soul jazz
Album Review: Scrimshire –‘Music for Autumn Lovers’: a flowing, wholesome down-tempo soundtrack for the season and beyond.
November may be the month when there’s a deluge of new releases ahead of the Xmas drought but here’s a recording that deserves to be heard amongst all the noise. London producer/composer and label boss Adam Scrimshire’s new album ‘Music for Autumn Lovers’ (out now via Albert’s Favourites) may seekm unassuming but it makes for …
Album Review: Dora Morelenbaum – ‘Pique’: a dynamic new MPB voice which really delivers.
Anyone who caught Bala Desejo’s set-of-the-day at WOMAD UK in the summer would’ve already noted the dynamic Dora Morelenbaum flying in the front line of this exuberant nu-tropicalia band. A vocalist, instrumentalist and composer she’s been at the epicentre of the surge of MPB powering out from Rio in the last few years, not only …
Album Review: Mörk – Still Dreamin’: shape-shifting soul-jazz energy from the Budapest band.
Okay so we know that as far as new scenes go Rio gets touted as the upcoming centre of 21st century tropicalia pop and Geneva continues to excel in pushing its very individual avant / post punk refresh. Well, it now seems that Budapest may be building up to having its own moment with its …
Album Review : Don Glori – ‘Don’t Forget To Have Fun’ : Fresh, funky and inspired soul jazz from the revitalised and relocated multi-instrumentalist.
Now this is a bit different. An album of contemporary instrumental music shaped within the mundane pressures of the day to day, paying the rent, food on the table, making ends meet. Don Glori (aka Gordon Li) is a producer, multi-instrumentalist and composer originally out of Melbourne who has detached from Naarm’s vital scene to …
Track/Video: Producer/composer Àbáse previews his re-energised new album ‘Awakening’ with the elevating afro-funk of ‘Menidaso (My Hope)’.
Hungarian keyboardist and producer Szabolcs Bognár aka Àbáse has been on the ‘one to watch’ list for a while now. A cornerstone in the Budapest nu-jazz/ afro-beat scene as a band leader, his first solo album, ‘Laroyê‘ in 2021 turned muso heads in his direction with its seamless weave of soulful beats, West African vibes …
Album Review: Roots – Deeper Roots: a long last South African soul jazz reviver.
Continuing their excavation of the works of Almon Memela, one of those unheralded dynamos of seventies South African music, We Are Busy Bodies have just released ‘Deeper Roots’ by ROOTS (available from 13th May). If you picked up on the review of Memela’s soul-jazz classic ‘Funky Africa’ in Backseat Mafia last week you’ll already have …
Album Review: Almon Memela – Funky Africa : a South African soul-jazz classic revived.
Call off the search! The chroniclers at We Are Busy Bodies continue their significant excavation of the rich seams of seventies South African jazz with the release of Almon Memela’s ‘Funky Africa’ (remastered by Noah Mintz and available from May 6th). This classic slab of soul-jazz rare groove, hotly pursued by crate diggers, turntablists and …
Track: Happening afro-soul fusionists Jembaa Groove present ‘Mokole’ ahead of debut album ‘Susuma’
A lot of bands get together from chance meetings in a bar, or a gig or knowing friends of friends but not usually after a chat in a Berlin kindergarten playground. Still that’s how Jembaa Groove got started, co-founding musicians Yannick Nolting and Eric Owusu on the school pick up run, bonding over the possibilities …
Album Review: Dowdelin – ‘Lanmou Lanmou’: Creole rhythms and a Soul-Jazz twist make for the sound of now.
It’s been over a couple of years since Lyon located fusionists Dowdelin were last seen bouncing across the WOMAD stage and pulling the horizontal sun soakers up onto their dancing feet. Now comes evidence of renewed activity with their latest album ‘Lanmou Lanmou’, available from 28th January from Underdog Records, and proof that the band …