Category: Jazz
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Impossible Ark Label Compilation album – free music download
A free nine-track album featuring acoustic jazz and Latin tunes from the Impossible Ark label What better way to highlight a label’s wares than to give away a selection of its songs? That’s what Impossible Ark Records has done with its Impossible Ark Label Compilation. The nine-track album features songs of a jazzy, acoustic bent by […]
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Smoke ’Em If You Got ’Em album preview – The Jason Parker Quartet/Jay-Z
Thanks to beatmaker Spekulation, you can hear what a jazz album by rapper Jay-Z may sound like This is an awfully clever album. Seattle beatmaker Spekulation combined a cappellas by Jay-Z with music from the Jason Parker Quartet. The result? An unauthorized jazz album by a superstar rapper. Spekulation took samples from Five Leaves Left: […]
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do Norte album preview – A Bossa Elétrica
Scorching South American sounds from Latin-infused Scandinavians When you think of Latin music, Sweden doesn’t spring to mind — but perhaps it should. A Bossa Elétrica may hail from Stockholm, but their most recent album, do Norte, features the kind of percussive Brazilian rhythms that wouldn’t sound out of place on a sizzling Rio beach. The […]
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The Robert Glasper Beat Tape by Dela – free music download
For fans of jazz and hip hop, Montréal beatmaker Dela has produced the best beat tape of 2010… and it’s free Many jazz musicians profess to understand hip hop, but most don’t. That’s what makes Robert Glasper unique. He gets hip hop. The jazz pianist has worked with rappers, such as Q-Tip, Talib Kweli, Common […]
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Suite For Ma Dukes DVD preview – Carlos Niño and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson
Previewing a strings ‘n’ beats concert DVD boxset commemorating the work of hip hop DJ J Dilla The most overlooked recording of 2009 was undoubtedly Suite For Ma Dukes, an EP by Carlos Niño and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson that commemorated the work of hip hop DJ J Dilla, who died in 2006. Proceeds from the EP […]
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Jazz Re:freshed live music night
London’s Jazz Re:freshed night is one of the UK’s best kept secrets There’s much to do in London, but when it comes to seeing soulful, jazzy music, you have to look beyond Ticketmaster outlets. Fortunately, promoters Adam “Rock” Moses and Justin “TopRock” McKenzie are on hand. Their compilation Jazz Re:freshed Vol. 1 gives punters a […]
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Radio Silence album review – Neil Cowley Trio
Neil Cowley must be getting fed up of critics’ veiled digs. His trio has, for instance, been characterised as an outfit prone to pull “the plug on improvisation” (The Guardian). Really? As if mindful of such gibes, Radio Silence is a more serious affair than 2008’s Loud… Louder… Stop!. Consequently, it has to be spun […]
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Yesterday You Said Tomorrow album review – Christian Scott
Judging from Scott’s scowl on the album cover, you don’t want to mess with this dude. And when you hear his moody opener K.K.P.D. — which, incidentally, stands for “Klu Klux Police Department” — that impression is reinforced. Add to that, tracks entitled Jenacide and American’t, and you sense this 27-year-old New Orleans trumpeter has […]
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The After Suite album review – Elan Mehler
This New York pianist looks like a jazz man, sounds like a jazz man, and yet makes music non-jazzers will love. The numerous vocal tracks on this album will reassure those who flee at the hint of a sax solo. Adam McBride-Smith’s voice perfectly complements the floaty, melodic ballads of The New Breed and I Want To Leave […]
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Planet Pimp album review – Soil & “PIMP” Sessions
If you’re not already familiar with this Japanese sextet, they apparently play “death jazz”. The band says the term was coined “in the hope of alienating Japan’s polite, noodling, straight-ahead jazz cognoscenti”. Whatever its origins, never has a more inappropriate moniker been given to a sound. Many words spring to mind while listening to Planet […]