Jazz Recommends Jazz April 2022

Review: Sir Edward's The Power Of Feeling album will cost you upwards of three figures if you want to buy an original copy. Thankfully you can enjoy its delights now for a much more reasonable price thanks to this reissue from Jazz Room. The record features unheralded sax man Harold Vick as side man with some legendary Hammond men Big John Patton, Jimmy McGriff and Larry Young also on board. They all serve up a soulful jazz sound that is smooth but never sentimental, with versions of Donny Hathaway and The Stylistics tunes and a super version of the classic 'People Make The World Go Round.'

Review: Secret Night Gang are poised for greatness, beaming out of Manchester with a dazzlingly sunny jazz funk sound which is right at home on Brownswood. Fronted by Kemani Anderson, this supremely talented band have all the chops you could wish for, melting buttery Rhodes, honey-coated sax, slinky bass and liquid guitar lines into the pot and laying it on smooth. From upbeat party pieces to cosy, baby-making fodder, this debut album rightly places them in the cut and thrust of the contemporary jazz scene, and they brim with more than enough talent to take themselves very far indeed.

Review: Blue-noted jazz modulators Ill Considered here present their irst fully produced studio album on New Soil - 'Liminal Space'. After releasing a whopping 9 self-released albums in the space of 2 years, this is their first studio-crafted LP following their step up to the label, and are soon set to show it off at a debut interactive A/V residency at Southbank Centre's Purcell Room. Fresh with a new lineup, the noodling bass of Liran Donin courses the ears like velvet on 'Dust', while Dadaist freakouts, courtesy of Emre Ramazanoglu's drums, cause anxious goosebumps on reaching 'Light Trailed'. Don't miss this limited double black 2xLP.

Review: This rarity gets a loving reissue via Mad About Records, zooming in the talents of a lesser-touted jazz virtuoso and former Sun Ra Arkestra member. Jothan Callins was a jazz bassist and trumpeter, who rose to prominence in the late 60s with the band Olatunji before joining the Arkestra. 'Winds Of Change' is his only LP, released in 1975. Across four long pieces that seamlessly blend, Callins brings a blissful, yet more energetic and classic jazz feel to his works, and is an example of the Strata East style, . Watch out for the 4-page booklet that comes with this reissue.

Review: Since launching the Jazz is Dead series two years ago, Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muuhammad have released eight studio albums - each a collaboration with a different figure from the jazz and soul spectrum - and a compilation of instrumental takes. It makes sense, then, that volume 10 is a remix album, with a variety of producers putting their stamp on cuts from the pair's expansive joint catalogue. As you'd expect, it's packed to the rafters with killer hip-hop, downtempo and broken beat reworks, with highlights including Cut Chemist's head-nodding, cinematic hip-hop take on Gary Bartz hook-up 'Soulsea', Shigeto's contemporary spiritual jazz revision of Brian Jackson co-production 'Nacy Wilson', and DJ Spinna's squelchy, house-not-house rub of Azymouth collaboration 'Rendor Do Samba'. Soulful, jazz-fired perfection.

Review: The fifth solo album from one of the boldest travellers in jazz, Universal Consciousness was a breakthrough for Alice Coltrane and surely one of the most important LPs in the genre. Casting off limitations and heading into brilliant bursts of dissonance and enlightenment at every turn, it's a visceral listen led by Coltrane herself on harp and organ. There are moments of melodious calm beyond the dissonant drama of tracks like 'Battle At Armageddon' - by comparison 'Oh Allah' has a sweet and tender spirit even if Coltrane's nimble organ playing still borders on the frenetic. The clarity of vision and openness to new possibilities in music are staggering and unmatched, even 50 years on.

Review: Acclaimed free jazz improvisor and all round American music maestro Don Cherry has a vast discography that covers just about all points on the spectrum. Here & Now found the famed trumpeter work with plenty of epic rock guitars on a collection of high octane and dense tracks. They were recorded in December 1976 and released on Atlantic in the same year and a wealth o guest musicians continued to the record's rich sonic tapestry. It might not be his most famous work but it has lots of interesting polyrhythmic percussion work that is well worth checking out.

Review:  Don Cherry's vast discography has got myriad highlights. Some are mad and hard to explain, some are trippy and immersive, and some are mystical. On The Eternal Now - one of two albums cut for Sonet - he was joined by Swedish players like Bernt Rosengren, Agneta Arnstrom, and Bengt Berger. The vibe is very much worldly jazz and it is layered with strange percussion, gongs, pianos, and other percussive instruments. Vocals from Cherry himself can also be found along the way and as such this is one of his most expansive works.

