John Coltrane in the Mystic Temple

Listening to this pretty amazing 1966 archival release of John Coltrane's Offering: Live at Temple University, I am reminded of no less than the good 'ol Grateful Dead in terms of the sort of sonic mind trip the band takes it's audience -- and listeners -- on.  

The show, culled from the master tapes from the Temple University radio station archives (where it was broadcast back in the day, November 11, 1966), starts with the familiar, relatively accessible and beautiful "Naima" and proceeds to get increasingly more intense and dense and out there.

This concert opens with the familiar to bring the crowd together and into the music. By the second set, they would launch into an interstellar space jam, an improvised journey through the cosmos before bringing the audience back to earth.

I'll jump ahead and let you know that that by side three of Live at Temple University, during a piece called "Leo," Coltrane and his band are reaching the outer stratosphere of what most people in 1966 might have known or considered as jazz. This is the more avant-garde and challenging Coltrane sound found on albums like Ascension and Om. 

Frankly, the lines between jazz and the psychedelic music happening on the West Coast are getting pretty blurry here...

When Coltrane puts down his sax for a bit and starts singing, while the band is percolating in the background, it recalls no less than Zappa's Mothers of Invention which a year or two later would be exploring similar realms (challenging avant-garde jazz vocal-ese included, no extra charge).

When the master tape runs out suddenly at the end of that side, its almost a blessed relief.  

It is a near perfect release for the listener because the music was getting pretty intense.  And while I'm sure the record label could have found some fan-recorded off-the-air tape to tack on the rest of that piece, I'm sure the fidelity would have suffered greatly.  No, ending the side abruptly where it stops was the right choice for production continuity.

When you flip the album side over the tone the band is calmer, with the title track "Offering" leading into Coltrane's classic interpretation of "My Favorite Things."  

However, don't get too comfortable expecting any sort of lounge-jazz take on the popular tune (from the show / movie The Sound of Music) -- this take gets plenty edgy as well; although, compared to "Leo," its like listening to an hotel cocktail lounge jazz group, offering some cotton candy to sooth the audience's battered soul.  Still, Coltrane takes you back out into outer space for a while and then brings you down to reality quite dramatically at the end, reintroducing the main melody line over the band's volcanic rumblings.  

Many confused fans apparently left during this show but you can hear, at the end, that the ones who stayed for its entirety were clearly very much into the new directions Coltrane was taking.

I don't know much about the lineage of the older bootlegs of this show that may be circulating out there among Coltrane collectors.  From the liner notes, I do know that there is only one source for the these recordings and that is the pair of master reel-to-reel tapes made at the time of the show, which have been stored in the Temple University radio station archives all these years.

So, how does Offering: Live at Temple University sound overall ? Well, I can imagine that if you had a bootleg made off a fan made tape recorded off the air in 1966, then that was probably a weak sounding experience; this sounds tremendous in retrospect. As far as I know this is the first time it has been issued off the master tape from the radio station that broadcast the show. 

For a 1966 monaural recording made essentially by student engineers in a college auditorium, I think it sounds pretty spectacular -- a live recording made with a single mic (according to the liner notes, they suspect) set closer to Coltrane. The "mix" (if you will) is thus quite Sax heavy, but it is what it is. Fidelity wise, it is very clean and overall full sounding with mostly a stage sound and very little audience noise. 

This is no doubt a vintage recording -- don't expect this to sound as perfect as one of the studio recordings or even the professionally recorded albums like Live at the Village Vanguard -- but most certainly it sounds way way better than many archival recordings I have heard over the years that were never originally intended for released. 

At the end of the day, Offering: Live at Temple University is a fine document of a special performance, a very distinct moment in time toward the end of Coltrane's life (he would be gone a year later).

I can only imagine what Coltrane was hearing in his head that would have prompted him to stop playing his sax and start to sing during this performance. If he had a synthesizer player in the band at the time or another type of string player, perhaps they would have picked up on the melody Coltrane was singing over the musical bed he'd laid down at that point and taken the jam into other directions. The mind boggles over the possibilities...

