A really heavyweight album from the Brazilian scene of the 70s – recorded by a group of artists who were really helping to transform the sound of jazz at the time! There are elements that are familiar here, but served up in these really fresh ways – changing up the rhythmic and melodic progressions, and the way the instruments interact – warmer in spirit than the music of Hermeto Pascoal, but with an equally sophisticated sort of vibe! The quintet features players you'll likely know from a range of other recordings – killer lineup that includes Nelson Ayres on piano, Zeca Assumpcao on bass, Ze Eduardo Nazario on drums and percussion, Luiz Roberto Oliveira on guitar and keyboards, and Roberto Sion on sax and flute.
A great bit of electric jazz from the Japanese scene of the 70s – an album that easily rivals the best CTI work in the US at the time! Trombonist Hiroshi Suzuki heads up a quintet here – one that's heavy on electric piano and keyboards, played in a stretched-out sort of groove that reminds us a lot of the energy on Freddie Hubbard's funkiest albums from the same period. The tracks are all quite long – and step out with a wonderfully rhythmic sensibility – spare at times, and very focused on the right rolling approach to the groove. Suzuki's trombone solos are matched by some equally great sax work from Takeru Muraoka – and rhythm is from Kunimitsu Inaba on bass and Akira Ishikawa on drums. Filled with great breaks and laidback jazzy grooves
Original Soundtrack of this 1963 movie classic, Arranged by Alain Gourager. Strip Tease vocals by Juliette Greco and starring Nico. Between appearing in La Dolce Vita and cutting a single with Jimmy Page and Andrew Loog Oldham, Nico beat out Ursula Andress for the lead role in a feature film: Jacques Poitrenaud’s 1963 Strip-Tease (a/k/a Sweet Skin and Lady Strip Tease). Billed as “Krista Nico,” she stars as German dancer Ariane, a character described by Poitrenaud as “a stripper lost in the nocturnal world.”
The Italian funk god Luis Enriquez Bacalov is celebrated here with this unmissable 7-inch record, featuring two of his grooviest tracks ever: on the A-side, the legendary CARREFOUR is maybe his funkiest soundtrack piece, here released for the first time in its entirety, with an unexpected introduction via a powerful horn section, which was cut from the original 1976 RCA 7’’. Behold an eternal jazz-funk masterpiece with solid drum breaks and hip hop heavy beats, funky congas, wah wah guitar, psychedelic organ. This track was used for the 1976 movie “Colpita da improvviso benessere”, directed by Franco Giraldi, but was originally conceived for the 1974 movie “Sistemo l'America e torno” by Nanni Loy. For the B-side, we have chosen from this same score another killer groovy track which was already compiled on our ESTERNO NOTTE Vol. 1 compilation. SISTEMO L’AMERICA E TORNO - SEQ. 7 has a tremendous rhythm section, a wonderful guitar riff, psychedelic flute, and stunning Hammond organ solos. This is another future classic from the golden age of Italian soundtracks!
Taste :
Luis Enriquez Bacalov – Carrefour
Luis Enriquez Bacalov – Sistemo L'America E Torno - Seq. 7
1 Rogér Fakhr – Fine Anyway (Habibi Funk) 2 Arooj Aftab – Vulture Prince (New Amsterdam Records) 3 Sarah Davachi – Antiphonals (Late Music) 4 Drug Store Romeos – The World Within Our Bedrooms (Fiction records) 5 Vanishing Twin – Ookii Gekkou (Fire Records) 6 Haiku Salut – The Hill, The Light, The Ghost (Secret Name) 7 Joy Orbison – Still Slipping Vol. 1 (XL Records) 8 Dry Cleaning – New Long Leg (4AD) 9 Jane Weaver – Flock (Fire Records) 10 Steve Hackett – Under A Mediterranean Sky (Inside Out Music)
With only her track record as lead vocalist for Sergio Mendes to go on, Lani Hall and Herb Alpert took to the studios in 1971-72 to produce the album SUN DOWN LADY. The album gathered a who’s who of studio musicians to lay down some fairly familiar songs that would now have Lani’s imprint on them. Herb and Lani wrote new lyrics to “Muskrat Love” changing the song into the album’s outstanding “Sun Down,” with Lani herself penning the song “You.” Other lyric changes occurred on Paul Simon’s “For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her” modifying its gender references. Another item of note here is a trademark Alpert arrangement of Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer”, taking what is usually a ballad and speeding up the tempo, giving the song an entirely different feel. Michel Colombier’s “We Could Be Flying” from the WINGS album appears here in a stripped-down mix, removing the huge orchestral accompaniment, and with the release of this album got some radio airplay. As busy as he was here arranging, producing, and running a record company, Herb Alpert also engineered along with Larry Levine, photographed the front cover and inner sleeve photos of Lani, and sang backup vocals on two of the tracks, “Love Song” and “Sun Down.” The album is mostly soft, acoustic, and moody, with just the barest of instrumentation, and Lani’s vocals are out in front all the way. In fact, on the last track, she sings the song totally a capella. As Herb’s liner notes say, “It captures her poetic simplicity. And it lets you know a real sundown lady.” By Amcorner
UK hammond groove album that maybe once has been on heavy demand. A couple of good breaks here too, and it makes this record still efficient for a 60’s DJ set.
