Happy 75th Birthday Doug Carn!

Celebrating Doug Carn's 75th birthday with live performances, a few of his spiritual jazz gems and a zoom interview. 

Atlantis Jazz Ensemble's brilliant Oceanic Suite gets vinyl reissue!

Ottawa's Atlantis Jazz Ensemble's Oceanic Suite has been out of print on vinyl since 2017, so this 170g repress is welcome news!

Happy Birthday John Betsch!

Celebrating the birthday of drummer John Betsch with "Ode To Ethiopia" off his classic Earth Blossom (Strata East) LP from 1974. 

Midweek Mixdown: Nat Birchall's Sounds From the Ancient Archive

Listen to Nat Birchall's latest mix of spiritual jazz and roots reggae on Sounds From The Ancient Archive right here.  

Nat Birchall's Sounds From The Ancient Archive – April 17, 2021 Tracklist 

1. "Powerful Paul Robeson" (vocal version) - Clifford Jordan, from the LP Remembering Me-Me (Muse)

2. "Throw It Away" - Abbey Lincoln, from the LP Golden Lady (Marge, France/Inner City USA)

3. "Burundi Pose" - Big Black, from the LP Elements Of Now (UNI Records)

4. "Gbogbo Omo Ibile" - Solomon Ilori, 12" (Blue Note/Honest Jon's)

5. "Tenor On The Call" - Tommy McCook & The Discosonics, 12" (Studio 1)

6. Untitled (Version of "Jah Jah Way" - Yabby You) - Tommy McCook (Dubplate)

7. "Sunshine Fly Away" - Larry Young, from the LP Lawrence Of Newark (Perception Records)

8. "Black Butterfly" - Salah Ragab & The Cairo Jazz Band, from the LP Egyptian Jazz (Art Yard)

9. "Pan Afro" - Sun Ra & His Astro Intergalactic Infinity Arkestra, from the LP Discipline 27-II (Strut/Art Yard)

10. "Necaumung-Us" - Beaver Harris, from the the LP Beaver Is My Name (Timeless)

11. "Peace In Essaouria" - Pharoah Sanders/Maleem Mahmmod Ghania, from the LP Trance Of The Seven Colors (Zehra)

12. "Sahara Samba" - Olatunji, from the LP Drums! Drums! Drums! (Roulette)

13. "Jah Jah Skanking" - The Natty Locks 7" (Fay Music Inc)

14. "Black Skin Vinration" - Dubwise 7" (Cry Tuff/Black Skin The Prophet)

15. "Your Teacher" a.k.a. "Black Skin" - Black Skin The Prophet 7" (Cry Tuff/Black Skin The Prophet)

16. "African Cookbook" - Randy Weston, from the LP African Cookbook (Atlantic)

17. "Civilisation" - The Classics 7" 

Saxophonist Gary Bartz reflects on his jazz career

Check out Gary's conversation with Jake Feinberg and two tracks from his new Adrian Younge collaboration

Happy Birthday Carlos Garnett

Celebrating the birthday of saxophone titan Carlos Garnett with "Let Us Go (To Higher Heights)" from 1974.

Happy Birthday Don Cherry!

Remembering jazz trumpeter/composer Don Cherry on his birthday with 1978 documentary & Antibes show from 1980. 

Matthew Halsall releases Salute To The Sun November 20

UK jazz trumpeter Matthew Halsall debuts his new Manchester band on his forthcoming double album, Salute To The Sun.

Here's the scoop...

Composer, trumpeter, producer, DJ and founder of Gondwana Records, Matthew Halsall remains first and foremost an artist and a musician. A trumpeter whose unflashy, soulful playing radiates a thoughtful beauty and a composer and band-leader who has created his own rich sound world. A sound that draws on the heritage of British jazz, the spiritual jazz of Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, as well as world music and electronica influences, and even modern art and architecture, to create something uniquely his own. A music that is rooted in Northern England but draws on global inspirations. 

Salute to the Sun is his first album as a leader since Into Forever (2015) and marks the debut of his new band. A hand-picked ensemble featuring some of Manchester’s finest young musicians: Matt Cliffe flute & saxophone, Maddie Herbert harp, Liviu Gheorghe piano, Alan Taylor drums and Jack McCarthy percussion as well as long-time Halsall collaborator, bassist, Gavin Barras who has been at the heart of Halsall’s bands for over a decade. For Matthew it was important to have a band based locally and able, pre-Covid, to meet and play each week, and who also performed a sold-out monthly basement session at Yes in Manchester. The album draws energy from these sessions and inspiration from themes and ideas that have inspired Halsall through the years – as with his previous albums Oneness, Fletcher Moss Park and When the World Was One – such as the ecology, the environment and harmony with nature. 

