There are some good reissues this week. Fats Gaines Band Presents Zorina is a strong and very rare groove album from the early 80s. There are two really good Blue Note Tone Poet LPs from Donald Byrd and McCoy Tyner. Donna Summer's disco classics are issued on a very limited edition 'Pride' 12" and Marvin Gaye's excellent full length versions of 'I Wanna Be Where You Are' and 'I Want you' are issued on a limited edition 12" on vinyl for the first time. We are back in stock of a few classic albums and Cds. We are delighted to announce...
Trumpeter, multi instrumentalist and former Impromp2 singer Johnny Britt returns with a new album 'After We Play' joined by many fine musicians. Tom Browne plays trumpet on the appropriately funky jam 'Ain't Nothin But The Funk' . Peter White plays acoustic guitar on the subtle smooth jazz instrumental 'After We Play'. Will Downing sings on the beautiful down tempo 'Butterflies'. 'Summer Love' is a nice mid tempo groover that features Gerald Albright on Bass. 'Ocean Waves' is a dreamy vocal track ft Craig T Cooper on Guitar and Blair Bryant on bass. Ricky Peterson plays organ and Piano on 'Hold...
Little is known about Louisiana born vocalist Carol “Zorina” London other than that at some point in her early adolescence she moved to the Bay View area of San Francisco, a city that she would remain in for most of her professional career. Zorina showed promise early on as a professional model, winning both the Top Bay Area Model Award and the Knights of Honour Beauty Pageant in 1972, while also moonlighting at San Francisco’s Playboy Club. She would manufacture her experiences into a singing career, working with the likes of comedian Prof. Irwin Corey, Carol Channing and Randy Crawford....
The first album from Bronx based outfit the Rhythm Makers, who went on to form GQ. Superlative disco-funk, recorded on Vigor which was a subsidiary of De-lite—this pressing reissued courtesy of Be With Music. Recorded and mixed in Philadelphia at the De-Lite Recorded Sound Studio, the signature is similar to other contemporary disco-funk groups on De-lite; think Made in USA, Crown Heights Affair, even some of Kool and the Gang’s mid-seventies output. When the album originally came out, a big club track in the UK and the US was Zone, pressed up as a UK seven on Polydor and in the...
We are saddened to learn of the passing of Tina Turner. She may be dubbed the Queen Of Rock n Roll in the press, but she actually started as a great Rhythm and Blues and Soul singer. Amazing voice and amazing spirit R.I.P. 'Bold Soul Sister'. It's a massive week for new releases, reissues and restocks. Mica Millar has made a really good new 'Classic' soul album out on CD Now, pre-order LP for early June. Johnny Britt returns with a strong album ft Tom Browne, George Benson, Peter White and will Downing and Arlo Parks has a new album. Don Glori has...
Cosmic keyboardist Lonnie Liston Smith recorded Reflections of a Golden Dream in 1976 for Bob Thiele's Flying Dutchman label. This album came during the same year as the album Renaissance, released on RCA, although it inhabits similar musical territory to his now classic Expansions album released a year prior in 1975; genre defining jazz-funk and soul-jazz, tinged with kaleidoscopic instrumentation, spiritual timbres and a space-age, inter-galactic ambience. Up until this point in his career as a leader, Smith had played with Art Blakey, Miles Davis, Gato Barbieri, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Max Roach and Pharoah Sanders, the latter bringing him into...
UK blue eyed soul singer Mica Millar finally releases her acclaimed self written and produced debut album 'Heaven Knows' on physical formats. This contemporary album is rooted in the tradition of classic soul, and Mica's deeply soulful vocals are beautifully accompanied by great instrumentation to create a really warm sound. 'Girl' is a catchy mid tempo beat ballad, 'Trouble' is slightly faster, and the jaunty 'Preacher Man' hits harder. Mica really shines on the mid tempo songs like 'More Than You Give Me' and 'Flashlights' , and ballads 'Heaven Knows', 'Fool's Fate', 'Will I See You Again' , 'Stay' ,...
Malachi Thomspon’s Seventh Son was originally released on RA Records in 1980. It eventually became a rare and in demand independent spiritual jazz release, played on the London Jazz dance scene as early as 1980 in clubs such as the Horseshoe by DJ Paul Murphy, who states that it was “a stone cold Horseshoe very early jazz dance classic (...) I remember playing this way back in the night of the day”. As popular as the music was felt on British dancefloors at the time of its release, Malachi Thomson would have been completely unaware of its appeal and underground...
Back in 2021, LA producer MNDSGN released the album Rare Pleasure on Stones Throw. The album takes from a vast pool of influences from neo soul to jazz, Latin American music and heritage US soul—coming close at times to the likes of Earth, Wind and Fire while nodding toward the wayward harmonic tropes and samba styled journeys of George Duke’s late-seventies Epic material—filtered through a west-coast, beat makerish and acid-drenched lense. Critically, some of the best tracks on Rare Pleasure— certainly the ones that have the largest volume of listeners on Spotify such as Truth Interlude, which has over two...