Presenting one of the greatest works by maestro Armando Trovajoli; a solid Italian easy listening masterpiece. After its commercial debut in 1968 as an original soundtrack of famous Italian TV-movie, this record gained renewed interest in the 1990s when four tracks were compiled in the immortal Easy Tempo series. From then on, LA FAMIGLIA BENVENUTI has not only been considered one of Trovajoli’s most sought after records, but has achieved the status of being the manifesto of the Roman swinging sixties - a lively addition to the delightfully cool sounds of the late 1960s, made possible by the following key ingredients: the Marc 4 sound (a steady presence for almost every Trovajoli recording); the outstanding I CANTORI MODERNI DI ALESSANDRONI, with their unmistakable vocal harmonies; and lastly, the eccentric use of the harpsichord (a signature of Trovajoli's spaghetti soundtracks of the period). Behold a brilliant cocktail of groovy bossa, terrific shake, catchy tunes, and pop songs, as the amazing LA DECISIONE, sung by DONATELLA LUTTAZZI, daughter of the great Lelio. By Four flies
Afrodyssey Orchestra are an instrumental ensemble from Athens, Greece, comprising seven established musicians of diverse musical backgrounds. They came together through a series of musical journeys over the years — and officially as Afrodyssey Orchestra from 2013. The band’s influences span Jazz, Funk, Psychedelic, traditional West African dance music and percussion as well as the Greek musical culture. Their infectious style stems from an experimental conversation between these different musical forms and traditions.
Taste :
Afrodyssey Orchestra – In The Land Of Aou Tila (full album)
Luciano e Valerio, Giacomo e Michele: Odeon are the union of two couples of Roman brothers who are not easily defined. Take the mellow melodies of Talk Talk and the celestial guitar riffs of Cocteau Twins bound together with some heavy Goblin-inspired bassline and you’ll be close to picturing Odeon’s signature sound. Drawing from '70 Italian B-Movies' soundtracks, psychedelic rock and early 80s new wave, and combining analog synths, dreamy guitars, melancholy vocoder and drum machine-driven percussion, Odeon put together a debut album that sounds fresh and classic at the same time.
Ethereal and mesmerizing, Galaxies is the perfect soundtrack for a sonic journey through dying stars and forbidden planets.
Label : Arab Republic Of Egypt - Ministry Of Culture (Strut reiss. Record Store Day Drop)
Value :
In 1968, while he was also the leader of the Military Music Departments in Heliopolis, Salah Ragab formed the first jazz big band in Egypt, The Cairo Jazz Band. Some of the best musicians in Egypt of that time were members – Zaki Osman (trumpet), Saied Salama (tenor sax), Khamis El-Kholy (piano) and Ala Mostafa (piano).
On these recordings The Band consists of five saxophones, four trumpets, four trombones, piano, bass, drums and percussion and various other oriental instruments. The opening concert of The Cairo Jazz Band was in Ewart Memorial Hall at The American University 23/02/1969 followed by many other concerts in various prestigious places such as the Old Opera House, The University of Alexandria and appearances on Egyptian TV Jazz Club Weekly.