Anyhow, this is a super deluxe release and I'm really impressed with the attention to detail that the folks at Resonance Records have put into this one. Bravo! 

The dead quiet, perfectly centered vinyl pressing is of the heavy 180-gram type done at RTI and mastered by the legendary Bernie Grundman. They not only produced the album bearing period-accurate Impulse Records labels -- the label Coltrane was on at the time of this recording -- but the whole look at feel of the package is like one of those robust releases from that timeframe. The cardboard used for the cover is thick and heavy and the only thing missing is a shiny plastic-laminate layer. The producers more than make up for that little detail by adding in a collection of postcards featuring photos from the show by photographer Frank Kofsky. You also get a nicely laid out and informative four-page, LP-sized insert with detailed liner notes about the show and including commentary from people that were actually at the show -- such as acclaimed Saxophonist Michael Brecker (who was in high school at the time and see the show!). 

This is one of those premium priced deluxe releases -- a limited, hand numbered edition of 2,000 copies, going for about $50 at retail --  that I can totally see spending the money on if you are a Coltrane enthusiast. Its a gem. Additionally, a portion of each sale will go to preserving Coltrane's home where he spent the last years of his life out on Long Island (http://thecoltranehome.org).

So by buying this, not only are you getting a wonderful piece of music history, you are helping to preserver a physical piece of music history for the ages.  

That makes this all an extra special trip indeed!

Saburo K, Saitama, Japan. 

Jeremy Underground : From House to Disco Boogie

Jeremy Underground first gained attention through My Love Is Underground. His vinyl-only label, launched in 2010, helped revive a particular style of pneumatic, '90s-inspired house. He slowly gained a reputation as a major house nerd, a man with encyclopedic knowledge of Kerri Chandler B-sides and little-known American record labels. He also displayed a broader love of music. On his YouTube channel, he shared an array of obscure jazz, soul and disco from around the world. He also dropped fantastic home-listening mixes. 

Beauty is Jeremy's first downtempo compilation. His credentials to curate such a release are matched by Claremont, whose Originals compilation series was one of the decade's best. Beauty is the second release from the Claremont sub-label Spacetalk, which is run by Psychemagik's Danny McLewin. The pair met after Jeremy's soul and funk set in Maceo's, a crew bar run by Block 9. Danny was impressed, a friendship was born and the decision to make the compilation was solidified there and then. 

Beauty features some of the best records Jeremy has discovered so far. The music is often pleasingly difficult to categorise. There's Sonya Spence's "Let Love Flow On," a soul track that features Jamaican musicians who usually perform in ska and reggae bands. There's Starcrost's "Quicksand," which has a folksy, soul-jazz vibe, Leila Pinheiro's bossa nova-rooted disco and Christer Norden's funky library music. The pick of Beauty might be "Hardly Need To Say." This mind-blowing smoky soul cut would have been a huge hit had it been released on a big label, as opposed to a tiny company from Glassboro, New Jersey. 

Reissue culture has arguably never been more vibrant. The likes of BBE, Music From Memory and Numero Group unearth a seemingly never-ending stash of vinyl gold. But in a crowded marketplace Beauty stands out. The laid-back vibe and sparkling musicianship on the album makes it a pleasure from start to finish. In my 2014 review of Jeremy's previous house compilation, My Love Is Underground, I said, "If you're at all interested in playing old-school house music on vinyl, then this is an essential purchase." By that logic, if you're into soul and jazz records, you need Beauty in your life.

Saburo K, Saitama, Japan. 

Renaud Garcia-Fons Bridges The Mediterranean

Renaud Garcia-Fons is known among jazz fans as an ear-popping virtuoso of the acoustic bass. The sounds he conjures from his five-string instrument have won him admirers around the world. But for his latest project, the Spanish-French musician says he wanted to concentrate on composition — specifically the sounds of the Mediterranean — while searching for a bridge between the music of the East and the West.

