Pop & Rock News

After Don Cherry, John Betsch Society, Raphael, a new reissue selected in the vinyl collection of HEAVENLY SWEETNESS. Once again, the label appears a forgotten album, which has passed the test of time so that it is rediscovered.
Solis Lacus is the first group of renowned Belgian pianist Michel HERR and a pioneer of electric jazz in the 70's in europe. The group regularly shared the stage with Placebo, Marc Moulin's cult band. There are even two musicians shared by both groups as well as the same sound and same groove so characteristic.
Solis Lacus is the European counterpart to sound experimentations of Herbie Hancock's Headhunters, or the best albums of the CTI label such as Freddie Hubbard.

limited 10"

The Grits have been busy for years playing their raw and greasy funk and releasing some of the dopest 45s on labels like Music With Soul, Freestyle & Tropicalia in Furs. Here they come with a new psychedelic /garage edge and some blue-eyed soul vocal delights. "Strychnine" is a funked-up cover of The Sonics' proto-punk tune that sounds as if the Meters would jam with Dusty Springfield. The flip side "Funky Mile" is a spaced out original and even further beyond all usual categories of funk music.

The New Mastersounds' main touring markets are USA, Japan and Spain, but throughout UK, Australia and the rest of Europe there are funkster DJ's, collectors and general vinyl heads who have been keenly awaiting this release since the band's last 7 came out in 2009. The NMS just returned from their annual pilgrimmage to New Orleans where they played consecutive late-night shows to packed audiences at the House of Blues.

blend of African folk, American jazz and funk, and percussive horn, drum and chant oriented music called Afro Beat has experienced a grand revival. On the one hand you have labels re-releasing original Nigerian Afro Beat in all its glory. On the other hand there are dozens of new bands consciously carrying the legacy of Fela Kuti into the new century.
Mediacracy

reestyle Records is immensely proud to be the new home for one of the UK's most creative and in demand musicians, Jessica Lauren.

Since the early 1990s, the soulful, spacey jazz grooves of keyboard player Jessica Lauren have been a familiar part of London's alternative music scene, having in the past released her own original music on Soul Jazz Records, M.E.L.T 2000 and People Records. Jessica's keyboard skills have augmented the live performances and studio recordings ...

Teaser 7' vinyl for the 'Best of Perception and Today Records compiled by DJ Spinna and BBE Soundsystem' to be released in Spring 2012!

Perception Productions, a New York based label that ran from the late 60s through until 1974, was a strangely eclectic affair. Its roster stretched from a radical Afro-American poet through to the pop band King Harvest whose hit 'Dancing In The Moonlight' became a massive hit for the UK band Toploader a couple of decades later.

Nigeria Rock Special shines a light on the lesser known musical output that developed in Nigeria beyond the traditional sounds of highlife and afrobeat - young bands caught up in the wave of psychedelic rock that was sweeping Europe and the States in the late '60s.

Spurred on by Cream drummer Ginger Baker's visits to Lagos and his band Airforce (featuring many Nigerian musicians), the sound of fuzzed out rock reverberated around the universities and nightspots of Lagos and Ibadan.

Soundway's on-going commitment to documenting the diversity of the Nigerian recording industry is captured through this startling collection of tracks. Compiler Miles Cleret spent over five years working on the first set of Nigeria Special albums involving numerous trips to Nigeria interviewing musicians, researching recordings and scouring dusty record stores and warehouses for these elusive tracks.

Suffused with spiritual uplift but lacking any saccharine in either content or production values, Azanyah communicates in a language that harks back to the great message bearers of an earlier time: the musical language of Coltrane, Pharaoh and their fellow travellers, musicians who had journeyed deep into the wellsprings of the African-American and African traditions, and returned with complex, burnished artifacts that spoke of the highest truths with incandescent urgency. Its musical message underpinned by the deep pulse of the eponymous Mamaniji Azanyah's bass, The One is a docu...