Salah Ragab studied jazz theory and improvisation with the jazz musician and composer from Kansas City, USA, Osman Kareem, with whom he formed the first Jazz Quintet in Cairo in 1963 recording with the Radio Service of Cairo. He accompanied the great bandleader and composer Sun Ra on a tour in Egypt, Greece, France and Spain in 1984.
These recordings present Salah Ragab and The Cairo Jazz Band’s definitive work, recorded in Heliopolis Egypt between 1968 and 1973. Western jazz musicians have been fascinated with the world of Islam for many years, for religious, spiritual, musical and sociological reasons. It was therefore inevitable that musicians of the Arabian North African area would play a part in the interaction of these two musical cultures.
The compositions correspond to the cross-over of musical styles at the time of the recording 6000 miles away across the Mediterranean and Atlantic in New York with releases on Moodsville by Yusef Lateef and RCA by Ahmed Abdul-Malik. This record represents the Cairo Jazz Band responding to the American jazz scene in the 60’s and 70’s with influences from Mongo Santamaria to Randy Weston to Sun Ra. These tracks (apart from “Egypt Strut”) were first presented by the Ministry Of Culture in Cairo as a Prism Music Unit Production.
Taste :
Salah Ragab & The Cairo Jazz Band – A Tribute To Sun Ra
Hard soulful Latin from the great Willie Bobo! The record's an extremely tasty blend of cuts that mix hard Latin grooving with a swinging 60s pop feel – all filtered through the crossover genius of late 60s Verve. There's lots of great boogaloo groovers, shing-a-ling rhythms, and a tight no-nonsense approach to percussion
The big beat here is plenty darn funky – but in some really weird and wonderful ways too – thanks to the genius talents of the mighty Alan Moorehouse, the legendary British maestro featured on this rare sound library album for KPM! Moorehouse is even more compelling than some of his funky contemporaries on the sound library scene – because he's not only got a great way of cooking up a short, simple, soulful groove – but he also puts the instruments together in really unusual ways, often to create sounds that veer past their simple origins, to make the grooves sound even greater! This album's a sound library masterpiece all the way through – the kind of set that makes you realize why this under-exposed genre of music is regarded so highly by modern beatheads – thanks to Moorehouse's use of organ, keyboards, funky drums, and a fair bit of acoustic guitar – quite unusual for a KPM set, but all the more compelling.
If Lucio Battisti was Italy’s answer to France’s Serge Gainsbourg, then Amore E Non Amore is his own Histoire De Melody Nelson, a concept album that’s widely regarded as a formative artistic achievement (if far from the most hit packed album) of his respective career. Both albums were released in 1971. For Battisti, the concept came from that dichotomous title: there’s a rocky ‘non-love’ side of the album, which has songs about obsession and adultery, and a ‘love’ side of dreamy, prog-rock instrumentals.
Amore E Non Amore was to be a watershed moment for Battisti. His label considered it to be too experimental and advanced for the Italian audience, and refused to release it. They were wrong: it instead set Battisti on a liberating course of artistic freedom and widespread success, and gifted the world one of Italy’s greatest musical exports.By LightintheAttic
The tag end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s brought a river of permissiveness into film, with sexploitation getting a pretty good foothold in American drive-ins and cheap theaters -- not porn, but softcore weirdness involving lots of young people running around naked in whatever circumstances could be concocted. As good as America's breed of low-rent filmmakers got with this, though, they couldn't hold a candle to the Europeans -- particularly the Germans, who all but turned softcore into a science. It may well be that America retreated to cheap horror movies in self-defense (and a case could be made that the English also beat a retreat, assuming a hardcore literary stance). And so, Germany produced Schulmäedchen Report (Schoolgirl Report), its many sequels, and its ilk. There were a lot of them, many of which wound up exported, badly dubbed, and run to death. If they didn't have a soundtrack by Gert Wilden & His Orchestra, then they weren't worth bothering with -- well, at least according to the liner notes here. Going by the evidence at hand, the liner notes might well be right. Wilden's music is a wonderfully demented pastiche that takes its inspiration from all kinds of sources -- "Dirty Beat" swipes from Led Zeppelin, but chucks in bits of acid rock, crazed Farfisa organ, and drum work that sounds like tap-dancing piledrivers. Other cuts teeter on the edge of pure lounge, there's bits of smoky jazz, R&B, crazily mangled surf music, whatever else can be jammed in and will stick -- listening to this is like dealing with weather in Vermont: wait a couple of minutes and it'll change completely. One moment it's lolling saxophone, and the next it's James Last on amphetamines. It all fits, it's often hilarious, and it is absolutely worth keeping on hand. The album producers have also provided multiple liner notes (in English, German, and very small type) that explain the background of the films, provide biographical information about Gert Wilden, and have a little fun with the audience. Lobby cards and stills are scattered liberally throughout so that booklet begins to resemble a photo essay on nudism (the booklet front and the tray card feature nude stills as well; no disguises evident here.) The music, however, remains interesting long after the images have become boring.