Garcia-Fons says the initial thinking behind his new album, Mediterranees, was not to compose music for a band, but to make a concept album inspired by music across the Mediterranean and the search for a common identity. That process took him back to his childhood.

"When I was in family, I was of course listening to Spanish music," he says. "But when I grew up in Paris, I had a chance to listen to many different music from north of Africa, which is Mediterranean. After that, I had really a passion for all music coming from Middle East, from Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt."

Garcia-Fons says all of these different styles of music share common elements, and that he wanted to find the connections.

"We have some bridges, but also, of course, each tradition is unique," he says. "The sense of this music was also to try to establish some bridges between."

Garcia-Fons' exploration begins in Andalucia, in the south of Spain, with a piece called "Aljamiado" — its title a reference to the Spanish language from the time when the region was ruled by the Moors.

"For me, it's a good illustration of the union between Occident and Orient," Garcia-Fons says. His music moves from West to East, from Spain to the South of France, Italy and Greece, to the northern tip of the Mediterranean.

"So all the first pieces are more on the 'occidental way,' and then the big change starts in the piece called 'Bosphore,' " he says. "Because the trip arrive finally on the Bosphorus, so we reach the border with the Orient and start more Oriental influences."

Unlike some of Garcia-Fons' previous recordings, the new album is not centered on his five-string acoustic bass, but rather on composition. Nevertheless, Yatrika Shah-Rais — music director at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles, where Garcia-Fons performed recently with his quartet — says Garcia-Fons is a virtuoso.

"This is a world-class musician that deserves to be truly acknowledged for what he does," Shah-Rais says. "He's unique in every sense of the word. He's unique in his approach to compositions, to his music. He's unique in his technique. He's unique in the way that he has revolutionized the bass, and simply he has a fantastic band."

Garcia-Fons says he's always been intrigued with the notion that the roots of Western music come from the East. And he says that thread is present, not just in Western Europe, but also in the Americas.

"This is a fascinating point for me. And this is what also I really appreciate in all American music, from South to North, is that we can feel this influence from the Mediterranean area," Garcia-Fons says. "I think maybe the common relative is baroque music. I heard that many baroque musicians find some codex, for example, in Mexico, so I think this was one of the bridge for the music to come here and to meet other culture, other people."

Saburo K, Saitama, Japan. 

Fela : The Best of the Black President

With a full reissue campaign coming-- and a show in his honor on Broadway-- Fela's re-examination year kicks off with this comp. 

There's a diner in central Virginia called the Blue Moon that used to play a Fela Kuti compilation what seemed like every Sunday morning for at least a couple of years-- something I mention because it's how I first heard his music and how I remember it best: Over and over again, at a decent volume. His recordings are defiantly samey, but his style is unmistakable: the horn-head/solo structure of American and European jazz applied to funk; 12-minute songs that seem to start somewhere in the middle; lots of congas, lots of honking. Something like the Nigerian James Brown, sure, but also a little like Monet's series of haystacks-- each iteration a little different but disciplined in their similarity, always some minor variation on an ideal.

So while two straight discs of Fela is exhausting, it's probably the most suitable way to digest him. I can't say that Black President (which is exactly the same as MCA's out-of-print The Best of Fela Kuti) contains all of Fela's best material-- he has too many records, and they've only been sporadically available on CD. (Knitting Factory, by the way, intends to reissue 45 of them over the next year and a half.) What I can say is that his music is so intense and consistent in mood that lesser tracks in his discography just make themselves obvious-- they don't appear hypnotized by the sprit; they lack energy. In 2006 I tried to listen to 20 Fela albums in a row and came to two conclusions: For the most part, his best songs had already made it on compilations, and that compilations best convey the full brunt of his music. There's also the issue of consumer value: Most of Fela's original albums featured only two tracks, each about 15 minutes, so a $20 compilation just gives you a lot more to chew on than a $12 album. Fela: The Best of the Black President isn't just a good place for someone starting out, it's probably the only Fela album many will need to own. True, some of the songs are edited, but if you need the full 15-minute version of "Gentlemen" instead of the 11-minute one, then the Best of is probably not for you in the first place.