Brighton-based 11-piece-funk-powerhouse The Impellers return with a hard-hitting double-sider. "The Knock Knock" is an authentic piece of heavy soul, spotlighting the gritty vocals of lead singer 'Lady' Clair Witcher, while the band busts loose on an instrumental take of the Kaiser Chiefs classic on the flip side, not available on any other format. A very apt 7inch to celebrate Mocambo Records' forty five #30...

The latest in the Dubplate series cleverly combines a cunning brass band take of an R&B classic with its original version, whilst the flip sees a blues legend get re-flipped for the dance floor!

Soul Jazz Records/Universal Sound are reissuing this classic dance jazz album digitally remastered and cased in bespoke original artwork exact reproduction on hardboard Jap-style box case CD and a very limited (1000 worldwide) heavyweight US-made heavy board vinyl edition.

Eddie Russ's debut album Fresh Out was recorded in Detroit in 1974. The album featured the group The Mixed Bag, which Russ put together in 1972 from members of the local Detroit jazz community, where he had made his base. Fresh Out, originally released on the independent Jazz Masters label, also later became the debut release for Soul Jazz Records when we first released the album in 1992 (20 years ago!).

In his long and distinguished career, the legendary Pittsburgh-born keyboardist Russ played with a stunning array of legendary jazz musicians that included Dee Dee Bridgewater, Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Roland Kirk, Sonny Stitt, Sarah Vaughan, Hank Mobley, Cal Tjader, among many others.

Eddie Russ and The Mixed Bag released two more seminal classic jazz-funk albums in the mid-70s ('See The Light' and 'Take A Look at Yourself'). The Mixed Bag also released it's own album (with Russ appearing under the alias Gaff Dunson!) on Wendell Harrison, Phil Ranelin and Marcus Belgrave's collective Tribe label . Members of this group also recorded for Kenny Cox and Charles Moore's similarly styled Strata label - these labels being the two main independent jazz record labels in Detroit during the 1970s.

In 1992, on the strength of the release of Fresh Out, and the issue of the single 'The Lope Song' (which features on this album), both on Soul Jazz Records, Eddie Russ performed in Europe.

This is a 20th anniversary issue of Soul Jazz Records first album.

1. The Lope Song
2. All But Blind
3. Shamading
4. Hill Where The Lord Hides
5. You Are The Sunshine of my Life
6. Watergate Blues

Roy Brooks and the Artistic Truth's Black Survival album is a true holy-grail for deep and spritual jazz collectors around the world.

Black Survival is reissued here, digitally remastered and cased in bespoke original artwork exact reproduction on hardboard Jap-style box case CD and a very limited (1000 worldwide) heavyweight US-made heavy board vinyl edition.

This album was originally independently released to raise funds to combat the ongoing drought in the Sahel region of Africa (an area covering parts of Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Chad, Darfur, Sudan and Ethiopia).

In his long and distinguished career, the legendary Detroit-born drummer Brooks played with everyone from Yusef Lateef, Pharoah Sanders, Max Roach, Charles Mingus. From 1959-64 he was in the Horace Silver Quintet performing on classic Blue Note albums such as Song For My Father.

During his lifetime Brooks released precious few solo albums. His debut, 'Beat', was released in 1963 on Motown's then new off-shoot jazz label Jazz Workshop. His connection with his hometown label dated back to his time working with The Four Tops

In 1972, Brooks formed the Artistic Truth. 'Black Survival', the Sahel Concert at the Town Hall was originally released on the small independent Im-Hotep Records in Harlem in 1974 (which also released Brook's earlier Ethnic Expressions).

After many years on the New York jazz scene, Brooks returned to Detroit in 1975, where he continued to perform with the Artistic Truth as well as forming the collective Musicians United to Save Indigenous Culture (MUSIC) along with Strata founder Kenny Cox and members of the Tribe collective, Wendell Harrison and Harold McKinney.

Black Survival appears in the book Freedom, Rhythm and Sound, compiled by Gilles Peterson and Stuart Baker and released on Soul Jazz Books.