In 1979, Emma Dorgu decided it was time to act. He’d torn up the Lagos live scene with The Thermometers and conquered the airwaves with the single, ‘World People’. But there were injustices afoot, not just in Nigeria, but in South Africa and Zimbabwe and across the continent as well, and he felt that something needed to be done. Roverman was his politicized call to action. Blackman Akeeb Kareem lent him the instruments and let him rehearse in his sitting room. Dorgu sets his stall out early in the reggae-tinged ‘Free My People’ calling for freedom for South Africa, freedom for Zimbabwe, indeed, freedom for all. Thankfully political injustice hadn’t rid Emma completely of his urge to get on down. The New York ghetto funk of ‘Roverman’ and ‘Loving’ and the straighthead boogie of ‘Afro Fever’ leaven the message with a funky beat and an irresistible pull towards the dancefloor. On Roverman Emma Dorgu has achieved that that rarest of beats, an album that challenges your mind while it speaks to your feet. Protest music has never sounded so funky.
Anne Briggs’ first album collected largely unaccompanied traditional songs, but this, her second LP, features her debut ventures into the realm of songwriting, the title track being her first ever composition. An astoundingly accomplished piece of music, ‘The Time Has Come’ (later covered by Pentangle) gives a taster not only of Briggs’ writing skills but also manages to place that effortless, timeless vocal of hers within a very personal framework.
Singing self-penned material was a fairly unusual practice (in the folk community at least) back when Briggs first started writing alongside her then-partner Bert Jansch, in the ‘60s, so to hear such a remarkable folk voice bringing new music to life must have had quite some impact. Then there’s the guitar playing: Briggs has said herself that Bert Jansch’s fingerpicking was a revelation to her – a liberation from the Woody Guthrie-style chord strumming the folk scene was so used to. This album features Briggs’ own considerable picking skills, with the complexity of the guitar arrangements making for a perfect counterbalance to her uncommonly even voice. Utterly beautiful, breathtakingly pure British folk.
Welcome to the Canteen is the first live album by English rock band Traffic. It was recorded live at Fairfield Halls, Croydon and the Oz Benefit Concert, London, July 1971 and released in September of that year. It was recorded during Dave Mason's third stint with the band, which lasted only six performances.
The track list includes one song each from the first three Traffic albums; two songs from Mason's first solo album, Alone Together; and "Gimme Some Lovin'" from Steve Winwood's former band, the Spencer Davis Group. (Winwood's organ and Mason's rhythm guitar are conspicuously out of sync for part of "Gimme Some Lovin'".)
In the band's native United Kingdom, the album was a surprise flop, the first in a series of albums by the group that would fail to make an appearance in the charts. In the USA, however, it was a solid success, hitting number 26 in the charts and yielding the single "Gimme Some Lovin' (live)", which reached number 68 in the Billboard Hot 100.
Although regarded as a Traffic album, it was originally released without the name "Traffic" anywhere on it; credited instead to the seven individual musicians. Nonetheless the Traffic logo appeared on the cover (on the back, in this case) as on all of their albums. Most later issues retain the original front cover with its individual crediting, but credit the album to Traffic on the spine.
In 1970, Traffic toured in support of their comeback album John Barleycorn Must Die, with a quartet line-up of Steve Winwood, Chris Wood, Jim Capaldi, and Ric Grech. In November, the group played a series of concerts at the Fillmore East, and recordings from these concerts were compiled into a live album consisting of "Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring", "Glad", "Pearly Queen", "40,000 Headmen", "Dear Mr. Fantasy", and "Can't Find My Way Home".This album was set for release in early 1971 but cancelled for unknown reasons, though Side A eventually appeared as bonus tracks on the 1999 reissue of John Barleycorn Must Die.