Fela changed the course of funk, African music, and almost anything groove-based that came after him, but it sometimes seems like his contributions to music in general are more interesting than actually listening to his music in specific, or that the sum of his work is more exciting than any particular set of songs. It's like seeing the forest but missing the trees, or being in love with the idea of love. Or like a complaint I remember being attributed to guitarist Arto Lindsay when he was in the no-wave band DNA: That people either loved or hated them, but never talked about which songs worked or didn't. This might be a personal opinion, though-- I also find it hard to actively enjoy James Brown after two hours. At a certain point I just become passively reverent, and have a suspicion that other people do, too, unless they're dancing. (This prompts the question of Fela's utility in scenarios facilitating human propulsion to rhythm. He's useful.)

His biography is even more sellable-- and more bullet-point friendly-- than his music: twenty-seven wives, a commune/recording studio for his band members and family, an actively hostile relationship with Nigeria's military government. The African rebel. Even if you don't like his records, take the time to watch Stephane Tchal-Gadjieff and Jean Jacques Flori's 1982 documentary, Fela Kuti: Music Is the Weapon-- a real testament to the power of an artist as a political figure (quaint, I know). All to say that he's an outsized personality; a person who stands for an idea-- an icon, I guess. "They cannot kill me, because my name is Anikulapo," he says in Music Is the Weapon-- an adopted middle name meaning, roughly, "he who carries death in his pouch."

Fela's political lyrics usually forsake subtlety for immediacy, but I find it easy to forgive him-- the soldiers who threw his mother out the window after a raid on his commune weren't very subtle either. After she died, Fela dragged a coffin to one of the army's central barracks and wrote a song about it: "Coffin for Head of State". His music is feverish, urgent, and simple, but it reflects on simple evils: Corruption, subjection, brutality. Of all verbs commonly used to try and convey music's intensity, I prefer "boils" for Fela's-- nothing abstract, just a matter of excited molecules banging against each other to produce a state simultaneously sustainable, dangerous, and transformative.

Saburo K, Saitama, Japan.

Chic Organisation : le Vrai Savoir-Faire

With the recent and highly triumphant Glastonbury appearance tucked safely under his belt, Co writing and playing lead guitar on 2013’s Summer Anthem that is Daft Punk’s ‘Get Lucky’, it was only appropriate for Nile Rodgers and his seminal Chic Organisation to assist and to share with a new legion of fans, some more of the greatness that both he and the Chic Organisation are known and respected for.

Nile Rodgers Presents: The Chic Organisation – Up All Night (The Greatest Hits) is quite simply a masterpiece in musicianship and songwriting that spans the decades with a freshness that is hard to believe given that some of the tracks on the album are nearly 40 years old! The question has to be asked as to whether Chic’s founding fathers, Nile Rodgers and the late and awfully great Bernard Edwards, realised just what they were creating back in the early days of the 1970’s Disco movement.

Both men consummate musicians with Rodgers Guitar and Edwards legendary Bass playing being almost mystical in the way they work together. Couple that with a canny knack of catchy lyrics, an eye for production techniques so far ahead of their time that they still sound as fresh today as they did originally, you have quite literally some of the greatest music ever produced!

Most of the songs will be familiar to most – with peerless extended versions of many favourites from Chic, ‘I Want Your Love’, ‘Good Times’, ‘Le Freak’ and the stunning ‘My Forbidden Lover’ to the numerous collaborations that Rodgers and Edwards made with the likes of Diana Ross, Sheila B, Sister Sledge and Debbie Harry, there’s something here for everyone.

The Chic story is a fascinating one ranging from triumph to tragedy, huge highs and massive lows but what a story it is! Nile Rodgers had to deal with the tragic loss of Bernard Edwards, dealt with his own drug addiction and more recently being diagnosed with Cancer, whilst still writing, producing and performing for pretty much every major band and artist of the 80’s, 90’s, noughties and beyond.

