Expert, ecstatic, technicolour disco from the Orlando Riva Sound.

Militant jazz, fusion, funk and soul from mid-seventies Manenberg, outside Cape Town, with a set of roots in club dance traditions like ballroom (‘langarm’), Khoisan hop-step and the whirling ‘tickey draai’ (‘spin on a sixpence’) of the mine camps; others in jazz-rock and the New Thing.

One of their best, most diverse LPs: gritty soul, country hillbilly, raucous funk — the classic Nothing Before Me But Thang — and bagpipes galore on The Silent Boatman.

Gene Russell signed Kellee Patterson to Shadybrook in 1976, after the demise of his Black Jazz label.
Three years on from her Maiden Voyage LP, he engineers and plays piano, but Kellee is running the show, with her own arrangements and production.
More bang-on covers, including a killer, sleazy Barry White and a rough Mister Magic (both revived by Jazzman a decade ago), to put a dip in the hip of all b-boys and girls, and I Love Music on speed.
William Upchurch is here, from Motown; Marlo Henderson, who plays guitar on Off The Wall; Don ‘Tabu’ Cunningham…

No-messing funk with whiffs of reefer, hooch and baize.
Eddie and Al Pazant came through with Lionel Hampton and Pucho. These are their locked-down, brassy, smoking, streetwise blends of R&B, soul, latin and jazz, from the late 1960s and early 70s.
Fab.

Originally self-released in 1993 by Peter Mekwunye as a small-run cassette, soon after his arrival in the US from Nigeria. Moody, personal, moving, freeform afro-pop, or DIY soul, using just a Casio keyboard and a microphone, with a rawly naked message of love, struggle, spirituality and hope, ‘dedicated to all Nigerians all over the world, and to all freedom fighters around the world.’ Strange — a bit like eavesdropping on someone talking to himself — and warmly recommended.
We got these from Mississippi.

The first official 12’ release of these two walloping classics by one of the very greatest soul singers of all time. Undimmed after forty years.

Lovely, rough, heartfelt doowop, with a dash of early Impressions. Prix demos.
As featured in the recent Ikea ad.

Easily Esther’s funkiest album, scorching out of the blocks with a deadly Home Is Where The Hatred Is. Arranged by Pee Wee Ellis (and Jack Wilson), engineered by Rudy Van Gelder. Featuring Bernard Purdie, Airto, Dick Griffin etc etc.

‘Pied Piper Productions was a group of Detroit arrangers, writers, artists and musicians who unwittingly drew up the blueprints of Northern Soul, during their brief time together in 1965-1967. Mainstays Jack Ashford, Mike Terry, Joe Hunter and Herbie Williams were original members of Motown studio crew the Funk Brothers. This compilation features some of the biggest Northern Soul discoveries of recent times —like Nancy Wilcox and September Jones — alongside established favourites and other rarities.’