One For The Weekend: Orchestra Mambo International feat. Chip Wickham

Check out "Flauta Pa' Ti" off Orchestra Mambo International's new album Apúntalo! out now! And catch 'em on tour in the UK. 

Here's the scoop...

Orchestra Mambo International are an eminently groovy Latin big-band, based in the UK and featuring a multi-generational raft of global musicians from the old quarters of Latin music – Havana, Caracas and Bogotá – including Venezuelan 72-year-old lead-singer Carlos “Pachanga” Peña and driven by two unlikely lads from Yorkshire, in the north of England, Jonny Enright and Lubi Jovanovic.

Grouped in 2022 by Enright, a traditional northern brass-band alumni turned songwriter/salsero and Jovanovic, Latin DJ, mentor, promoter and salsa encyclopaedia, Orchestra Mambo International’s debut album ¡Apuntalo! is an impeccable set list of good-time, New Yorican era (1970s) mambo, salsa and Afro-Cuban jazz gems featuring a guest appearance from UK flautist Chip Wickham and Cuban singer Claritzel Miyares.

Afro-Cuban, Afro-Latin, pachanga, guaracha, son montuno, big band salsa – whatever you want to call it, however you want to frame or dissect it – this is deftly played, flagrantly hot-stepping, block-rocking, and seriously swinging Puerto Rican-touched Latin music, with plenty of Tito Puente-inspired timbales and mambo shake. It’s dripping with a kind of groove-based, Latin authenticity that the likes of UK jazz outfit Ezra Collective have been impressing upon its audiences in recent years.

¡Apúntalo! is a catchphrase Carlos “Pachanga” Peña uses in songs during live shows, and it captures the spirit of the record and live show perfectly “get involved, lock into the groove, and make this moment yours”. Whilst the orchestra includes a coro (chorus) Carlos is the leading vocal light on the album.

Olufina is the lead single and is an irrepressible Afro-Cuban mambo, fired by authentic batá drums, punchy call-and-response vocals from Carlos and the full band hitting on all cylinders, with standout horn, vibraphone, and percussion solos built for the dancefloor. The title is a devotional name for Changó, Yoruba orisha of thunder and fire. The track delivers exactly that energy: raw and joyful.

Get a copy of ¡Apúntalo! via Bandcamp right here. Check out "Flauta Pa' Ti" featuring Chip Wickham on flute followed by a list of their UK tour dates below. 

Orchestra Mambo International

Jonny Enright - Musical Director, trombone, coro 

Carlos Peña - Lead vocals, backing vocals, coro 

Chris Williamson - Trumpet

Victor Estevez - Trumpet, coro

Olivia Cuttill - Trumpet

Gustavo Andrade - Baritone saxophone, coro

Andrzej Baranek - Piano

John Settle - Vibraphone

Simon Edwards - Bass

Jimmy Le Messurier - Timbales, batá, guïra, coro

Camilo Ochoa - Bongos, campana, maracas, guïro, hand perc, coro

Sam Bell - Congas, coro

Lubi Jovanovic - Co-founder, manager

Special guest: Chip Wickham (flute) on "Flauta Pa' Ti"

Orchestra Mambo International on tour

18 Sept - Howard Assembly Room, Leeds, United Kingdom  

16 Oct - St Matthew's Church, Leyburn, United Kingdom 

7 Nov - Jazz Cafe, London, United Kingdom  

29 Nov - Old Fire Station, Carlisle, United Kingdom

Saxophonist Chip Wickham issues Cloud 10 on Gondwana Records

UK saxophonist/flautist Chip Wickham shows off a more lyrical side on his new Cloud 10 album out now. Listen below. 

Here's the scoop...

Saxophonist, flautist Chip Wickham takes us to Cloud 10 with his most soulful and lyrical album to date 

Chip Wickham is a jazz musician and producer who divides his time between Spain, UK and the Middle-East and who has made a name for himself with a series of beautifully crafted solo albums that draw equally on the hard swinging spiritual jazz of Roland Kirk, Yusef Lateef and Sahib Shihab, alongside the music of British jazz legends such as Tubby Hayes and Harold McNair and the more contemporary sounds of Jazzanova, Kyoto Jazz Massive and Robert Glasper. 

Originally from Brighton, Chip studied in Manchester and became involved in the 00's UK jazz, soul. trip-hop and funk scenes, working with the likes of The Pharcyde, The New Mastersounds and Nightmares On Wax as well as playing with Matthew Halsall's Gondwana Orchestra. And his relationship with Gondwana Records goes right back to the very beginning as he played on Halsall's 2008 debut Sending My Love. 

Cloud 10 is his debut album for Gondwana Records – following the Astral Traveling 12" EP of three Lonnie Liston Smith covers in May) and it is a wonderful, timeless, lyrical, slice of hard-hitting, soulful, spiritual jazz and modal hard-bop with a distinctly UK flavour - driven by Chip's deftly funky flute work and hard-hitting tenor. Underpinned by Chip's restless energy and driven by his desire to connect with the listener on a deeper level. 

