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New releases and pre-orders 15th May 2020

Kaidi Tatham initially released his superb and groundbreaking ‘In search of Hope’ album in Japan in 2008 which is now very difficult to find but thankfully First Word have reissued it on 180gm Double Lp and Cd, this is an essential contemporary New Jazz/broken Beat album don’t miss it this time around. Muriel Grossman has made a very nice new spiritual jazz album ‘Elevation’ out on both formats on Jazzman. Uk Jazz and Soul singer Deborah Jordan makes her third album ‘ see in the Dark’ and it’s worth the nine year wait, check it out !

Bill Withers Fantastic Complete Sussex and Columbia albums 9CD set is now available so you can enjoy all of his classic albums at a great price , his songs are especially poignant at the moment. Lamont Butler’s rare Soul/gospel album ‘It’s time for a change’ gets a welcome reissue on Cd and LP. Sylk rare and obscure Funky soul album from 1983 is now available to all for a short time as a limited Vinyl reissue.

Donald Byrd and the Blackbyrds have a great value 3cd jazz funk collection and his classic ‘Black Byrd’ album a high quality SACD release, the album being featured in our albums of the day yesterday. Also new music from Jazz vocalist Julie Wood, Four80East and the late Tony Allen and Hugh Masekela ‘Rejoice’ for one final album before they both passed. Sahib Shihab Jazz classic ‘Companionship LP is back in stock after a long while. There are two really good 45’s this week, a reissue of Marva Josie ‘he does it better’ and the best cut from Carmichael Musiclover’s recent album ‘Chicago style’.


Tribute to Betty

We are sad to learn of the passing of Betty Wright whose music will live on with us forever. Watch out for a full tribute and recommended albums as part of our albums of the day feature in the next 24 hours.


Pre-order

Pre-order some great new albums coming out in the next month from Gary Bartz and Maisha, Chip Wickham, Tenderlonius and more see all the pre-order titles here.

Special priced vinyl – more titles added

We have added some more great Vinyl albums to our £14.99 offer including classics like James Brown ‘Black Caesar’, Fela Kuti ‘Expensive Shit’  and Yussef Kamaal ‘Black Focus’ which along with classics from Marvin, Stevie, Leroy Hutson and Coltrane are a bargain for under £15 ! each. See the list here.


BEST SELLERS

Check out the best selling albums and singles this week at this link


WE ARE NOW MAIL ORDER ONLY UNTIL RESTRICTIONS ARE LIFTED

As you may know the shop is now closed for walk in business to conform with the Government Covid19 regulations but we are still operating mail order services, and will do as long as we are able to. Future release dates are likely to be changeable as product supply especially from USA and Europe become harder to source due to flight restrictions.

I’d like to thank all our existing and new customers for placing orders and keeping us going through these dark times. We have introduced a new featured album of the day which you will receive each morning and give you something fresh to listen to, hopefully you will enjoy this and want to add some of the albums to your collection.

We can now offer a limited shop collect service again, please order online and pick up your records/cds at the door keeping our social distance by appointment.


Album of the day

We have been nominating an album of the day each day through lockdown to help keep your spirits up. There are some truly great new and classic albums featured which you can see here.
Watch out for more next week. Thanks for the great feedback that you have given to this feature.


POSTAL DELAYS

We are aware that some deliveries are taking longer than usual – from what we hear this is due to a mix of Royal Mail staff shortages and industrial action. Please bear with us – these are factors that are out of our hands. The backlog of post appears to be clearing and parcels sent this week have been arriving in about 48 hours, some even the next day. Most parcels seem to be getting to customers in 2-3 days but there are some areas where there are still backlogs and delays of up to 10 days.


We are also running on the absolute minimum of staff so order turnaround times may also be affected for more complicated orders. Thanks for your understanding.


RSD 20

Record Store Day has now been postponed again and will now take place on three days , 29th August, 26th September and 24th October. The lists of which titles will be each day will be published on 1st June. Hopefully by that time we will be able to invite you to the shop , but keeping social distance and on-line from 6pm on each day for what titles are still available.

We are now back in stock of the majority of Bill Withers Lps and CDs which you can see in our feature here. Also the fantastic 9cd set of his complete albums is now in stock.


Deals, sales and features

We have added many more titles to our £9.99 Cd sale so there are now 100 Recent and classic soul and jazz albums included. It now includes many of last year’s best albums incl Phillip Bailey, Ruby Rushton and the recent Gil Scott Heron re-imagining project along with some classic Soul Brother releases.

There are some real bargains to be had in our 5 for £25 CD sale with many great albums on Soul Brother, Expansion and Outta sight labels reduced to £6.99 each or 5 for £25 plus some recent additions classics from Al Green, Chaka Khan , Oneness of Juju etc.

There are many classic albums in our £14.99 Lp sale –  NEW TITLES ADDED

Also see some classic recommended albums by genre in our Fill the Gap campaign.

We have added some more classic Blue Note Lps to our feature so there are now over 100 titles in the stock in the feature.

You can find everything in one place at this link here


An introduction to Blue Note – 10 albums you must hear

Arguably Blue Note is the greatest Jazz label ever and was responsible for releasing so many classic albums over its 80+ year history. Its halcyon era was 1950’s/ 1960’s, when it pioneered Hard Bop. At various times, its roster included the likes of Art Blakey, Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan and Horace Silver plus geniuses such as Miles Davis. The label recorded the first albums by a host of legends – for example, Jimmy Smith, Herbie Hancock and Freddie Hubbard to name just a few. The label remained active in the Jazz Funk era and Donald Byrd’s 1973 album ‘Black Byrd’ was not only ground-breaking but was Blue Note’s biggest selling LP at that time.

Selecting 10 classic albums (100 would be hard enough) is a challenge, but this introductory selection is just a taster. See the list here


Collector’s vinyl

Recent original Vinyl Soul and Jazz LP arrivals can be seen here, there are some great collectors items still available.

Recent Original vinyl 12″ singles and Original vinyl 45’s here.
The massive range of Outta Sight Modern and Northern Soul 45’s can be seen here.

Our current best selling albums and singles can be seen here.


Radio Show

Our usual spot on Solar will be suspended for the time being as we practise responsible social distancing by not putting ourselves or others at risk, both by travelling to the studio and also being in the studio. We think that the health of ourselves and others while also protecting the NHS is important at this time.

We are however going to continue to bring you the best weekly releases and collector’s pieces with a weekly two-hour mix that you can find on our Mixcloud. At present we don’t have the facility to record voiceovers, but hopefully you can still enjoy the music.

We timestamp the playlists and provide a download link so you can listen any time, anywhere.

Find the latest show here.

Have a great weekend.

Laurence and Jason