By the time of their next tour, Traffic had expanded with the additions of Dave Mason, Jim Gordon, and Reebop Kwaku Baah. The band only played six dates, two of which – their opening performance at Fairfield Hall, Croydon and a London benefit for Oz – were recorded and mixed to become Welcome to the Canteen. Mason was keen to take this version of Traffic to the United States, but Winwood was only interested in doing these six dates. Mason said, "It's Stevie's band, so it's up to him."
Welcome to the Canteenwould be the last album Traffic would release under the band's North American distribution contract withUnited Artists Records their next albumThe Low Spark of High Heeled Boyswould be issued byIsland Records, who released Traffic's records in the U.K. and who (in late 1971) had recently established operations in North America.
Legendary first Modern Jazz Album by the Swiss Metronome Quintet, recorded 1965 and 1967 in Zurich, with saxophonist Bruno Spoerri, pianist Martin Hugelshofer and vibraphonist Ueli Staub. Lost LP including Spoerri's unique jazz arrangements based on motifs of the music for "The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny" by Kurt Weill, together with some own tunes played in an exceptional style by one of the few European high-class ensembles of the era.
Taste :
The Metronome Quintet – Ach Bedenken Sie, Herr Jakob Schmidt
Movie producers and sync rights specialists take note! There is nothing
quite as evocative of mid-1960s London clubland than the hip Hammond of
Dave Davani. They call it mod jazz, but I think the more appropriate
term here is 'jazz beat', exemplified here by the fabulous lead cut Top
Of The Pops, the original theme to the BBC show we all know and hate,
and a guaranteed floor-filler at any modernist event you might hear it.
Dave himself preferred the tag the sound of swinging soul", during his
1960s heyday as one of Britain's premier jazz organists."
London has long been a hotbed for experimentation for music from West
Africa, and it’s into this global-local story that we can situate
London’s newest afrobeat innovators: KOKOROKO. In the 40’s World War Two
veteran Ambrose Campbell and his West African Rhythm Brothers, were
enticing Soho music lovers with sweet palm wine sounds. The following
decade, a young Fela Kuti (and his Koola Lobitos outfit with drummer
Tony Allen), would jam with Campbell, and the seeds for his global
Afrobeat revolution were sown.
The band’s name is an Orobo – a Nigerian tribe and language – word
meaning ‘be strong’. Sonically living up to their name, KOKOROKO are an
all star band featuring leading lights from the London jazz community.
Powered by seismic horn section (Maurice Grey, saxophonist Cassie
Kinoshi, trombonist Richie Seivewright), guitar (Oscar Jerome), keys
(Yohan Kebede), drums (Ayo Salawu) and percussion (Onome Edgeworth);
Kokoroko are on a mission to fashion new languages using the medium of
afrobeat.
“This is not idle music!” says Sheila Maurice-Grey, reflecting on the
rich history of sounds that have inspired the band. Whether it's the
social commentary, the political stance of acts like the Black
President, or the high power energy of afrobeat nights: the music is
teeming with a potent energy the band want to propel forwards, London
style. Make no mistake, this is not a band interested in performative
tributes or pastiche. For Maurice Grey, part of the drive behind their
creative impulse to is ask: “what does this music sound like for my
generation?”
“We love this music and want other people to love it the way we do”,
shared Edgeworth. Aside of the primacy of love for the music, a subtext
of the bands creation was a sense of alienation at London’s thinning
pool of afrobeat and highlife nights – particularly of black listeners
and players. “We don’t want this music to die”, he added.
Rather than launching straight into writing their own music, since the
band’s formation in 2014, they immersed themselves in the sounds of Pat
Thomas, Ebo Taylor and others by playing covers to sell out crowds. “I
remember speaking with Dele Sosimi about the structure of Fela’s songs –
every element plays a part. But, before melody or harmony, there’s
rhythm. The rhythmic aspect of the solos from that era is amazing. The
West African approach to jazz and improvisation is hip!”, offered
Maurice-Grey.