“I feel Salute to the Sun is a positive earthy album," says Halsall. "I wanted to create something playful but also quite primitive, earthy and organic that connected to the sounds in nature. I was listening to lush ambient field recordings of tropical environments such as jungles and rainforests and found myself drawn to percussive atmospheric sounds which replicated what I was hearing (bells / shakers / chimes / rain sticks) and I started to experiment with more wooden percussive instruments such as kalimba and marimba.”

Salute to the Sun features lush wholly improvised tunes inspired by ambient rainforest and jungle field recordings, deeply soulful tunes built around hypnotic harp and kalimba patterns, deep Strata-East inspired spiritual jazz grooves and some of Halsall’s most beautiful playing and inspiring healing melodies yet recorded. 

The album was recorded at the band’s weekly sessions, using Halsall’s own recording set-up, giving the recordings a relaxed vibe and unforced energy that really lets the music breath. The album is also very much a family affair as Halsall’s brother Daniel Halsall, artistic director of Gondwana Records, was an important presence at the sessions and co-produced the album. It is also his memorable artwork that adorns the cover of Salute to the Sun, an album beautifully designed by legendary designer Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic, who also created the covers for the recent archival releases Oneness, Sending My Love and Colour Yes and is one of Halsall’s favourite designers. Together Daniel Halsall and Ian Anderson have designed all of Matthew’s seven albums to date, so it felt extra-special to bring them together for, Salute to the Sun, an album that Halsall was determined to present in the very best way possible. The album was mixed with another long-time collaborator, George Atkins at 80 Hertz in Manchester, who works tirelessly with Halsall to perfect the sound and was mastered by noted engineer Peter Beckmann who brings an added depth to the sound specially around the bass notes as well as Halsall’s trumpet. The magnificent double vinyl was cut as a Half Speed master by Barry Grint at Alchemy Mastering for the best possible analogue experience. 

Matthew Halsall's Salute To The Sun album is available November 20 but you can pre-order it right here. Watch the preview clip followed by a performance of "Joyful Spirits Of The Universe" below. 

 

Peace Chant series returns with more spiritual jazz gems

Tramp Records' excellent Peace Chant Volumes 3 & 4 – due Nov 13 – sidestep the obvious in favour of overlooked corkers. 

Here's the scoop...

Tramp Records continues their pilgrimage to the soulful fringes of spiritual jazz and progressive rock and funk with their 3rd and 4th volumes of their Peace Chant series of "Raw, Deep and Spiritual Jazz" collections and the world could not be more ready. 

As we turn together on this tiny blue ball hanging lonely in space, and as we together face existential threats ranging from climate catastrophe, the rise of brutal authoritarian regimes, the breaking of the industrial storm and the imminent collapse of empire, not to mention the raging COVID-19 crisis and the continuing racial and social struggles across the globe, we are thrust into a society-wide grand awakening that has been in the making for a very long time. Of course, our musical teachers have trod this path before us, and have worked out solutions to these problems, the songs of the Peace Chant series ring out loud and clear as our ancestors' proof of concept. They say history repeats herself, maybe it's because we weren't listening the first time. Thanks to Tramp Records, we have been granted another opportunity. 

Today, the musical and spiritual truths enshrined within the spiritual jazz diaspora seem to be more and more sought-after, and crucial at a time when we as a society seek higher and farther for those bold truths. With each generation, that truth doesn't change, and the artists featured in the series speak those truths along a continuum that ranges from the late-60s up to the present day. 

Both volumes 3 and 4 of the limited-edition vinyl issue of this compilation have been organized on compact disc under the heading of Peace Chant 2, so let's break-down volumes 3 & 4 of the LP issue: 

Peace Chant, Volume 3 features artists who use their medium to welcome the return of the sacred feminine as in Lenny Marcus Trio's "Mother's Day," and speak on afrocentric themes like Roland Hayes with his heartfelt "Africa The Beautiful." Mineral King renders epic orchestral rock while Natural Life takes us even further on a ten-minute epic quest from a progressive fusion head, to searing tabla, into virtuosic guitar jamming and finally dropping into heady fuzz-soaked riffs and free-jazz fusion with their theme song. Rama Dyushambee sings a devotional song about divine source and healing, while Jule Farmer's "Muhammad Ali" stands strong at the crossroads between black spirituality and black power. Black Is provides a vibey lo-fi flute jazz meditation in their Themes and Variation while The Supa Lowery Brothers provide the requisite hard modal freedom funk. 

