Jazz /
Ethiopian Knights
Right from the stop-start bass groove that opens The Emperor, it's immediately clear that Ethiopian Knights is more indebted to funk - not just funky jazz, but the straight-up James Brown / Sly Stone variety - than any previous Donald Byrd project. And, like a true funk band, Byrd and his group work the same driving, polyrhythmic grooves over and over, making rhythm the focal point of the music. Although the musicians do improvise, their main objective is to keep the grooves pumping, using their…
Mr. Shing-A-Ling
This 1967 recording was always the best of Lou Donaldson's funky albums. It's just amazing that Blue Note put this back into circulation on 180 gram vinyl. Mr. Shing-A-Ling is worth the investment for the ultra-funking Peepin' alone. Composer and organist Lonnie Smith lays down a basic fatback groove and manages to glean a funk anthem that set the foundation for a whole decade worth of Lou Donaldson LPs (Midnight Creeper is a mere rewrite of this classic). Among Donaldson's big funk classics - t…
Black Christ of the Andes
Pianist and composer Mary Lou Williams played with nearly every major jazz performer during her long, illustrious and varied career, in addition to recording many solo works. Born Mary Winn in Atlanta in 1910 and raised in a 'shotgun shack', where local musicians gathered to jam, she played by ear from a tender age and learned the boogie-woogie style upon moving to Pittsburgh with her older sister Mamie. While still in high school, Williams toured with the Theatre Owners’ Booking Association, br…
Pourquoi
"Pourquoi" originally released in 1978 on French Crypto label. It sounds like a new side of Cortex: songs are mainly composed around the voice and the various keyboards of the band leader, Alain Mion, who also played bass lines on synthesizer. Besides, the band gave up the live recording to use the beloved Stevie Wonder or Quincy Jones' technique of "re-recording". But, in spite of these changes, their groove remains as spontaneous and as powerful. Also, the band collaborated with great backing…
Black Fire
Matsuli Music is proud to announce the re-issue of Black Fire, the 1976 debut album of legendary Cape Town spiritual jazz funk band Pacific Express. The band was home to jazz musicians Chris Schilder, and Basil ‘Manenberg’ Coetzee as well as fusion and soul musicians Robbie Jansen, Issy Ariefdien, Paul Abrahams, Jack Momple and Zayn Adam.This album is hard evidence of that 1976 musical moment in which Pacific Express forged an entirely new South African sound and musical identity out of what was…
Live at the Jazz Workshop, Boston 1973
Recorder on September 4th, 1973, this is one of/if not The funkiest and hippest Byrd to date, available here for the 1st time. what a band/what a concert/what an excellent recording (WBCN-FM broadcast) !" punzmann