In writing their own music, Edgeworth emphasised how much the KOKOROKO
sound is shaped by the capital. “We didn’t want it to sound too clean –
that doesn’t really fit into the London sound”, he said. Instead, the
band opt for grooves with added grit: “we wanted it to sound rough, like
going out and hearing music pushed through speakers or the energy of
people dancing at afrobeat parties: its music we’ve seen work on
dancefloors”.
Drawing as much from nightlife, the musical influences of West African
Pentecostal churches, jazz and Western classical, its both in the middle
of and beyond this mix of influences that KOKOROKO’s self titled EP
takes shape.
Adwa opens deep-ridge grooves. Drawing from the syncopated funk of
Ethio-jazz, it takes its name from the Ethiopian city of the same name.
Composed by keyboardist Yohan Kebede, the victorious spirit of the track
is a meditation not only on the infamous Battle of Adwa, but of the way
societies evolve in the aftermath of conflict.
Ti-de is a soft lullaby taking its cue from a medley of old West African
folk melodies. A meditation on remaining present through change, the
track is laced with opiating guitar lines, soft percussion and languid
vocals that feel at times interchangeable with the grand sway of the
horn section.
The jubilant Uman arrives as a “celebration of women, black women in
particular,” shares Maurice Grey. “I wrote the tune with my mother in
mind”. The track tackles the cultural trope of the ‘black superwoman’
and – similarly to Maurice-Grey’s visual artwork – asks questions about
why misrepresentations about black women exist. Ultimately, it's a
redemptive track that makes space for both the unique struggles black
women face, and their vulnerability.
Like Ti-de, Absuey Junction takes its lead from Ebo Taylor’s horn led approach, and
showcases the band’s deft hand with palm wine infused ballads. The hit
single, first featured on the We Out Here compilation, reached 18
million + views on YouTube. Based on a composition by guitarist Oscar
Jerome, the track captures the sunset hum of Gambia’s nocturnal
soundscapes, winding horn solos and haunting vocals.
A precursor to their album, “it’s an honest capture” of the band’s progression and a stunning introduction to their sound. From bandcamp
A killer batch of jazzy Brazilian tracks – with a soaring groove that
will never let you down! Sivica's a guitarist and accordionist who'd
worked in the 60s with artists like Luiz Henrique and Oscar Brown Jr –
but in this 1973 session, recorded in the US, he hits a sound that he'd
be hard pressed to match again in his career! The style of the music is
a bit electric bossa, a bit funky fusion – with a sound that's
influenced many of today's Brazilian instrumental groups from Italy or
Japan. As proof of this, the record includes a great uptempo version of
"Ain't No Sunshine" that was a jazz dance classic way back – and a take
on Edu Lobo's "Ponteio" that's one of our favorite versions of the
tune.
A stunner from the Afro Funk scene of the 70s – and the kind of record
that makes us realize just how much greatness there is to discover!
Years back, we thought we'd heard all the good cuts from the sub-Saharan
continent – but a record like this really makes us sit up and take new
notice – grabbed by the core funky rhythms of the combo, which feel like
some lost east coast funky 45 on the harder moments, and which get some
cool production and keyboard touches on other tracks – all to perfectly
underscore the group's amazingly catchy vocals! The organ lines burn
right on top of the basslines, creating these waves of soul that grab us
right away.
Taste :
Akwassa
- Be Yourself (And Don't Let Nobody Be You)
Michael Edward "Mike" Cotton hit the UK professional jazz circuit with
his trad jazz outfit The Mike Cotton Jazzmen in the 1950s. The Mike
Cotton Jazzmen recorded three singles and one EP for Columbia between
1961 and 1963, prior to moving from jazz to a more pop / R&B
oriented style and a band name change to The Mike Cotton Sound. They
were regulars in the London R&B / Mod club circuit of the early
sixties and in 1964 they released one single and their eponymous LP on
Columbia, plus one single on Denmark's branch of the Metronome label.
