A reissue of Lonnie Liston Smith’s only live album, recorded in 1977 at Smucker’s Cabaret in Brooklyn and produced by Bob Thiele It features Lonnie alongside his brother Donald in the wake of the success of ‘Expansions’, with a line-up completed by Dave Hubbard, Al Anderson, Ronald Dean Miller, Hollywood Barker and Michael Carvin. The album shows an intense sense of musicianship which mixes up a few tracks from previous records, including a cooking version of ‘Expansions’ and a beautiful take on both Phases of ‘Visions Of A New World’, as well as three numbers exclusive to this recording. Released...
Check out the newest 45s that we have from Outta Sight, both full centre DJ copies and standard dinked copies available in store and online. Some other great releases in recently on Deptford Northern Soul Club, Ace / BGP and Dynamite Cuts. Have a scroll through and check out the titles that we have on offer. Check out our previous Focus on 45's feature by clicking through HERE Happy Diggin', Laurence
A curious happenstance in 1966 triggered the partnership between MPS head Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer and George Duke. Brunner-Schwer was in San Francisco to record the Art van Damme Quintet. After finishing the recording session one evening, he and his team strolled over to a club called the Jazz Workshop. Les McCann was supposed to be playing, but this particular day was his day off. Instead, a 20 year old pianist, still involved in his studies, was performing with his quartet. The music’s freshness so enthralled the German that he set up a recording session on the spot. This encounter between George Duke and Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer in sunny California was both accidental...
Myele Manzanza Crisis & Opportunity Volume 2 - A Uniquely Rhythmical and Genre-Defying Experience Soul Brother Records' Will Fox surveys the latest Myele Manzanza Album on Deepmatter Records Myele Manzanza, New Zealand born drummer and son of Congolese percussion master Sam Manzanza, returns with another thrilling edition of the Crisis and Opportunity series on Deepmatter Records, volume two out of five. Featuring a predominantly New-Zealand / Antipodean cast of players—Manzanza on drums and percussion, Ashton Sellers on guitar, Aron Ottignon on piano, synths and vocoder, Matt Dal Din on bass and Lewis Moody on synthesisers—the album was...
London saxophonist Sean Khan has recorded possibly his finest album to date, a tribute to his mentor and inspiration John Coltrane. 'Supreme Love' really is a journey through Coltrane, featuring tracks from each of his different periods complemented by some original Khan compositions in a coherent manner. Sean is accompanied by some stalwarts of the UK Jazz scene Jim Mullen and the late saxophonist Peter King who passed during the making of the album plus friends from the Broken Beat scene Kaidi Tatham and Daz I Kue and regular band members drummer Laurie Lowe, keyboardist Andy Noble and the incredible...
Lee Morgan - Caramba! In May 1968 when he entered Van Gelder Studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey to record his album ¡Caramba!, trumpeter Lee Morgan was still two months shy of his 30th birthday, which makes the fact that this was his 23rd Blue Note recording all the more astounding. Having cut his first Blue Note date as a precocious 18-year-old hot shot, Morgan was by now a full-fledged master, his technical prowess on his horn matched equally by the expressiveness and emotional depth of his playing. He had also continued to grow as a composer who could conjure myriad different moods and styles...
Larry Douglas has ruled as one of San Francisco’s top trumpet/flugelhorn players for more than three decades. A native of Statesboro, Georgia, Douglas found early inspiration in the music of his older brother Gary (who played trumpet) and his high school teacher James Blakely (who played alto saxophone). While in college, he and his group Funk, Incorporated (a self-proclaimed Earth, Wind, & Fire pre-cursor band), took first place in the national and international levels of the Budweiser Music Festival competition. He moved to San Francisco, as a member of the United States Army’s Sixth Division Band, in 1975. With his...
Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes - Cosmic Funk Lonnie Liston Smith’s second album ‘Cosmic Funk’ was released in 1974 on the Flying Dutchman label. The title track is a spacey funky jazz number reminiscent of Miles Davis ‘On the Corner’. ‘Footprints’ is a brilliant percussive version of the Wayne Shorter track featuring Lonnie’s textured keyboards, George Barron on Soprano Sax, propelled by Al Anderson’s bass. ‘Beautiful Woman’ is a beautiful track featuring Donald Smith harmonic vocals. ‘Sais (Egypt)’is a lovely atmospheric Spiritual Jazz track written by Mtume. Donald Smith appears again on the slower and reflective...
Moonchild return with their 5th album 'Starfruit' . Amber Navran's cute voice is complimented by musicians Andris Mattson and Max Bryk and many guest singers and musicians making a very hypnotic laid back album. Lalah Hathaway sings on the strutting mid tempo 'Tell Him'. Alex Isley guests on the head nodder 'You Got Me' and Chantae Caan 'The Long Way' which also has a sax solo from Josh Johnson. 'I'll Be Here' and 'Too Good' are also nice headnodders. 'Love You Need' is slightly funkier with nice flugelhorn from Mattson but features an unnecessary rap by Rapsody. Overall a good album....
Bay Area jazz guitar legend Calvin Keys released his debut solo record, Shawn-Neeq, in 1971, and it remains one of the most beloved albums on the Black Jazz label. But that record was mere prelude for 1974"s Proceed with Caution; this time around, the arrangements were more complex, the instrumentation more diverse. In short, a quantum leap forward; indeed, as Calvin tells Pat Thomas in his liner notes for the release, 'I started going to the Los Angeles School of Music studying orchestrations and I was putting it to use!' And he recruited the band to fulfill his ambitious musical visions...