1. Black Survival
2. Here and Now
3. Sahel
4. Relief
5. Black Survival - Prologue

Billie Holiday is undeniably one of the most influential singers of the twentieth century. As the first vocalist to cite instruments - and especially the horns of Louis Armstrong and Lester Young - as her main inspiration, she was one of the most relentlessly individual singers of the jazz age, transforming silly Tin Pan Alley songs into jazz standards. But her biography also reads as one of the saddest tales of the modern age. Her talents came at a cost; the price seemed to be a predilection for bad men and an addiction to drugs.

Lady In Satin is the last major recording of Billie Holiday that was released during her lifetime, and it is also the most controversial. Ray Ellis' seem like a harsh contrast to Holiday's broken and fragile voice. Ellis himself was, at first, disappointed by the quality of the recording. It was only after listening more closely that he realized the beauty of these sessions and understood why Billie ranked this album as her favorite. More than any of her other recordings, Lady In Satin calls for an emotional rather than a musical listening. Music On Vinyl is exceptionally proud to be allowed add the swan's song of one of history's most important artists to its catalogue.

Freestyle Records is immensely proud to be the new home for one of the UK's most creative and in demand musicians, Jessica Lauren.

The Cactus Channel are a 10 piece instrumental funk band from Australia, with 2 vinyl singles released before they turned 18. Their first 45 sold out in a matter of weeks from a run of 500. We've released slightly more this time, but they won't last long. The band has supported Charles Bradley and counts The Dap Kings' Tom Brenneck and soul legend Charles Walker as fans.

Soundway present 3 new African edits covering a variety of styles. Kicking off on the A side we have a chunky, bass-heavy slice of dancefloor highlife from 1975, boiled down from over thirty minutes to a far more dancefloor-friendly five by Frankie Francis (Sofrito) and label founder Miles Cleret (aka Hide and Smile). This dates from just before Mr. Frimpong became a household name in Ghana with his huge hit Kyenkyen Bi Adi M'Awu.

The flip starts off with a thunderous un-released, un-finished, un-named forgotten track from Ghana's dance band kings of the 60s and 70s: The Uhuru Dance Band. This tape simply had the word 'Uhuru' scrawled on it and was found amongst hundreds of others in a state of dis-repair at the old Ghana record plant in Accra. Despite playing it to band leader George Amissah no title was forthcoming as the intended vocal had never been mixed in. Here Quantic has dusted it down and edited it into a surefire big-band dance-floor winner.

Four track Ep recorded 1968-69. Side A is stereo, Side B is mono!

Unreleased soundtrack album of an aborted film project, produced 1958 by Sandro Bocola and Dennis Bailey in Paris. Excellent hard bop and modern jazz session featuring Donald Byrd (trumpet), Barney Wilen (tenor saxophone), Jimmy Gourley (guitar), Walter Davis (piano), Doug Watkins (bass) and Al Levitt (drums).

featuring the outstanding voice of Sulene Flemi!

Two cool 'New Breed' style popcorn R&B dancers back to back, both recorded in New York for the King label, home to so many classics of the genre! 'Every Whicha Kinda Way' has a cool, foot-moving, hand-clapping rhythm and sharp backing vocals, while 'Daddy Laddy' is a slightly greasier, plodding mover with a jerking rhythm and a sleazy sax topping it off. Both sides are guaranteed to do the business, whether you choose to listen around your living room, or drop it into your R&B set at a club...

LTD EDITION 1,000 PRESS - INC FREE MP3 DOWNLOAD

Another Super Soul rarity - out now on SOUL7!!! And as usual this SOUL7 reissue is FULLY LICENSED and restored from the ORIGINAL MASTER TAPES so it SOUNDS GREAT " unlike what you get from SHODDY BOOTLEGS! And in keeping with the spirit of collecting the pressing run is limited to ONLY 500 COPIES worldwide!

After the popularity of the Jukebox Jam and Popcorn labels, we have set about work on another, brand new Jazzman oldies subsidiary.

Duck Baker is one of the most highly regarded fingerstyle guitarists of his generation. He is unique among jazz guitarists in that his repertoire spans the entire history of the music from ragtime through swing to modern masters. His aim over the years has been to adapt the technique of American finger-picking as developed by Blues and Country players to Jazz material. In a small group situation this approach creates some amusing possibilities, as both bass line and melody can either be doubled or harmonised.