Its fair to say that a fair few ‘Best Of’ compilation albums only serve to remind us that a particular band had a small body of work that was worth sharing. More often than not there are the ‘filler’ tracks thrown in just to spread the value for money aspect to the loyal fan and the people that buy ‘best of’ albums for a couple of tracks that they know, but that is certainly not the case here!

Nile Rodgers Presents: The Chic Organisation – Up All Night (The Greatest Hits), is a non stop tour de force of hit after hit – 25 in all over two cd’s, every single track demonstrating complete perfection in pretty much every area of music making imaginable.  Even if you’re not a fan of the Disco Genre but are a fan of music – this album is an absolute must have in anyone’s music collection!

I guarantee you will not be able to stop tapping your feet!

Saburo K, Saitama, Japan.

Mechanical Tricky ?

Tricky : Skilled Mechanics 

Three decades into his career, Adrian Thaws, the trip-hop legend better known as Tricky, is still tinkering with his sound. Through the use of a more pre-packaged, contemporary style, his twelfth album, Skilled Mechanics, finds a slick aesthetic that's far removed from the doomy dub of his past. 

A joint effort with Wild Bunch co-founder DJ Milo and drummer Luke Harris, Skilled Mechanics is proof that Tricky, in all his stomach-knotting disquiet, is probably best left alone. With his band in tow, Thaws' music lacks its usual cutting-edge standard of production. The dazed mysticism of Maxinquaye and the nervy clatter of Pre-Millennium Tension are nowhere to be found. On tracks like the monotonous tilt-a-whirl that is "Diving Away" (an unlikely cover of the 1996 alternative rock track "Porpoise Head" by Porno For Pyros) or the forgettable ballad "Bother," what should be tension feels more like calculated quirk. 

The issues boil down to a lack of complexity. Skilled Mechanics sounds too studio-ready, as if produced with unobtrusive presets to deliver trip-hop beats sans trip. So the focus shifts to Thaws' ear for rising vocal talents, including the smoky speak-singing of Francesca Belmonte and the razor-sharp flow of Chinese rapper Ivy 艾菲. Thankfully, their talents bring a semblance of spice to an otherwise bland dish. 

The beloved menace that once made Tricky so rousing is still present in Skilled Mechanics. No one invigorates dub's bleakness quite like him, with all those off-kilter growls and harrowing rhythms. That force is present in the distorted ringtone synth of "Necessary," or the stilted radio static in "Beijing To Berlin." But the two-minute songs should've been teased out further, extended in ways that allow their dark moments to ferment. Mostly, the album needs more of Thaws' gruff rumble—maybe that could have saved limp lines like, "Where she goes, nobody knows." 

There are traces of grit on Skilled Mechanics, especially on standout track "Boy." With enough coarse energy to keep you queasy two songs later, it's an intense, three-minute attack of long-stewing resentment. But those few powerful moments are the exception rather than the norm. Their rawness is an essential element that could have lent Skilled Mechanics the sort of organic, internalized anxiety that once defined Tricky.

Saburo K, Saitama, Japan.

Jazztronic : Samurai of Japanese House

Jazztronik is the Japanese composer, musician and all round studio virtuoso Ryota Nazaki, and he has a vivid imagination far outreaching his country of origin, including a small army of musicians in his vision.

The best compliment that you can pay Samurai is that even at a hefty 80 minutes it rarely threatens to outstay its welcome. This is down to the fresh, wide-eyed stance of the music and the willingness of its author to embrace new directions. You only have to look at the list of DJs playing his music to illustrate this – Gilles Peterson heads an eclectic mix that also includes Louie Vega, Derrick May and Jazzy Jeff. Nazaki studied classical music and film soundtrack composition at university, and he puts both those disciplines to good use here.

Muddy Muddy doesn’t give a full clue as to what’s in store, full piano chords given extra credence by electric cello and a soothing him from the assembled chorus. It makes an effective prelude to the up tempo tracks, with Phoenix in particular standing out as an unusual fusion of trance and a broken beat jazz style. I use ‘trance’ in the loosest sense, as the opening keyboard loop is firmly rooted in a Philip Glass style of minimalism, but once the thickly textured piano riff joins to a broken beat, the effect is strangely exhilarating.

