‘Classic Vinyl’ series.

‘Verve By Request.’

‘One of the most provocative ongoing bodies of work by any American musician’ (Pitchfork). ‘Astonishing work of history, memory and sensed experience. Confirms Roberts’ place as one of the most important living artists in any field’ (The Quietus).
With Hannah Marcus (guitars, fiddle, accordion), percussionist Ryan Sawyer, bassist Nicolas Caloia, and Sam Shalabi on guitar and oud — plus trombonist Steve Swell and vibraphonist Ryan White guesting. ‘Memphis unspools as a continuous work of 21st century liberation music, oscillating between meditative incantatory explorations, raucous melodic themes, and unbridled free-improv suites, quoting archly and ecstatically from various folk traditions along the way.’

Stone-classic Latin fusion album, produced by Larry Mizell. The boom track in the day was Rio — a galloping jazz samba — but there is plenty of pure Mizells brilliance, and Paul Jackson and Bill Summers layer in the Headhunters. Don’t miss the Afro-Cuban drum chant, to close.

‘Musician, poet and painter Roland Brival’s 1980 album is a lost classic of Caribbean spiritual jazz. Recorded with a group of Martinique’s top musicians, and combining the bèlè percussion traditions of the island with free flowing saxophone, rhodes flourishes and languorous bass, the album was rejected by Roland’s label of the time, and was ultimately self released in miniscule quantities to a small local audience. Themes of créole identity and colonial injustice combined with universal ideas of love and longing sung in Créole, English and French sound like an Antillean answer to Gary Bartz and Jon Lucien, underpinned with the insistent rhythms of the ti bois percussion. Long unheralded in the English-speaking world, Créole Gypsy is a key piece of the jigsaw of Caribbean music.’

‘Classic Vinyl’ series.

Massive, incandescent studio and live trio recordings from 1967, with Han Bennink on the eve of Machine Gun, and bassist Ruud Jacobs in the form of his life. Precious retrievals from Rollins’ long studio hiatus between East Broadway Run Down, the previous year, and Next Album in 1972.

“It really represents a take-no-prisoners type of music. That’s sort of what I was doing around that period of time; that was sort of Sonny Rollins then — a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am approach.”

Blazingly interrogative — three cuts run over twenty minutes — it attests magnificently to Jacobs’ memory of “something spiritual… a very special atmosphere on the stage where I felt I could do anything.”
Expertly presented, with beautiful photos and engaging notes.
Hotly recommended.

Rollins’ LPs for Impulse! are neglected. Here is the first of three he recorded in 1965-66, taking fierce flight from five standards. It’s all wonderful, but check the scorching calypso, Hold ‘Em Joe — with Rollins’ characteristic carnivalesque, askance danceability, his ‘impudent swing’, writ large — and the deconstruction of Three Little Words to close, as if to say, Okay, enough of that, now watch this space.
Great sound, too, this Acoustic Sounds issue.