Jazz Recommends Jazz: March 2022

Review: Move over Robbie Shakespeare. This latest LP from the Jazz dealers over at Impulse! Records have officially proposed Pino Balladino for the title of 'world's best session bassist'. After a four-decade career as a supporting player for many landmark neo-soul acts like Paul Young, Erykah Badu and D'Angelo, this album hears Palladino team up with equally prolific fellow bassist Blake Mills for a duetty masterpiece. A blend of styles from funk, West African and Cuban music, this album is somewhat of a democratic instrumental process, with choice cuts like 'Djurkel' and 'Ekute' incorporating crunch guitar, sax and muffled djembe into its bassy repertoire.

Review: Joe Pass was a legendary jazz guitarist who worked with many of the greats once his career hit its stride in the 1960s. Amongst his run of early classic albums is For Django, released in 1964 on Pacific Jazz and written as a tribute to another six-string legend, Django Reinhardt. Reissued as part of the Tone Poet series for Blue Note, this new pressing allows you to truly appreciate the wondrous sound Pass could conjure from his axe. The notes have a tender, mellifluous sound, but they can bite when they want to. The feeling Pass could elicit from his playing is why he's so revered, captured here when he was on the rise before the dizzy heights of working with Oscar Peterson, Ella Fitzgerald et al.

Review: Blue Note's ongoing Tone Poet series is all about remastering and then serving up some of the epic jazz label's vast catalogue on newly pressed vinyl. Next up to get the audiophile treatment is Stanley Turrentine and his Rough N Tumble album from 1966. It is a soul-jazz staple with a heavy groove tuning all the way through it like the words in a stick of rock. The playlist includes originals as well as covers of some great tunes by Ray Charles and Burt Bacharach and the band itself is also made up of greats like Blue Mitchell on trumpet, Pepper Adams on baritone saxophone, James Spaulding on alto saxophone and McCoy Tyner on piano.

Review: Yet more futurist jazz tones and rhythmic harmonies come straight from the mind of Kahil El'zabar, the musician and bandleader whose avant-garde practise centres on the artist's own black African roots. Channelling every instrument from kalimba to 'spirit bowls', a near-endless line of El'zabar's ancestral spirits are invoked, as dual tributes to spirituality and city life are laid bare actoss a chilled-out but grandiose 9 tracks, from the opening 'A Time For Healing' to the tributary 'Eddie Harris'.

Review: Jazz N Palms turn out another of their standout re-edit EPs here and the sixth in the series is no less special than the previous five. As ever, the MO is that the London collective offers tidy revisions of all a wide range of jazz and jazz-funk obscurities. This one kicks off with a Bob James style jam full of instrumental funk and then goes on to the glossy samba rhythms and woodblock hits of 'Santa Ana.' There are more languorous sounds on the stretched out solos of 'El Sabe' then the pace picks up for the energetic shuffles of 'El Sabe.' Last but not least is 'Exotic Flavour,' a freeform cut with wandering bass and steamy sax lines.

Review: It was Flying Dutchman that put out some of Lonnie Liston Smith and the Cosmic Echoes's most vital work. Despite their groundbreaking albums, though, they are often overlooked by hardcore jazz nuts and we cannot work out why. In five albums stretching over four years, this partnership took the fusion style into the next dimension and mixed up post-bop modal, spiritual jazz, funk, rock and pop in the process. There was nothing safe about their work but this one took on a funkier feel that most with Lonnie Liston Smith's brother Donald contributing smooth vocals to tunes including John Coltrane's 'Naima.'

Review: Blue Lab Beats have got their game down when it comes to that neo-soul-meets-hip hop sound. They first stepped onto the radar around five years ago, and since have released two albums and a string of singles showing off a refined and fully realised sound. Think smoky Rhodes, laid back lyrical flows and beats deep in the pocket. Now Blue Note have snapped up the duo, and following a couple of singles last year they're back with their third album Motherland Journey. The message is enlightened and empowered, and the music just gets deeper with every passing bar. Check the guest list too, with Major9 and Kofi Stone, Emmavie and Ghetto Boy and so many more folding into this stunning opus from a duo you'd be mad to miss.

Review: Culross Close is an alias of Wild Oats graduate K15, an artist, DJ, producer and deep thinker who has brought his of sense of style to house, jazz and hip hop over the last seven or so years. He returns to his Esencia label here for a third full length with mesmeric synth work and perfectly loose beat structures. The atmospheric opener 'Pressure!' sets a sensitive tone with background crowd noises and gentle chords then 'To Belong' settles in rickety beats, with gorgeous piano notes lingering up top as the synths sing. From there, the tempos rise and fall, the synth craft remains of the highest quality and the ideas continue to flow. A typically fine work from a fine artist.

Review: There have been many 'Tribe Records'-es over the years, but perhaps none were so eminent than the one that existed in '70s Detroit, which gave rise to the release of Harold McKinney's debut album here. On 'Voices And Rhythms Of The Creative Profile', the famous jazz pianist lended a new character to the term 'spiritual jazz', bringing energy and flair - and lots and lots of instrumentation - to the fore, rather than mere sentiment and emotion. This reissue, featuring heavenly gems like 'In The Moog', also features a booklet telling the story of the label from the ground up.

Review: German library institution Selected Sound is a revered source of music that for the second time here Be With dive deep into. Sound Inventions was made by Niagara drummer and library funk don Klaus Weiss Rhythm And Sounds and first put out in 1979. It pairs abstract funky grooves with Morodoer-esque synths, plenty of weird and wonderful samples and tripped out studio trickery to make for a real collector's item that will work in any setting, and especially knowing dance floors. Synth drenched, darkened Italo and deep disco all makes subtle appearances to help bolster this super cool record.