This is the only explicitly instrumental track on the album, as elsewhere we get to enjoy the silky smooth vocals of Yurai, whether it be on the deep house/samba fusion of Nana or the chant-like Froro, with Nazaki again veering towards trance in his choice of background loop.

A fondness for French piano music emerges in The Piano, a Ravelian loop hypnotically suspended over lighter beats. This works well in the aftermath of Arabesque, an extremely busy track where the texture gets overplayed somewhat towards the end.

Kazuhiro Takeda’s saxophone makes several lasting contributions to this record, most notably punching out the riff to Froro, but it’s Nazaki’s piano that holds centre stage, punching out chords with considerable athleticism which could be extremely tricky in a live environment. It’s credit to the pianist that he avoids the programmer’s curse of synthetic performance in the studio version.

The busy integration of styles, principally Brazilian but taking in also deep house, jazz and Latin, makes for an extremely engaging set of tracks that will enchant, soothe and inspire in equal measure.

Saburo K, Saitama, Japan.

Nicholas Payton Neo-Retro Attitude

Nicholas Payton - Numbers 

Fully in command of his own musical career and doing whatever the hell he wants to do — witness the sounds and circumstances surrounding 2011’s Bitches — Nicholas Payton is the reserved combatant, the champion of #BAM (Black African Music) to replace the moniker of “jazz” while calling out hip-hop stars like Pharrell Williams for blurring of the lines between making music and stealing it. (“Blurring lines,” see what I did there?) The way he makes his case in anything he advocates often becomes more impactful in the calm, reasoned demeanor he strikes with his words.

If a musician’s state of mind truly informs his music, then Numbers, out this week from Payton’s private label Paytone Records, coolly delivers a message, too. It’s about natural flow, feel, and not actively composing music, but simply allowing the music to compose itself. That’s how the twelve pieces on Numbers came together for Payton, who performed these numbers on a Fender Rhodes intending to dub over his spotless trumpet over them, but stopped when he came to the realization that to do that would trample over the elegance, airiness and unforced grooves already laden all over these tunes.

Payton spells out his mission for Numbers this way:

It’s what Prince was going for on the Madhouse joints, but we leaned closer to Funk and Soul — with a flare of New Orleans, of course. It’s like Leon Ware and Marvin Gaye – ‘I Want You’ meets the vamps of The Meters and the cues of The Ohio Players, with a touch of Herbie Hancock and Patrice Rushen thrown in, and a dash of Jay Dee. But it don’t sound like none of that shit at the same time.

His backing band for these tracks recorded live in the studio over three days last December is the Virginia quartet Butcher Brown: Devonne Harris (keys), Keith Askey (guitar), Andrew Randazzo (bass) and Corey Fonville (drums). Payton, as we already noted, mans the Fender Rhodes, as he did for his prior release #BAM Live at Bohemian Caverns, but unlike Live, the only sign of his horn is found on the opening cut “Two,” a silky, subdued trumpet which tracks along the melody moving at a 6/4 amble and stays out of the way of an easy-going vibe, which gets a little rowdy only at the end when Fonville lets it all out but that’s the extent of any outwardly improvising.

That vibe doesn’t vary much the rest of the way; it’s the same vibe I get from Hancock, circa Mr. Hands or Grover Washington, circa Winelight but without the solos, and enough is left out so that the listener can fill in the gaps with his or her perceptions. Maybe someone else will hear Roy Ayers, Stevie Wonder or even early Jamiroquai in these recordings, and that openness to interpretation is intent of the music’s creator.

Almost imperceptibly, these vamps transfigure during the course of their runs and that’s where the jam approach to playing these tunes impacts them where careful studio treatments would only bleach out those distinctions. It’s also the very thing what keeps these unadorned performances interesting over repeat listens.