Review: 'Song For Biko' is Johnny Dyani's defining chef d'oeuvre, and was dedicated to the martyred South African anti-apartheid activist, Steve Biko. Despite an illustriuous solo career following his stint as part of The Blue Notes, only 3 albums in the space of 10 years were released by his Quartet. By the time of 'Song For Biko', its membership included Don Cherry, Dudu Pukwana and Makaya Ntshoko, whose combined musical prowess adds up to a glorious melodic free jazz debut.

Review: Even though it came on the venerated Blue Note label, Sonny Red's Out of the Blue record is somehow something of an overlooked treasure. Alto sax man Sonny Red only out this one record for the label and recorded it across two separate sessions with piano from Wynton Kelly as well as Sam Jones and Paul Chambers on bass, stickmen Roy Brooks and Jimmy Cobb. This reissue is part of the Tone Poet Series which presses up records on nice heavy wax in deluxe packaging after remastering form the original analogue master tapes so you can be sure it sounds superb.

Review: Wendell Harrison and Phil Raneli's Message From The Tribe is regarded by those who know as an untouchable example of spiritual jazz. The Tribe label - run of course by the pair themselves - it came on was also one of the great of its era in the 1970s. Here the album has been remixed from the OG master tapes, all under the watchful eye of its creators, then lacquered by Bernie Grundman. It is an expansive and indulgent record that includes a vast booklet that takes us through the history of the label and touches on the story of Black American empowerment.

Review: Originally out in 1970 on his own self-titled album, Arthur Verocai's "Sylvia" is a peach of a song, one of those sweet and bubbly percussive tunes that blur the lines between modern civilization and the jungle. The Brazilian composer's music has been heavily sought-after in its original format, and Mr Bongo delivers here in fine style with another killer from the LP, "Na Boco Do Sol". Fans of Marcos Valle will appreciate this one for the slow magnetic waves permeating from just about every angle on the record.

Review: The debut album from founding members Jason Kohnen and Gideon Kiehrs, the Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble (now a sextet) was originally conceived as a means to realise imaginary scores for classic silent films, such as Nosferatu and Metropolis. Often made and played together with fragments from these films to help intensify the impact of the audio, each song here is a brooding noir slinker, not lacking in its heady supply of drum brushes, trombone drones and chromatics. The album is also a semi-synthetic affair, with Kiers providing synths, visuals and sequencing on this romantic yet mildly creepy 2xLP - a reissue of the original from 2006.

Review: One of the greatest of all the jazz pianists, the recently departed Chick Corea sounded more at home than anywhere else when playing in his Akoustic Band. Alongside Dave Weckl and John Patitucci, he intermittently dazzled crowds and even on the odd occasion took the three-piece into the studio to record new material. At the Heineken Jazzalia in 2018, Chick Corea Akoustic Band took to the stage and gave a dazzling performance. Weckl's drumming is sprightly and dynamic, Patitucci's bass playing fluid and expressive, but of course the rhythm section is just there to carry the winged delight of Corea himself, gliding across the scales and reaching new heights through every one of these treasured pieces.

Review: Milt Jackson was a legendary jazz vibraphonist who performed and recorded extensively with The Modern Jazz Quartet as well as working as a sideman with many of the greats throughout his life. This compilation, originally released on Blue Note, went through a variety of iterations originally starting out as Wizard of the Vibes in 1952 before getting an update in '55 as Milt Jackson and the Thelonious Monk Quintet. As well as the dazzling music, the cover design was the first Reid Miles completed for Blue Note, marking the start of an iconic meeting between music and graphics which remains influential to this day.

Review: Second time around for Tribe Records founder and spiritual jazz fusionist Phil Ranelin's sophomore solo set, 1976's Vibes From The TR13E. Recorded and released in 1976, the album features Ranelin and an impressive cast of musical collaborators join the dots between soul-jazz, modal, spiritual and free-jazz on a set that adds occasional moments of cacophonous intensity (particularly within epic flipside cut 'He's The Only One We Knew', a genuinely free-wheeling, otherworldly jazz classic) to a set that's otherwise rich in good grooves, inspired instrumentation and subtle cosmic messaging. Ranelin's starring role includes providing some sublime trombone parts, an aspect of his musical personality that often gets overlooked in favour of his role as a producer, composer and bandleader.