Twin detournements of Lieber & Stoller.
Hugh Godfrey coolly channels Love Potion No. 9 into a rude boy anthem, with tasty riding-east piano and full-steam-ahead saxophone.
On the flip, Norma Fraser swaps over the roles of the Big Mama Thornton classic. The erstwhile dawg is played by the singer. The raucous, sexually dismissive wordplay of the original is replaced by dignified verses about female independence and resilience.
Killer 45.

The son of the world-renowned tar and setar virtuoso Hossein Alizadeh; a true master of the Iranian spike fiddle, or kamancheh; and a key voice in contemporary Iranian music, blending classical Persian traditions with avantgarde experimentation.
The two Rituals presented here are deeply immersive, epic, meditative soundscapes, charged with memory, emotion, and the spirit of resistance.

‘At the heart of the album lies the resonance, focus and slightly surreal shapes conjured by guitarist Bill Frisell. These gain extra substance by Potter’s arrangements for trombone, clarinet and violin which, added to Potter’s own strident tones, add extra layers of tension and sonic possibility. Bags of detail, soloists in elegant form and the narrative drive of the excellent Nate Smith and Burniss Travis on drums and bass, complete an album that engages and grips.
‘The set, bookended by the stirring fanfares and collective improv of the title track, unfolds thrillingly through layered melodies and blues-rooted solos, hints of Americana and seriously funky grooves… Two bonus tracks are covers featuring the core quartet and are worth the price of the deluxe release’ (Mike Hobart, Financial Times).

A meditation on the white abolitionist John Brown’s 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry, aiming to ignite a massive armed slave revolt across the American South.
“Looked at from one angle, John Brown was a religious zealot who used violence to try and achieve his aims. From a different angle, he was on the right side of justice, and gave his life hoping others would be free.”

‘The significance of Alice Coltrane’s presence in 20th century music cannot be overstated. Andy Beta’s Cosmic Music is a remarkable detailing of this visionary woman’s vocation in devotion to a sanctified art. From her childhood playing piano in the community of Pentecostal and Baptist churches, where ecstatic transcendence was at the heart of practice, to her engagement with the Detroit Jazz scene, and finding a kindred spirit in a life shared with the great John Coltrane, her music expressed a timeless expression of both divinity and dignity’ (Thurston Moore).
‘Alice Coltrane was co-architect of some of the most spiritually profound and formally challenging music ever made. The way Andy Beta tells it, it is one of the greatest adventures of the 20th century’ (David Keenan).

‘If Alice had been the wife of a Detroit auto worker, she’d obviously be a nonentity’; ‘a sincere but virtually talentless lady who married the right man’ (Down Beat, 1977).

Clearly written and thoroughly researched — wide-ranging and stuffed with interest — it’s a must. Warmly recommended.
Hardback; 450 pages.

Jeff Parker ETA IVtet.

Storming, stomping, insurgent Niney. Stunning record.

‘I think it was 1979, or 1978. That rhythm, I record it at Channel One, and take it to Perry. So when me go down there and record it with Perry, I would have to get it mixed down so it would fit Perry’s 4-track Teac. So this is where now I voice it, and Scratch mix it, mix the voice. Then we put back the rhythm on the thing, and go back down to Channel One, and then Ranking Barnabas mix it. So it’s really Scratch, Barnabas and Scientist work on that song. That’s why you hear Scientist develop the foot and all those… double drumming you see there. It was Sly, Sly was the one who play that drum. Sly, Fullwood, Tony Chin, Chinna, Bobby Ellis, Dizzy the guy that play Riot for Keith Hudson, and Tommy McCook.’

Sensational fusion of modal jazz and flamenco, with members of Tete Montoliu’s group, and the mighty Paco DeLucia, dazzling on electric guitar. Hotly recommended.

‘A more selfless album is hard to imagine,’ according to Down Beat in 1975. ‘The sound is supreme, and all the players strive to achieve a thorough blending.’ Recorded in New York in 1974, the disc’s personnel is drawn from the circle around Herbie Hancock in the period, but the music has a character all its own.
‘A classic of 1970s spiritual jazz, and as much as any recording on Strata East or Black Jazz, Maupin’s ECM offering is a wonder of arrangement and composition with gorgeous ensemble play, long yet sparse passages, space, and genuine strangeness. Maupin plays all of his reeds and flute in addition to glockenspiel here; Summers’ percussion effects include a water-filled garbage can. The two drummers swirling around in different channels don’t ever play the same thing, but counter and complement one another. And Hancock plays some of the most truly Spartan and lyrically modal piano in his career here… This album sounds as timeless and adventurous in the present as the day it was released’ (AllMusic).
‘Luminessence Series.’