Peace Chant, Volume 4 opens with a gorgeous and lush Wurlitzer-oriented big band piece that among its many treasures also features the 17-year-old visionary-saxophonist-to-be, Steve Coleman in his alleged first recording! The contributions of Brother Yusuf Salim and Bus Brown, figures who should be very familiar to Tramp Records aficionados, are consecrated here with a live recording of "Freedom" from one of Brother Yu's last public performances. The oral history in the introduction of this ultra-rare 'field' recording is priceless in its own right. One of the two European contributions to the comp, "Attitude," by Organic Pulse 'onesemble', reads like a double entendre, the word "attitude" meaning simultaneously one's disposition or state of mind, and also one's orientation relative to the horizon. The Peace Chant series continues to touch all the sacred meridians: more devotional music with James Scales & All Stars' "Ser-Vi-Tude," trance music of non-dominant traditions with Donn Preston Group's "Ghana-Cha!," a modal and blue organ trio offering from Tommy Jones, and closing with a rich and righteous ballad, "Quernemoen," from the Wayne Powell Octet. 

Peace Chant is the center of the mandala, representing the nucleus of the post-bop, modal jazz, avant-garde, transcendental, spiritual, ethnic, and freedom music universe without necessarily suggesting anything immediately identifiable as any of the above. This is the soundtrack to the raising of human consciousness and the salvation of society's very soul. 

We give thanks to Tramp Records for leading our thirsty hearts to this rich fountain. – Joel Ricci 

You can pre-order Peace Chant Vol. 3 & Vol. 4 on vinyl right here. Shipping starts November 13th. 

Listen to a few tunes followed by the track listing for both volumes below. 

PEACE CHANT Volume 3

01. Lenny Marcus Trio - Mother's Day

02. Roland Hayes - Africa The Beautiful

03. Black Is - Themes and Variations

04. Mineral King - In Search Of The Lost Magic Marker

05. The Hippest Set - Catechism For D

06. Supa Lowery Brothers - Furlive

07. Jule Farmer - Muhammad Ali

08. Rama Dyushambee - Heal It!

09. Natural Life - Natural Life

PEACE CHANT Volume 4

01. The Niambi Big Band - Brass Winds

02. Brother Yu Sextet - Freedom

03. Morton And The Uptights - Montego

04. Organic Pulse Ensemble - Attitude

05. James Scales & All Stars - Ser-Vi-Tude

06. Donn Preston Group - Ghana-Cha!

07. Lonnell Dantzler - Bo-Ghana

08. Tommy Jones - Egg Nog

09. Bohannon Trio - Untitled No. 1

10. Wayne Powell Octet - Quernemoen

Midweek Mixdown: Dean Rudland's Atmospheres 25-09-20

Check out Dean Rudland's ace Atmospheres selection of contemporary jazz with a few vintage gems mixed in right here. 

Dean Rudland's Atmospheres Mix – Sept 25

1/ Traneflight – Esoteric Circle feat Terje Rypdal (Flying Dutchman) The Esoteric Circle

2/ Klara – Nimbus Sextet (Acid Jazz) Dreams Fulfilled

3/ Looking At Sounds - Michel Benita (ECM) Looking At Sounds

4/ Lost Sunbeams of Childhood – Andrew Wasylyk (Athens Of The North) Fugitive Light

5/ Endless Love – Greg Foat (Athens Of The North) The Mage

6/ Wonderful World (Babel remix) – Grand Union (People Tree) unreleased

7/ The Rain – Eddie Gale's Ghetto Music (Blue Note)

8/ Hanging Round The Bee Tree – The New Rotary Connection (Cadet Concept) Hey Love

9/ How Can You Mend A Broken Heart – Kahil El’Zabar (Spiritmuse) America The Beautiful

10/ Jump & Shout (For Those Gone) - Kahil El’Zabar (Spiritmuse) America The Beautiful

11/ Song For Julle (for Tony Allen) – Mino Cinelu & Nils Pettar Molvaer (Modern Recordings) 

12/ As If…The Ghost Was Me – Terje Rypdal (ECM) Conspiracy

13/ How Long – Dwight Trible (Spiritmuse) Pathways & Passages

14/ Beware Of A Stranger (Ashley Beedle Stripped back mix) – Lady Blackbird (Foundation) 

15/ One Step Ahead – Aretha Franklin (Columbia) 7-inch

16/ The Assasination – The Dixie Nightingales (Chalice) 7-inch

17/ Fantasy For Ralph – David Axelrod (Mo’ Wax) David Axelrod

18/ Mighty Yusef – Chip Wickham (Lovemonk) Blue To Red

19/ Before Us In Demerara Caura – Nubya Garcia (Concord) Source

20/ Soul Mate – Andrew Hill (Mosaic) Mosaic Select 16

21/ Suspicion – Charles Tolliver (Gearbox) Connect

22/ Pisces – Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers (Blue Notes) Freedom Rider CD

21/ All What Remains – Dominik Wania (ECM) Lonely Shadows

Jazzman offers a spiritual jazz tour through SteepleChase catalogue

Although nothing shockingly rare is uncovered, the SteepleChase volume is a solid set of uplifting swingers.

