Honest Jon's
278 Portobello Road
London
W10 5TE
England

Monday-Saturday 10 till 6; Sunday 11 till 5

Honest Jon's
Unit 115
Lower Stable Street
Coal Drops Yard
London
N1C 4DR

Monday-Saturday 11 till 6; Sunday 11 till 5

+44(0)208 969 9822 mail@honestjons.com

Established 1974.

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Mtume

Prime Time: The Epic Anthology

Soul Music Records

Brock

If We Don't Make It, Nobody Can

20th Century Records

Horacio Vaggione

La Maquina De Cantar

Dialogo

One Night In Pelican

Afro Modern Dreams 1974-1977

Matsuli

Opening in 1973, tucked into a tangle of railway parts scattered across an industrial park at the western edge of Orlando East, Club Pelican was Soweto’s first night-club, and its premier live music venue throughout the seventies.
Pretty much everyone on the scene passed through its doors — to sing, or perform in the house band, or hang out. Schooled in standards, and fluent in the local musical vernacular, the music would take off in different directions at a moment’s notice — SA twists on jazz, funk, fusion, disco — spurred by the sounds coming in from Philadelphia, Detroit and New York City.
One Night In Pelican encapsulates these halcyon times, with a musical roll call of all the key groups and players, besides evocative, previously-unseen photographs, cover artwork by Zulu ‘Batsumi’ Bidi, and notes by Kwanele Sosibo, lit up by a gallery of first-person testimony.

Peregoyo Y Su Combo Vacana

Mi Buenaventura

Vampisoul

Buccaneer

The Sketel Concerto

Main St.

Buccaneer

Choice

Element Of Surprise

  • 1-OFF 7" SOLD

Buccaneer

Hot Like Pepper

Vibes House

Wayne Wonder

Fast Car

Volcano

African Son

Repatriation Song

Group Three

  • 1-OFF 7" SOLD

Donald Byrd & Bobby Jaspar

Cannes '58

Sam Records

William Kincaid

Can't Be

Dirty Blends

Larry & Alvin

Poor Man A Feel It

Jamaican Art

Larry Marshall and Alvin Leslie, backed by The Revolutionaries and blazing horns, produced by Alvin Ranglin.
Accomplished late-seventies reggae, never properly released till now; shot through with Marshall’s moody intensity and craftsmanship.

Akira Ishikawa And His Count Buffalos

African Rock

Cinedelic

Funky, psychedelic, spiritual jazz with deep percussion, including marimba, from 1971; tuned into electric Miles but also Kool & the Gang, and keeping an eye on Tony Williams’ Lifetime.
The meditative opener is lovely. Heathens liken Animals to Fela.
Remastered from the original tapes.

Candi Staton, Pepe Bradock

Do Your Duty & Evidence Remixes

Honest Jon's Records

Classic soul sides rewound as state-of-the-art dance music: brilliant, epic house; hard-funk breakbeat.

A History Of The Jamaican Recording Industry: From Mento To Studio One

Noel Hawks & Jah Floyd

Jamaican Recordings

A History Of The Jamaican Recording Industry: From Treasure Isle To Channel One

Noel Hawks & Jah Floyd

Jamaican Recordings

Peter Metro

Dedicated To You

Volcano

Bro. Joe & The Rightful Brothers

Freedom Of Life

African Music

  • 1-OFF 7" SOLD

Tyrone Taylor & Welton Irie

Can't Stop Rastaman Now

Joe Gibbs

  • 1-OFF 12" SOLD

Biluka Y Los Canibales

Leaf-Playing In Quito, 1960-1965

Honest Jon's Records

The out-of-this-world recordings of Dilson de Souza, leading a kind of tropical chamber jazz on leaves from a ficus tree.
Dilson was from Barra do Pirai, in the Brazilian countryside; moving to Rio as a young man, where he worked in construction. He recorded his first record in 1954, for RCA Victor. He travelled to Quito around 1957, soon hooking up with Benitez & Valencia, who introduced him to the CAIFE label.
Dilson played the leaf open, resting on his tongue, hands free, with his mouth as the resonator. Though a leaf can also be played rolled or folded in half, this method allowed for more precision, a tethered brilliance. A picked ficus leaf stays fresh, crisp and clean-toned for around ten hours. He could play eight compositions, four at each end, before it was spent.
Biluka plays trills and vibratos effortlessly, with utterly pure pitch, acrobatically sliding into notes and changing tone on the fly. In Manuco, he leads Los Caníbales into a mysterious landscape on a rope pulled from an Andean spaghetti western, and corrals and teases them into a dialogue. A leaf, a harp, a xylophone, and a rondador — joined in Bailando Me Despido (Dancing As I Say Goodbye) by a saucy organ, doing sloshed call-and-response. In Anacu de Mi Guambra,  Biluka shows his full range of antics, hiccuping melodically over a set of magic tricks. His expressiveness was boundless.
The eucalyptus leaf is popular among Aboriginal Australians. In China, they’ve played leaves for 10,000 years. In Cambodia, people play the slek, a leaf plucked from either the sakrom or the khnoung tree. But ain’t nobody like Biluka, ever.
Astounding music.

  • DOWNLOADS

African Brothers Band

Okwaduo No. 3

Obuoba

African Brothers Band

Akwantuo Mu Asem

Happy Bird

African Brothers Band

Mene Wo Nante Bio

Happy Bird

  • 1-OFF 7" SOLD

Dechaud Et L'African Jazz

Africa Mokili Mobimba

Surboum African Jazz

  • 1-OFF 7" SOLD
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