They would be releasing other 45s through 1965, and inn 1966 their style
evolved again, entering the field of soul music and performing and
recording as Lucas and The Mike Cotton Sound. Lucas was Bruce McPherson
Lucas, an american singer who had previously been working with other
bands in the Norwich area. The Mike Cotton Sound also acted as a backing
band, both live and in the studio, for artists such as Sugar Pie
DeSanto, Gene Pitney, Stevie Wonder, Doris Troy, The Four Tops and
Solomon Burke. They also backed Mary Hopkin in her classic Postcard LP
for The Beatles' Apple Records. Their brass section, which included Mike
Cotton himself on trumpet and flugelhorn, joined The Kinks on their
1971 Muswell Hillbillies album and stayed with them until the mid 1970s,
when Cotton returned to the jazz scene.
Afrosound’s mission was to emulate the guitar-heavy tropical sounds
emanating from Perú and Ecuador at the time. To add to the hippie vibe,
there were plenty of whacky improvised vocal asides (called
‘inspiraciones’), plus custom fuzz, wah-wah, flange and echo effects
boxes for the guitar and keyboards. A barrage of odd sounding synths,
drum machines and other electronic flourishes were also sprinkled in to
spice up the proceedings.
The dozen tracks on Afrosound’s debut long play make for a surprisingly
diverse palette from which these Colombian musicians painted their
daring portrait of Peruvian cumbia, returning the favor in bold colors
that still resonate almost 50 years later.
"La danza de los mirlos" kicks off with most famous Afrosound hit of all,
‘Caliventura’, a genius blend of funk and cumbia. Also, there are
several covers including various Colombian costeño classics, a groove
oriented son montuno / cumbia hybrid, Fruko’s bomba-funk ditty ‘El
chorrillo’, the melancholic psychedelic cumbia ‘Esperando por ti’ and
the rocking cumbia andina gem ‘Cabeza de chorlito’.
This lovingly restored reissue features the artwork for the Peruvian
edition, which was licensed and issued by Lima’s El Virrey label in 1974.
A classic album of Latin grooves from the UK scene – a musical world that wasn't always a hotbed of styles in the Afro-Cuban mode, but which did have the benefit of the mighty percussionist Robin Jones! Jones was born in India, but moved to London during the same post-colonial jazz migration that brought the city key talents from the West Indies – and like Joe Harriott, Shake Keane, and others, Robin's contributions to the scene were crucial during the years he worked in a variety of different groups! This set is Jones' second as a leader – a very hip set that's all jazz all the way through – with plenty of percussion from Robin, and a combo that includes trumpet, saxes, keyboards, and vibes – all used in ways that take off from the best jazz descarga styles into a range of other modes.
The debut album from Maxayn – a funky female talent who deserves to be
mentioned in the same territory as Betty Davis and Yvonne Fair! Like
both of those artists, Maxayn isn't afraid to use an electric guitar
when she wants – which puts her music somewhere in the territory of
groups like The Bar-Kays and Black Nasty, and the way they could blend
rock influences with funk and soul! No surprise, Maxayn's bandmates
here include two members of Buddy Miles' group – who really help keep
things deep – providing a massive foundation for the lady's incredible
vocals. Titles include covers of the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What
You Want" and "Gimme Shelter" – plus the original tunes "Trying For
Days", "Jam For Jack", "Song", and "Doing Nothing Nothing Doing".
Prior to gaining recognition as a co-writer of the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There" and establishing himself as a valuable songwriter, arranger, and producer at Motown, Willie Hutch released singles on Dunhill and Soul City and wrote for the 5th Dimension. He was also signed to RCA as a solo artist, and Soul Portrait was his debut album, the first of two sets he recorded for the label. Hutch compared his approach here to that of Otis Redding; though there are definite parallels, such as its convincing Southern tint, Hutch's
vocals, rough-hewn as they are, tend to roam within the range of sweet
and tender to deeply impassioned and emphatic, yet without ever reaching
Redding's
belting levels à la "Try a Little Tenderness" or "Respect." Backed by
an uncredited roster of studio musicians that often involves a rich
combination of horns, strings, and female background vocalists -- best
heard together on the ecstatically reeling "Your Love Keeps Liftin' Me
Higher," an original that indicates where Hutch would take his sound on The Mack -- Soul Portrait
is as complete as any other soul album released in 1969, consistent
without obvious high or glaring low points. That lack of a signature
song or two likely hindered its progress.