Here's the scoop...

Founded in 1972, SteepleChase Records is one of the most significant and prolific European jazz record labels. With a catalogue running to well over 200 titles, the Copenhagen-based imprint has recorded and released music from some of the greatest names in jazz, including Dexter Gordon, Andrew Hill, Archie Shepp, Jackie McLean, Clifford Jordan, Paul Bley, Cedar Walton, Lee Konitz, Horace Parlan, Nat Adderley, Chet Baker and Stan Getz. 

Starting out by recording visiting Americans when they performed at the legendary Café Montmartre, founder Nils Winther was encouraged to start the label by none other than the great Jackie McLean, who was the first artist to release a record on the new imprint. 

From there, Steeplechase rapidly grew into one of the foremost labels to document European jazz with all its distinctive originality and style. With a particular emphasis on recording front rank American artists who had chosen the expatriate life in Europe, Steeplechase was first in line to document the sounds of the greats as they developed in exile. 

Featuring in-demand tracks from the likes of Billy Gault, Johnny Dyani and Khan Jamal, and unearthing deep cuts from greats like Jackie McLean and Mary Lou Williams, Spiritual Jazz 11: SteepleChase pays tribute to one of Europe's most important jazz labels. Have a listen after the track listing. 

Various Artists – Spiritual Jazz 11: SteepleChase

1. Mary Lou Williams - Ode To Saint Cecilie 05:57

2. Billy Gault - The Time Of This World Is At Hand 07:14

3. Sam Jones - Jean Marie 06:56

4. René McLean - Aida 05:32

5. Jim McNeely - Tipe Tizwe 04:25

6. Johnny Dyani - Magwaza 13:07

7. Jackie McLean & Michael Carvin - De I Comalee A 11:42

8. Ken McIntyre - Miss Priss 06:16

9. Khan Jamal - Dark Warrior 06:27

10. Jackie McLean & The Cosmic Brotherhood - Camel Driver (2LP only) 08:54

11. Michael Carvin - Naima 08:28

Midweek Mixdown: Dean Rudland's Atmospheres mix

Check out Dean Rudland's great new Atmospheres mix featuring Joe Henderson & Alice Coltrane, Angel Bat Dawid,  Billy Brooks and Greg Foat. 

Dean Rudland's Atmospheres mix track listing:
1/ Mother’s Love – Tsegue Maryam Guebrou (BudaMusique) CD Ethiopia Song
2/ No Space For Us – Angel Bat Dawid (International Anthems) D/L
3/ Blackbird – Lady Blackbird (Foundation Music) D/L
4/ Fire – Joe Henderson & Alice Coltrane (Milestone) LP Elements
5/ Acting For Liberation Vol 1 – Vibration Black Finger (Jazzman) LP Can’t You See What I’m Trying To Say
6/ One & One – Miles Davis (Columbia) LP On The Corner
7/ Forty Days – Billy Brooks (Crossover) LP
8/ Malcolm X – Miriam Makeba (Marier) LP Appel L’Afrique
9/ Looking For Your Love – Adriana Evans (BMG) CD Adriana Evans
10/ It’s A Man’s World – James Brown/ Oliver Nelson (King) LP Soul On Top
11/ Wonderful World – Grand Union (People Tree) LP Through The Green Fuse
12/ Autumn Walk – Gene Shaw (Argo) LP Break Through
13/ Croquet Ballet (Blue Note) LP Lee Morgan
14/ Symphonie Pacifique - Greg Foat (Strut) D/L Symphonie Pacifique
15/ Colours – Sultan’s Swing (Tom Funk) D/L Ignite
16/ Shadows – Lonnie Liston Smith (Flying Dutchman/ BGP) LP Expansions
17/ Equinox – Misha Mullov- Abbado (Editions) CD Dream Circus
18/ Glass Eye – Radiohead (Parlophone) LP A Moon Shaped Pool
19/ Approach / Dream – Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson (Fat Cat) CD Angels Of The Universe
20/ Glacier Hiking – Daniel Heskedal (Editions) CD Call For Winter
21/ Passing – Jan Garbarak (ECM) LP Places