That looseness doesn’t mean that these cats can’t get tight; they’re very much together on “Three,” anchored by a good, funky bass riff working in perfect sync with rhythm guitar and drums. All Payton has to do is drop in his mellow chords and ride the wave. “Eleven” grooves like that, too. Subtle treatments of rhythms will often play a big role in shaping the songs; in addition to the unusual time signature on “Two,” there’s a Brazilian cadence alternating with a funky strut on “Five,” and shifting beats that form an undercurrent on “Nine.”

So Numbers has this retro attitude that in its construction reveals what’s missing in contemporary music today. Says Payton, “If someone wants you to describe what Numbers sounds like, tell them it’s like Nicholas and Butcher Brown took a time capsule back to 1973 and played a gig for the people demonstrating what’s happened in music for the past 40 years.”

On the other hand, this album could very well be imagined as Nicholas Payton and Butcher Brown playing a gig for people today to demonstrate how music was handcrafted forty years ago.

Saburo K, Saitama, Japan. 

Yussef Kamaal : funky jams and spacey grooves

Yussef Kamaal - Black Focus (Brownswood)

London has always been a city built upon the cultural diversity of communities whose roots often lie in far away lands. It was in 2007 that Yussef Dayes (elec. bass) and Kamaal Williams (drums) first met each other whilst pursuing musical ventures in the South of the city. Peckham was not the gentrified hotspot which it has now become, the pair would cross paths frequently in the pubs and clubs which lay around Rye Lane and into Camberwell.

Yussef Dayes is most critically acclaimed for his involvement in afrobeat group United Vibrations who have sought to bring enlightenment with their music to the masses. As a result he continues to travel and tour with the group bringing cosmic grace to the bands drums and percussion. Kamaal Williams on the other hand may be known more so by those familiar with the likes of Eglo and Rhythm Section. As Henry Wu he has dabbled in soulful experimentation blending jazz with house in a pensive and sometimes provocative fashion. 

The pairs recent collaboration comes with a fiercely personal identification, an embodiment of both artists names the project is fairly far removed from both of their respective works. Yussef Kamaal is born. 

In recent years there has been a trend towards musical integration. Genre is becoming less significant, substance and presentation has begun to rule supreme. It is for this reason that artists such as the likes of Flying Lotus, Kamasi Washington and Thundercat have recived such praise, their music exists as a futuristic predecessor to the works of musicians such as Azymuth, Thelonious Monk and Joe McPhee. Such musical progression makes logical sense and the USA is leading the way. 

The UK however, whilst similar to America in many senses (regretably), does not hold the same musical legacy, the same cultural influencers or the same history. It has its own. What Yussef Kamaal seeks to do is intertwine the country's narrative past and present, integrating modern sounds with those formed and built in the cultural undercurrent of local communities within London and beyond. 

The album opens enticingly with the textured rumble of synths and horns amidst a cluttered scattering of drum fills and reflective cymbals. It's a dynamic start which acts as a palette cleanser of sorts, a chance to distance ones self from what might have been previously associated with each artist. A nod of recognition and we are underway. 

The project was first created almost by chance after Kamaal invited Yussef to appear on Boiler Room alongside him and perform some of the music of Henry Wu as live. The result opened up a door to the pair and showcased an opportunity which neither had foreseen. In way of training, there are plenty of other jazz outfits whom are more profoundly equipped both in terms of musical education and in experience. However, one of the leading statements in regard to Yussef Kamaal was made by Williams several months back. 

“It's all about the drums and the keys. Not to take anything from anyone else, but that's where it all originates from: the chords, the rhythm of the chords and the drums.”

With this in mind what follows make sense. The album weaves and winds between frantic breakdowns, slow melodramatic grooves, lush pads, the rush of strings and skits somewhat reminiscent of old hip hop records. The drums at times pay homage to jungle and breakbeat culture, whilst the jazzy layers are symbolic of the role which funk and soul has played in both artists musical spehere. 

This is an album which wholeheartedly makes sense, the influence is clear, the sound diverse. It's London, very much in the present, a little bit of everything. 

