Revisited (Schema, 2002) and, after a brief post-hard-bop detour with Other Directions (Blue Note, 2004), began the spiritual-jazz ascent which has in 2023 reached its new, lofty apogee with ...
Continue ReadingNicola Conte & Gianluca Petrella: People Need People
by Chris May
For over twenty years, the Italian producer, composer and guitarist Nicola Conte has pursued a resolutely independent path in jazz and jazz-related music. The Schema label, with whom he has almost exclusively partnered since his breakthrough album, 2000's acid-jazz masterpiece Jet Sounds, is based in the fashion-centric northern city of Milan. But Conte nearly always records at Sorisso Studio in his hometown, Bari, a seaport on the heel of Italy's boot on the country's southern Adriatic coast. This off-the-beaten-track location ...
Continue ReadingThe Invisible Session: Echoes Of Africa
by Chris May
It is surely no coincidence that the Ishtar family of labels— tagline “Modern Sounds from Italy"—is based in Milan, that most stylish and go-ahead of Italian cities. New imprint Space Echo's launch release is The Invisible Session's sophomore album, Echoes Of Africa, and it slots right into Ishtar's sophisticated aesthetic, which exists at the intersection of jazz, funk, lounge and music from Africa and the African diaspora. The ensemble's first album, The Invisible Session (2006), came out ...
Continue ReadingThe Five Corners Quintet: Chasin' The Jazz Gone By
by Budd Kopman
Chasin' The Jazz Gone By is the product of producer Tuomas Kallio, who wanted to recreate, using both analog and digital equipment, the sound and the visceral coolness of jazz from the 1950s and 1960s, which means the Blue Note sound of hard bop. And make no mistake, this record is very, very cool, deeply enjoyable in an almost time-warp way. The Five Corners Quintet actually exists in two forms, live and recorded. The live group routinely ...
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