"My albums are my legacy. Each one is a statement to the world of music and my contribution to its growth, its energy and ultimately it's history." 

Cloud 10 features pianist Phil Wilkinson, vibes player Ton Risco, bassist Sneaky and drummer Jon Scott (all veterans of previous albums) together with harpist Amanda Whiting and percussionist Jack McCarthy whom Chip met touring in the Gondwana Orchestra, and rising star Irish trumpeter Eoin Grace who also doubles on flugel horn. The album was recorded at the legendary all analogue Estudios Brazil in Madrid, with the band spending a week at Chip's house in the mountains just outside the city, eating and drinking together, listening to music till the small hours and recording all day. It was a magical time and the positivity seeped into the recording. 

"It was a beautiful week of pure music and joy, I think you can hear it in the recording and that's the inspiration for the title: Cloud 10 is a place of a great happiness, way out beyond Cloud 9!" 

Get a copy of Chip Wickham's Cloud 10 album via your platform of choice right here. Check it out below. 

Introducing: Chip Wickham

Listen to "The Detour" off Chip Wickham's album La Sombra which sounds like it was recorded in the late 60s.

In recent times Manchester has produced an impressive slew of jazz musicians, with the likes of Matthew Halsall and Nat Birchall both receiving widespread acclaim. A lesser known figure but no less important in the development of the Manchester scene is Chip Wickham, a flautist and saxophonist who soon releases a spiritually leaning and vintage sounding jazz record called La Sombra on Lovemonk Records.

Translated from Spanish as 'The Shade', Chip's debut album drops after a 25-year career touring, recording and experimenting across three decades of jazz, funk, soul, hip-hop, Latin and electronica. La Sombra is a monumental record for Chip as it symbolizes the moment he stepped out into the light as a director of his creations with freedom to explore his roots, express and tell his version of jazz and pay testament to his heroes Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Yusef Lateef and Harold McNair.

Now living in Doha after an intense and productive six years in Madrid, it was Manchester where Chip studied in the late '80s and became enmeshed in the chaotic and thrilling music scenes emanating from one of the world's most culturally prominent cities of the time. Recording and generally 'keeping things real' with Manchester's hip-hop collective Grand Central Records, Rae & Christian, Nightmares on Wax, Graham Massey (808 State), Chip was in a city that was undergoing a music revolution with the Haçienda as its temple. Yet it was the headlights of the M62 motorway and not the strobe lights that were lighting Chip's path during his student years ('88-'92). The lure of the jazz and funk clubs of Leeds, where The New Mastersounds were breaking out and building the blocks that would lead them to UK funk royalty status, proved too strong.

In the 1990s Chip continued to refine his craft in the rainy city and the gigs booked were growing in stature. It wasn't long before he was on the road with Roy Ayers and Badly Drawn Boy. Around that time Chip met up with trumpeter Matthew Halsall that was the beginning of a friendship that lasts to this day. Chip was a recording artist on Matthew Halsall's breakout album Sending My Love and continues to work with him, with live dates confirmed in spring 2017. This close connection with Halsall gave rise to other collaborations, such as with Nat Birchall and Go Go Penguin’s Rob Turner.

Three decades after his late night excursions to Leeds, Chip found himself recording with Eddie Roberts from The New Mastersounds in Madrid, as part of their new band, The Fire Eaters, which he'd formed soon after he moved to sunny Spain in 2007 – the same year he released the Fried Samba album under his moniker Malena, his electronic Latin band that became a hit at the turn of the century for Freestyle Records. During his time in Spain he connected with the local scene and brought together many of his musicians colleagues from the UK to Spain and it was for a local and well established label, Lovemonk, that he released two 45s blending raw funk and Latin. These new roads and musical leanings led to an invitation to play for the Craig Charles Fantasy Funk Band. Based on a poll from Craig Charles’ BBC6 radio show, Chip was chosen to play alongside the cream of the UK funk & soul scene: James Taylor (JTQ), Snowboy, The Haggis Horns (Mark Ronson), John Turrell (Smooth & Turrell), and Mick Talbot (The Style Council).

La Sombra takes an altogether more rooted direction than Chip's recent collaborative work, with the jazz of the late '60s and early '70s a dominating influence to the recordings. Comprising of seven tracks recorded in Madrid with musicians assembled by Chip from Madrid's jazz scene (namely pianist Gabriel Casanova, bassist David Salvador and drummer/vibraphonist Antonio Pax), it combines contemplative explorations akin to Yusef Lateef's early work on tracks like 'La Sombra' and 'Pushed Too Far'.

There's a fiery cover of Camarón de la Isla’s classic ‘La Leyenda Del Tiempo’ and tracks like 'Sling Shot' and 'Red Planet' are locked in a groove harking back to Freddie Hubbard's Blue Note era and the mid-period peak of Nathan Davis. Listen to the Harold McNair-inspired track "The Detour" below followed by Chip's appearance with Manchester jazz scene don Matthew Halsall on Worldwide FM from 11/05/2017. Check out La Sombra and Chip Wickham's other releases on his Bandcamp page right here.