Saburo K, Saitama, Japan. 

Mehdi Nabti : ''Afro-Berber Continuum'' for Very Hip Jazz

Alto sax player and composer Mehdi Nabti (whose 2015 album on F-IRE label in London UK, Multiple Worlds, is killer) publishes on Bandcamp Hybridations & Transformations. Here the french-canadian altoist is joined by canadian bassist Nicolas Lafortune and congolese drummer/singer Lionel Kizaba, for a trio ‘’Pulsar 3’’ on eleven tracks with the addition of re-recording vocals and sax. 

Mehdi Nabti is from Paris (France) from Kabyle (Algeria) ancestry and he lives in Montreal (Canada) since 2009. Mehdi Nabti holds a PhD and a post-PhD in Social Anthropology. Specialist in contemporary jazz and north African trance music, he was a student of some of the biggest names in North African music and Jazz with François Jeanneau, Steve Coleman, Andy Emler, Phillipe Sellam, Abderrahim Amarani Marrakchi, Haj Azzedine Bettahi, Haj Said Berrada. Nabti is the author of numerous academic writings on ritual and trance music of Maghreb published in North Africa and France, he created and directed from 2004 to 2008 a French-Moroccan orchestra bringing together jazz and Sufi musicians : Aissawaniyya. He performed in various festivals in Europe, North Africa, North America and records albums of his musical projects like Nass Lounassa, Pulsar or NeoDuo.

This album represents his most elaborate synthesis of his interest in sufi trance rituals, ancient worlds, berber history and music, afro languages, grooves, andalusian scales and geomancy principles. Some might recognize the title Hybridations & Transformations as a thesis subject, but the saxophonist exploring a methodology explained in the Liner Notes : the ‘’Afro-berber continuum’’. This term means, firstly, the contemporary use of rhythms, melodic modes from the ancient and medieval Berbers and sub-Saharan traditions, and, secondly, a musical evocation of the forgotten and unknown history of this region (historical figures, monuments, geographical areas). This hybridation can, Mehdi Nabti wrote, help to overcome the current retromania and made positive transformation of the structures and musical discourse. Nabti uses the modern improvised musical vocabulary, not an outdated aesthetic "old school’’ or ‘’folklore".  This explains the slightly different, powerful feel of these pieces : the superb “Polypulse” builds from african double-pulse concept, or ‘’MT’’, from an old north-african sufi song, where Nabti shows what kind of sax player he is, full of life and sharp mind with superb sound. 

The band is tight and plays right in the pocket. The grooves that Lafortune and Kizaba deal out on “MS”, ‘’Tiedos vs La javanaise’’ might seem a turn away from the intricate rhythmic constructions of some of the other like ‘’Uchronie’’. But the music simply articulates differently, with complexity, pattern shifts, all still abounding, just speaking in a slightly different language. The sound and rhythmic connection between the three musicians are crucial to the lightness this dense music achieves. 

The music is brimming with energy, it’s also quite subtle which is often hyper-groovy, filled with small details and fascinating moroccan bass lines and drumming elements. Kizaba and Lafortune are fabulous in realizing this balance between sheer bounce and reserve, and there solos parts and the lingala songs are awesome. Listening to Lafortune solo deeply in the weave of “Afro Berber” or Kizaba in the deep interlocking grooves of “Cimmeriens” the blend of complexity and grooving momentum is pretty irresistible. The addition of re-recording vocals gives tunes to a more accessible feel in their cross-cutting rhythms ; and on “Juba II”, ‘’Tanit’’ and “Massinissa” Nabti digs into the berber history and sounds like himself.  

Hybridations & Transformations moves briskly through these ‘’afro-berber continuum’’, but usually quite rich pieces. And the group explores a wide range of feels, from the opening, neo-sufi “Lounassa vs Choucho” until the end, that’s organic as hell, and with Nabti playing at his expressive alto sax lines, it’s hard to deny that Pulsar 3 is making very hip jazz for our times.

Saburo K, Saitama, Japan.