Back catalogue: Jazz

Review: P-VINE present a limited box set from their popular "Groove Diggers'' reissue series. All tracks selected by DJ Muro, one of Japan's best known DJs/producers/diggers and pressed on 7" for the first time, featuring classics from Erik Tagg, Prince Billy Mahdi Wright, Billy Wooten, Spice, & 1619 Bad Ass Band.

Review: It's astounding to think that Mother 2 was released in 1994. A landmark moment for the SNES video game system, it arrived five years after its predecessor, and as such enjoyed the benefits of what was then a next generation platform. Felt in terms of graphical and gameplay capabilities, suffice to say the upgraded hardware was also capable of capturing much more engaging and imaginative music. Here we are, almost 30 years on from when this sequel first captivated people, and the score itself gets a re-release on vinyl. Again drafting Hirokazu Tanaka and Keiichi Suzuki as composers, the pair would later explain how much more freedom they had due to the technological progress made between this and its predecessor. Translated into a music review, think deep, atmospheric ambient constructed from many layers of sound. A futuristic sonic trip into the far reaches of the cosmos that still holds up within the genre today.

Review: Horace Tapscott founded the Pan African Peoples Arkestra in Los Angeles in 1961, foregrounding community and expressions for Black people and their arts. Across their considerable legacy, this live album is one of the Arkestra's standout moments and now it's finally being repressed. Scott's leadership guides the Arkestra on a journey through the most life-affirming spiritual jazz, fuelled by Afro-centric rhythms, meandering basslines and soaring flute and horn arrangements. Recorded at the Immanuel United Church of Christ in LA in 1979, this double album is a stunning document of Tapscott's project during a golden era for underground jazz.

Review: Catch The Groove: Live At The Penthouse 1963-67 does what it says on the tin; with all of the performances heard on this set having previously unreleased, Latin jazz vibraphone legend Cal Tjader is heard with a variety of quintets at the seminal Pacific Northwest venue; he's heard backed by pianists Clare Fischer, Lonnie Hewitt and Al Zulaica, bassists Fred Schreiber, Terry Hilliard, Monk Montgomery and Stan Gilbert, drummers Johnny Rae and Carl Burnett, and percussionists Bill Fitch and Armando Peraza. Part of a new series homing in on live jazz greats by record producer and "Jazz Detective" Zev Feldman, Tjader more than fits into this retrospective effort, with Feldman himself noting the bittersweet diminution of Tjader's popularity in the present era, despite commanding reams of attention from a massive audience while he was alive. All's well that ends well, then: this one comes as both a deluxe LP and CD edition for new-heads and completists alike.

Review: 1969 was the year free improvisation took off in Japan, and this soundtrack album is one of the sparks which lit the flame. Isolation was originally commissioned as a soundtrack to a 'landscape film' entitled Abbreviated Serial Killer, focused on one Norio Nagayama. Masahiko Togayashi teamed up with Motoki Takagi and the duo thought it better to approach the subject without attempting any composition. In the process the two pioneers of free jazz created a landmark work which stands as one of the all-time most important documents of Japanese free jazz.

Review: Tsuyoshi Yamamoto Trio. Japanese jazz legend Tsuyoshi Yamamoto has been busy with his trio for this new album A Shade Of Blue which comes on gatefold 180 gram vinyl via Evo Sound. The record is a reflection of his love of the classic piano trio. Such a setup was only first conceived in around the 1940s when jazz cat Nat King Cole first had the idea which was then further built on in the fifties by now well regarded innovators such as Oscar Peterson, Ahmad Jamal and Bill Evans. Alongside bassist Hiroshi Kagawa and drummer Toshio Osumi, Yamamoto revels in great musical chemistry for this most sublime album.