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Hailu Mergia: Lala Belu
by Chris May
Mulatu Astatke is by a long chalk the most widely known exponent of Ethio-Jazz. Propelled on to the world stage by the soundtrack of Jim Jarmusch's 2005 movie, Broken Flowers, and subsequently picked up by record labels and festival bookers in Europe and the US, Astatke deserves all the acclaim that comes his way. But, curiously, ...
Sun Ra: Exotica
by Chris May
Spring 2018 is delivering a welcome batch of Sun Ra reissues, some of them remastered editions of existing albums, others newly put-together compilations. Among the compilations, two stand out: the previously reviewed Sun Ra Plays Gershwin (Enterplanetary Records, 2017) and now Exotica. Both are mellifluous beauties which showcase Ra's unapologetic love of a good tune. Listeners ...
Various Artists: J Jazz: Deep Modern Jazz From Japan 1969 - 1984
by Chris May
There is a lovely anecdote in Charlie Laurie's introduction to The Blue Note Years: The Jazz Photography Of Francis Wolff (Rizzoli, 1995). Describing the first Blue Note Festival at the foot of Japan's Mount Fuji in 1986, Laurie wrote: “Where else but in Japan can one see a field packed with fifteen thousand teens and twentysomethings ...
Sun Ra: Sun Ra Plays Gershwin
by Chris May
Here is a treat for all lovers of the Great American Songbook. Well, maybe not quite all, for the confluence of names in the album title Sun Ra Plays Gershwin may sound ill-matched to Ra's detractors. But that would be to ignore Ra's love of good tunes and his sure touch when it came to arranging ...
Leeroy: Fela Is The Future
by Chris May
Giving DJs license to reassemble recordings made by the auteurs of an earlier generation is a risky business. The remix of Miles Davis's “In A Silent Way" on Sony's 1999 album Panthalassa: The Remixes, for instance, moved one of the authors of the Penguin Guide To Jazz Recordings to write: “DJ Cam should be horsewhipped." Which ...
Seun Kuti & Egypt 80: Black Times
by Chris May
Seun Kuti's fourth album fronting Egypt 80, the all-conquering Afrobeat band he inherited from his father, Fela Kuti, marks the end of an era--and also supports the maxim that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Black Times is the first album released by Egypt 80 not to feature saxophonist and ...
Jon Hassell: Dream Theory In Malaya: Fourth World Volume Two
by Chris May
Three decades and more after the last vinyl reissue of trumpeter Jon Hassell's landmark album, back in 1987, Britain's Glitterbeat label has released a remastered edition of the LP, which is also available on CD. The new edition includes a previously unreleased three-minute bonus track from the recording sessions. Dream Theory In Malaya, first ...
Various Artists: We Out Here
by Chris May
This vivid snapshot of young London's jazz scene, featuring nine bands and a collective pool of 35 musicians, contains close to an hour of daring and uplifting music--from rebooted spiritual-jazz through abstract experimentation to Afrobeat-flavoured dancefloor urgency, a rich mix further enlivened by shots of grime, hip hop and funk. It was recorded over three days ...
Sons of Kemet: Your Queen Is A Reptile
by Chris May
It is appropriate that this, British-based Sons of Kemet's third album, should be released under the Impulse banner. During its heyday, Impulse was the home of John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders and as such was the chief platform for the cosmic/spiritual jazz movement of the 1960s and 1970s and that movement's demand for white-majority ...
Yazz Ahmed: La Saboteuse
by Chris May
If Miles Davis was alive today and in the studio recording Bitches Brew, the results might, just might, resemble parts of London-based Yazz Ahmed's La Saboteuse. Other approximate reference points are, during the more reflective moments, Jon Hassell and Brian Eno's Dream Theory In Malaya: Fourth World Volume 2 and Davis's In A Silent Way. But ...
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