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Makaya McCraven: Cross Border Traffic
by Chris May
Like his near contemporaries Shabaka Hutchings, Kamasi Washington, Nubya Garcia and Robert Glasper, the Chicago-based drummer, bandleader, producer and self-declared beat scientist Makaya McCraven is routinely described by the more breathless commentators writing about modern music as a “saviour" of jazz. Certainly, McCraven and his peers are enriching jazz by their embrace of other ...
Muse Records: Ten Smoking Hot Albums
by Chris May
Alone among the other great jazz labels of the 1960s and 1970s—Blue Note, Prestige, Riverside, Impulse!, Strata-East and Atlantic—Joe Fields' Muse is rarely anthologised, written about or otherwise celebrated. Yet like its peers, Muse was prolific, releasing over 200 premium-grade albums during the 1970s, its most active decade, alone. This relative obscurity is ...
Alan Wakeman: The Octet Broadcasts 1969 and 1979
by Chris May
Despite a perception fostered by the more breathless media coverage given to the young lions who have emerged on the London scene since the mid 2010s, an identifiably British strand of jazz did not kick off when Shabaka Hutchings' Sons Of Kemet released its debut album in 2013. The groundwork was laid back in the 1950s ...
Nubya Garcia: Source
by Chris May
Tenor saxophonist and composer Nubya Garcia's first full-length album has been a long time coming—but the wait has been worth it. Source is a cracker and more than fulfills the weighty expectations that built up in anticipation of its arrival. It was back in 2017 that Garcia debuted with the EP Nubya's 5ive (Jazz ...
Fela Ransome Kuti & His Highlife Rakers: Fela's First
by Chris May
Lost recordings released for the first time! First, the back story.... In 1958, aged 19, Fela Kuti left the highlife scene in Lagos, Nigeria, where he was on the first steps of a career as a trumpeter, and travelled to London. His mother hoped he would enrol in medical school, as his late father ...
Blue Note Records: Lost In Space: 20 Overlooked Classic Albums
by Chris May
For anyone with a passion for Blue Note, it is hard to conceive of an album that has been “overlooked," let alone twenty of them. For connoisseurs of the most influential label in jazz history, the passion can be all consuming: if a dedicated collector does not have all the albums (yet), he or she will ...
Harry Beckett: Joy Unlimited
by Chris May
The Barbados-born trumpeter Harry Beckett moved to Britain when he was 19. His first known recording session came in 1961 alongside Charles Mingus. This happened during the London sessions for the Tubby Hayes album All Night Long (Fontana, 1962), which was chronicled in the 2020 All About Jazz article Jazz & Film: An Alternative Top 20 ...
Makaya McCraven: Universal Beings E&F Sides
by Chris May
Universal Beings E&F Sides is an addendum to drummer and producer Makaya McCraven's paradigm-shifting underground hit Universal Beings (International Anthem, 2018). That album was a double (four sides: A, B, C and D). The new album is a single (two sides: E and F). Geddit? Most, but not all, of the tracks on ...
Various Artists: Soul Love Now: The Black Fire Records Story 1975-1993
by Chris May
The significance of this superb compilation is summed up by a fuzzy b&w photo inside the twenty-eight page accompanying booklet. It shows Oneness Of Juju gathered round a twenty-foot replica of the Statue of Liberty in their hometown, Richmond, Virginia in 1976. You can just make out the expressions of optimism and, yes, patriotism on the ...
Emma-Jean Thackray: Um Yang
by Chris May
Right now, in summer 2020, using new and recent releases as the yardstick, the two most exciting musicians on London's alternative jazz scene are trumpeters. One is Laura Jurd, whose recent To The Earth (Edition) is a high-water mark for her electro-acoustic band, Dinosaur. The other is Emma-Jean Thackray, whose EP Um Yang is also remarkable. ...
