The master drummer’s sparkling set of duets with Larry Young in 1977; plus JC doing full justice to Trane’s After The Rain, alone on piano.
Check your Bobby Hutcherson Blue Notes from the late-60s — records like Oblique and Spiral — for how Joe Chambers bends them round the wall and into the top corner, with his musicianship and compositions both.
Premier sampled Mind Rain for Nas’ NY State Of Mind (to put you out of your misery).
Very warmly recommended.

Spiritual jazz from early-seventies Chicago, by a sextet combining members of the AACM and Phil Cohran’s Artistic Ensemble, augmented by bassist Richard Evans for Brand New Feeling. You can hear co-leaders Ken Chaney and Frank Gordon’s years together in Young-Holt in Kera’s Dance; the Art Ensemble, brought to the heel of Alice Coltrane, in the bells and chimes of the killer cut Will It Ever End; your favourite CTI records in the electric piano-playing, freshly luminous throughout.
A bonafide Black Jazz classic.

‘Their second and final LP, from 1973, with the same AACM-derived line-up as the first, plus Rufus Reid. Spiritual jazz, free jazz, soul jazz, fusion jazz, you name it — The Awakening take all those threads common to early ‘70s African-American music and, like any great ensemble, weave them into a beautiful sonic garment that’s greater than the sum of its parts. The Mirage is a bit less political/pan-African than Hear, Sense And Feel, which definitely owed some of its feel to the band’s Art Ensemble of Chicago/AACM roots; this record is a little more abstract, a little more varied in its moods and textural colouring, yet no less powerful and transporting.’

Jazz cornettist Olu Dara has featured on a heap of killer records. David Murray’s Flowers For Albert, Roy Brooks’ Ethnic Expressions, Doug Carn’s Revelation, Are You Glad To Be In America?, peak Cassandra Wilson, Illmatic… and on and on.

From 1988, his solo debut is a blast. One of a kind.

‘Mixing up sly humor and evocative description, Dara’s singing slips and slides around the steady guitar rhythms, which borrow equally from Delta blues, Caribbean calypso and West African high-life’ (Washington Post).
‘Performing songs about daily life in the ‘hood back in the day of okra-selling street peddlers, intoning blues that refuse to separate desire from its cultural context, and collaborating with his rap star son Nas, Dara manifests an aesthetic co-inhabited by Robert Johnson, Tampa Red, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie and Arrested Development’s Speech as if they were all members of the same band’ (SFGate).
‘As warm and as gentle as a summer day in Mississippi… a perfect blend of Southern blues, New York jazz and African rhythms… pure enchantment’ (CMJ New Music Report).

1963 set pulsing with extended, deep modal grooves — including the dancer Please Don’t Leave Me. Recorded by MPS-man Gigi Campi in Cologne, which figures, but originally issued by Argo, oddly.

A welcome reissue of this 2013 collaboration between Onra — the Chinoiseries producer — and Buddy Sativa. Deep, spiritual jazz from the heart. Lonnie Liston Smith is a guiding light.

‘All is Sound could not be a more apt title for this,’ says Mississippi. ‘Through saxophone, cello, piano, and flutes The Cosmic Tones Research Trio created a truly beautiful record. All is Sound breaks new ground. At its heart, it’s healing/meditation music, but the Gospel and Blues roots are in there too…as well as hints of forward-looking Spiritual jazz.
‘Delicate, profound melodies create peaceful, immersive soundscapes, which the group develops through their combined background in acoustic ecology, sound meditation, mindfulness, and active community involvement.
‘Following the steps of musicians such as Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane, and Pharoah Sanders, The Cosmic Tones Research Trio delivers music that is both restorative and sonically rich—each tone falling into a perfect place, as if by magic.
‘As sincere a record as you could ever hope for. Music is indeed the healing force of the universe.’

TW’s first Blue Note session was The Jody Grind. His debut as leader, at 23, Natural Essence is a winning mid-sixties set of his own compositions. Post-Trane dancers, jams; some lovely tunes. Woody Shaw, too.

Banging, key Messengers. Blakey is on fire; Shorter is vicious.
Hubbard bows out of this line-up with a passionate tribute to the Congress of Racial Equality.
Classic Vinyl Series.

Classic Vinyl Series.