The Topics - Giving Up The Topics 'Giving Up' is an almost impossible to find the original super rare mid 70's harmony Soul LP issued on the NY TSG label.'Giving Up' is a great version of the Donny Hathaway song with strings and horns and superb male harmony vocals, taken at a slightly faster tempo than Donny's take on this great song. 'God And You' is a lovely mid tempo floater/stepper with both male and female vocals. 'At Last It's Over' and 'Moving Down The Line' are good upper mid tempo Philly-esq shufflers whilst 'You've Got The Power' is a semi...
Milton Wright, the brother of Betty Wright was a singer, songwriter and producer in the Miami Soul scene in the late 60s and 70s. He recorded his seminal album Friends and Buddies in 1975 for the Alston label. The Album includes his magical all time great rare groove cut 'Keep It Up' which has a very unique synth sound. 'The Silence That You Keep' is a percussive upper-mid tempo song that has more of a Miami sound to it. 'Po Man' has an a incessant beat and some nice guitar riffs from Milton. 'Get No Lovin Tonight' is another uptempo...
Tom Grant’s 1978 Timeless release Mystified sees an uncharacteristic reissue from Music on Vinyl on white coloured vinyl, an album that was recorded on the same date, with the same players and during the same session as Mahavishnu Orchestra bassist Rick Laird’s album Soft Focus. Both albums, produced by Joe Henderson and featuring covers of his songs, even share the same black and red album artwork. The album is a dyed in wool jazz fusion album, featuring pungent and abrasive musicality and serious chops. This reissue is a limited release on the 45th anniversary of the original release date, limited...
Soul On Top is the 28th studio album by James Brown, released originally in April 1970 on King. Led by Brown and Maceo Parker, this album marks an unusually jazzy release for James Brown that delves into orchestral territories, projecting a bold and luscious big band jazz sound. The release exhibits a different side to James Brown, shunning his trademark repetitive funk for more detailed and larger arrangements, conducted and arranged by Oliver Nelson with Louie Belson’s 18-piece jazz orchestra. Brown’s piercing voice and deeply soulful register is accented by the ornate detail of the musical backing. That’s My...
Carter Jefferson – The Rise of Atlantis (LP Only) Music On Vinyl Carter Jefferson’s 1979 album sees a very welcome reissue, limited to 1000 copies on green coloured vinyl. This original Timeless album was the only release from the American tenor saxophonist who first made a name for himself as a member of Woody Shaw’s working quintet. Shaw also produces the album, a magnificent example of late seventies jazz fusion performed by an extremely gifted group of musicians: Steve Thornton on percussion, Terumasa Hino and Shunzu Ono on trumpet and flugel, Victor Lewis on drums, both Harry Whitaker and John...
Cymande were a London (Balham) based West Indian band who made it big in America with this debut album from 1972. They had their own unique sound ‘Nyah Rock’, a mixture of cultures and sounds from the Caribbean and US soul and funk music. ‘The Message’ and ‘Bra’ were amazing big Funky dancefloor hits which have been sampled many times since and still sound as fresh and dynamic today as they did on the dancefloor back in the day. The Instrumental ‘Dove ’is 11 mins of beauty, a mix of blues, funk, jazz and West Indian sounds that culminate in...
David Janeway's 1986 independent Detroit release Entry Point is a bold offering of fusion jazz, flitting between Latin, modal and spiritual themes. Featuring desirable cameos from the likes of Bob Berg, Steve Berrios and Marcus Belgrave, the album comprises 7 tracks, 6 of which are original Janeway compositions. After having an initial view to reissue the record, we contacted David a few weeks ago to propose this to him. He responded fairly quickly and mentioned that he still had original sealed copies of the record in question, which currently goes for around 90-100 pounds in private jazz collectors circles,...
Mulatu Astatke’s genre bending 1972 album Mulatu of Ethiopia on Worthy Records sees a worthy repress on the Strut label. Mulatu Astatke comes to us from Ethiopia via the UK, where he studied at the Royal Academy of Music, after which he went to Berklee School of Music in Boston studying percussion and jazz. During his studies, Mulatu would regularly travel to New York and frequent jazz clubs in the big apple from the Cheetah, a famous Puerto-Rican and Dominican Latin-jazz club on Broadway, The Palladium and the Village Gate, immersing himself in the vanguard sounds of the day....
Bobby Hutcherson’s dazzling output on Blue Note records continued well into the 1970’s, a decade from which the latest Blue Note classic vinyl series selection has been chosen: San Francisco. The album is a unique one in Hutcherson’s catalogue in that it has an overt soulfulness which grasps the listener instantly. This isn’t to say that Hutcherson didn’t have a soulful sound prior, but it isn’t until this release that we hear Hutcherson in a more unambiguously “soulful” context, helped along the way by a strong and musically diverse personnel of Harold Land on tenor, the Jazz Crusaders’ very own...
A compilation of Webster Lewis’ Epic years works from 1976-1981, featuring an exclusive 12-page booklet written by Will Fox with insights from legendary jazz DJ Patrick Forge. Featuring the anthems Barbara Ann and El Bobo and rare unreleased takes Japanese Umbrella and Boston. Jazz-funk, disco, fusion and soul sounds from lesser known American producer, arranger and keys player Webster Lewis. “Emblematic of the period where major labels had money to throw at productions helmed by session men, analogue studios were a sign of the times and high-quality musicians were in unfettered supply: such is Webster Lewis’ music. Luscious, well-produced and...
