Back catalogue: Jazz

Review: .While Brazilian guitarist Fabiano Do Nascimento and American saxophonist Sam Gendel first met and played together at the dawn of the last decade - at a Los Angeles cafe both used to frequent, fact fans - it was only last year that they decided to collaborate on a release. The Room, the resultant album, was reportedly recorded in two days in a studio in the Californian countryside. It's an undeniably magical and sun-soaked affair, with Gendel teasing fluttering, flute-esque improvisations from his soprano saxophone while Do Nascimento delivers impeccable, finger-picking meditations on his seven-string acoustic guitar. The latter is undoubtedly a virtuoso with his own distinct style - a Brazilian take on classical guitar, incorporating nods to lesser-known regional music - but instinctively knows when to step back and allow Gendel the limelight. Impressive stuff all told.

Review: Given that Gilles Peterson and Stuart Baker's Cuba: Music and Revolution - Culture Clash in Havana is one of the standout compilations of 2021, hopes are naturally sky-high for this speedy sequel. Like its predecessor, volume 2 focuses on music and made and released on the Caribbean island between 1975 and '85, this time round largely focusing on rare fusions of salsa, Latin jazz, disco, soul and funk, mostly licensed from records that have never been available outside Cuba. It's another stunning selection all told, with highlights including the heady Cuban disco/salsa fusion of Orquesta Los Van Van, the fiery disco-funk of FA 5, the heavily percussive hedonism of Luis Carobonell and the fuzzy psychedelic rock of Grupo De Experimentacion Sonora Del ICAIC. In a word: essential.

Review: Caribbean-Belgian composer, producer, and musician Nala Sinephro us now based in London and for her debut album she gets incredibly personal. The long player marks a first release on the mighty Warp label and it is more than worthy of that accolade across a series of stunning ambient and jazz pieces. They are all interconnected and speak of an artist in deep thought and a state of inward reflection. The moods are devastatingly impactful whether melancholic or more hopeful with wistful sax sounds and gentle drums adding up to captivating worlds of sound.

Review: Following years of notable collaborations with some of jazz's leading voices, saxophonist and band leader Walter Smith III finally broke through in 2023 via a first headlining album for Blue Note. On his return to the label, Three of Us Are From Houston and Reuben is Not, Smith pays tribute to the Texan city of his birth in the company of Jason Moran (piano), Eric Harland (drums) and Reuben Smith (bass). It's a pleasingly breezy, positive and expertly crafted affair, with the quartet running through a series of ear-catching Smith compositions and a radical (and rather good) interpretation of an old Sam Rivers number. A wholehearted tribute to the rarely discussed cultural richness and diversity of Smith's home city.

Review: Soil & Pimp Sessions is a Japanese jazz band with an explosive sound. Made up of five musicians Shacho, Tabu Zombie, Josei on piano, Akita Goldman on bass and Midorin on drums, they are primarily an expressive live outfit who serve up rough and ready sounds that fire your every single synapse. They have been playing for 20 years now but their breakout album Pimp Master came in 2006 and saw them go on to play at Glastonbury the year after. This latest record is another exceptional one that goes from intense and complex highs to beautiful tender and vulnerable moments of calm.

Review: International Anthem continues to serve up inspired debuts from some of the more intriguing members of Chicago's jazz and experimental music communities. The latest comes from multi-instrumentalist, composer and improviser Macie Stewart, who has delivered what's being dubbed "a companion piece for moving through life". At the heart of the album is Stewart's use of both piano and 'prepared piano' (a technique where various items such as coins and pieces of felt are attached to the instrument's strings). These picturesque and occasionally melancholic musical motifs come wrapped in atmospheric field recordings and sensitive string quartet arrangements. The results are rarely less than memorable, mesmerising and magnificent.

Review: Even by Sun Ra's eccentric and deeply psychedelic standards, Strange Strings is an outlier. Eventually released in 19657 but mostly recorded in New York in 1965, it was the result of Sun Ra turning up at the studio with a vast number of string instruments and asking his 'Arkestra' - none of whom knew how to play them - to make some noises. In true fashion, the results are spectacularly experimental - think freeform experimental jazz, created via a cacophony of improvisation, with added intergalactic intent. This lightly expanded, remastered edition contains original mono versions of the album tracks, a rare stereo mix of 'Crystal Spheres (Amongst Worlds)', a recently rediscovered concert recording ('Untitled St Peter'), and a snippet of Sun Ra being interviewed while the Arkestra plays around with strings in the background.

Review: Since impressing with their 2016 debut At Sacred Walls, Szun Waves - a trio comprising acclaimed electronic experimentalist Luke Abbot, drummer/percussionist Laurence Pike and saxophone player Jack Wylie - has operated at the intersection of ambient and jazz, delivering periodic sets that combine spiritual sounds and atmospheric solos with waves of electronic textures. It's an alluring, otherworldly sound all told, and one that's at the heart of their latest album, Earth Patterns. Musically, the album - which features additional production from, amongst other people, Abbot's old pal James Holden - is blissed out and otherworldly, combining sonic motifs more often associated with Alice Coltrane (hypnotic and Eastern-influenced), Sun Ra (interplanetary improvisations), Tangerine Dream (epic synth-scapes) and abstract electronica (inspired, densely detailed sound design). It all adds up to an astonishingly good album.

Review: In classic jazz style, this collaborative three-way debut album brings together three musicians at the top of their game: SML members Gregory Uhlman (guitar and effects) and Josh Johnson (saxophone and effects), and sometime Louis Cole, Sam Gendel and Chaka Khan collaborator Sam Wilkes (bass and effects). Musically, what the trio offers is undeniably unique, with International Anthem describing the album as "a jazz-informed take on progressive electro-acoustic chamber music". Certainly, there's much to enjoy, from the tracked bass, guitar and sax loops and subtle changes of 'Mavis' and the dreamlike ambient jazz of 'Arpy', to the bubbling cosmic jazz of 'Frica' and a stunning, off-kilter instrumental cover of Magical Mystery Tour-era Beatles number 'The Fool On The Hill'.