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The Brighton Beat at The Peekskill Brewery
by Mike Jurkovic
The Brighton Beat Peekskill Brewery Peekskill, NY August 26, 2023 Seemingly never at a loss for a full bore groove or a reason to shake the dust up on the dance floor, the Brighton Beat--a full tilt band of eleven: five horns, two guitars, bass, drums, and two percussionists--took this riverside ...
Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids: Afro Futuristic Dreams
by Chris May
Idris Ackamoor paints on a big canvas, in vivid colours. Listening to the 2023 episode of his multi-decade Afrofuturist odyssey, there are times when he and The Pyramids stir memories of Fela Kuti's Afrika 70 and Egypt 80 bands. At other times, it is Sun Ra's Arkestra. Next up could be an unplugged Funkadelic. And there ...
Irreversible Entanglements: Protect Your Light
by Chris May
If ever there was a band which screamed to be taken up by Impulse! (or Strata-East back in the day), it is the semi-free agit-jazz quintet Irreversible Entanglements. Now, after three albums with the on-song but tiny International Anthem label, it has happened and, hopefully, greater exposure and recognition will follow. IE came ...
Ash Walker: Astronaught
by Chris May
London DJ Ash Walker came to attention in 2019 with Aquamarine (Night Time Stories), a butterlicious mix of jazz, blues, soul, funk and dub reggae that was beyond categorisation. Astronaught is the follow-up, cut from the same cloth. Like its predecessor, it is by no stretch of the imagination a “jazz" album, however ...
Dele Sosimi & Friends At Ronnie Scott's Club
by Chris May
Dele Sosimi & Friends Ronnie Scott's Club London June 11, 2023 Born in London but brought up in Lagos, keyboard player Dele Sosimi was a child prodigy who joined Fela Kuti's Egypt 80 the moment he left secondary school in 1979. Sosimi had by that time been rehearsing with Egypt ...
Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra: 60 Years
by Chris May
The 2 x LP 60 Years celebrates the history of the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra (PAPA), which was founded by the pianist, composer and community activist Horace Tapscott in South Central Los Angeles in 1961, and directed by him until he passed in 1999. The release, albeit of archive material, also reminds us that the Arkestra ...
Neil Ardley & Ian Carr: Authoritative Studies Of Paradigm Shifting British Musicians
by Chris May
Not-for-profit label Jazz In Britain is best known for carefully curated releases of historically important recordings made by British musicians in the 1960s and 1970s, most of them previously unavailable and sourced either from the musicians' own tape archives or those of BBC Radio. But from time to time, the label also publishes books.
Fela Kuti: Coffin For Head Of State
by Chris May
From the late 1970s onward, Fela's lyrics became longer, more complex and ever more confrontational. Coffin For Head Of State, first released on Kalakuta in 1981, is an outstanding example. It is one of several albums on which Fela responded to the Nigerian army's destruction of his Kalakuta Republic compound on 18 February 1977, and focuses ...
Fela Kuti: Yellow Fever
by Chris May
Yellow Fever was originally released in 1976 on Decca's West African imprint, Afrodisia, and both its tracks were hugely controversial in Nigeria. The title track is one of Fela's greatest masterpieces. Sung in Broken English, the language Fela adopted in order to make his words understood beyond Yoruba speakers, the lyrics rail against women's use of ...
Michael Blake: Afro Blake
by Ludovico Granvassu
Africa seems to have been a special source of inspiration for Michael Blake, as compositions like “Addis Abeba" (Elevated), “Malagasy" (Combobulate), “Mauritania" (Buzz), “Road to Lusaka" (In the Grand Scheme of Things), “Africa Used to Be Home" (More Like Us) or “Surfing Sahara" (Elevated ) attest. They are all characterized by memorable themes and an instantly ...
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