Imai Keisho playing koto and Yamase Shoin shamisen, amongst others. Historic recordings by Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai. Excellent label.
Sublimely refined songs about broken hearts, dazzling landscapes and lost kingdoms, with zither and flute accompaniment.
The legendary Library album by Sandro Brugnolini and Stefano Torossi, undercover in 1975 for contractual reasons.
Bad-ass headz vibes — madly sampledelic, super-funky, jazzy and widescreen — with the genies of Herbie, Barry White, Isaac Hayes and the Mizells, all in the mix.
Two fabled, previously unreleased soundtracks — hallucinogenic orchestral music for Patrick Chaput, and a waltzing, rhythmic onslaught for Robert Benayoun — complete with an extensive booklet of essays, interviews, secrets and rare images from both films.
Their legendary 1969 collaboration — featuring Whistle Stop, and Airto in full flight.
Testing bossa conventions, encouraged by ACJ’s move to Creed Taylor’s ambitious set-up, abetted by Deodato’s brilliant arrangements. From 1970, with Airto and Ron Carter; and some lovely electric piano.
Half price.
Lovely highlife and palm wine, wheezing afrobeat from the late sixties, early seventies.
A funky afro-rock classic, his 1969 debut for Ahmad Jamal’s label by this future director of Amandla (the cultural ensemble of the ANC).
A masterpiece of Guadeloupean jazz, strikingly personal and singular, brilliantly merging gwo ka, jazz funk and biguine, via exploratory production techniques. Deep tunes like Syka — fierce, electric jazz funk with wild clavinet, synth and trumpet solos. A highlight of Koute Jazz, Vini Couté E Tann’ is dazzling, funky biguine, with wicked piano and guitar playing by Patrick Jean-Marie and Gilbert Coco. The percussion-heavy Tipi Fanm is killer gwo ka jazz… The stellar names of Guadeloupean jazz are here: Jean-Marie, Ramon Pirmé, Herbert Lewis, Roger and Gilbert Coco, Germain Cédé, Philippe Dambury, Pierre-Edouard Decimus… Warmly recommended.
‘Amazing record,’ attests Floating Points. ‘One of my top five.’
JM’s mournful, melancholic singing creates a dark, brooding, atmosphere in stark contrast with the prevailing joyfulness and high-spirited rhythms of Brazilian pop at this time. The mood is foreboding but ecstatically hypnotic; the music complexly staggering. A lost masterpiece.
Secret weapon of Madlib, too.
A year after Os Tatuís, José Bertrami returned to the studio, this time stripping back to a trio. Again featuring Claudio Henrique Bertrami on double bass, and with Jovito Coluna on drums, the José Roberto Trio recorded their one and only album in 1966, featuring compositions by Baden Powell, Manfredo Fest, and Marcos Valle. The LP also featured three of Betrami’s own compositions: the wistful Lilos Watts, the groovy Kebar, and the dazzling Talhuama.
Another jewel from the golden age of the Brazilian bossa jazz trio — Bossa Três, Milton Banana Trio, Tenório Jr,, Bertrami’s own Bossa Jazz Trio — ushered in by the Tamba Trio, and nourished along the way by jazz greats from Nat King Cole to Bill Evans,
The first time out for this buried treasure recorded in 1977 at Columbia Studios in New York with Claus Ogerman.
Featuring fellow Brazilians Mauricio Maestro, Nana Vasconcelos and Tutty Moreno, and in-demand statesiders including Michael Brecker, Joe Farrell and Buster Williams, it kicks off with a sensational eleven-minute version of her anthemic Feminina. Check out Descompassadamente, too. Lovely stuff.