From the court of the Kingdom of Rwanda — abolished nine years later when the Republic was formed: the royal drums and courtly music disappeared along with the Mwami, or ‘king-shepherd’, after five centuries.

The royal music of the Ganda, Nyoro and Ankole peoples, lost when the palaces were burned down in 1966, and many of the musicians killed, and their instruments (some of them over four hundred years old) destroyed.

Musical interaction between the Mbuti pygmies and the Nande, Bira, Mangbele and Budu peoples living on the edge of the Ituri rainforest in the northeastern Belgian Congo.

Singing, amongst ditlhaka reedpipes, and the lesiba mouth bow.

‘A transcendental new music,’ wrote Lester Bangs, ‘which flushes categories away and, while using musical devices from all styles and cultures, is defined mainly by its deep emotion and unaffected originality.’

His neglected 1970 masterpiece.
The first side brings into focus the best things about Bitches Brew, with lethal menace; the second lays out a blueprint for Ambient and Fourth World.
Hotly recommended.

Fourth and last of the classic quintet albums with Shorter, Hancock, Carter and Williams. Mostly written by Herbie and Wayne Shorter — a valediction to hard bop, without the old-school machismo.
LP from Music On Vinyl.

Pulling together a couple of Prestige 10”. The twenty-eight-year-old with Horace, Lucky, JJ, and Dave Schildkraut. (You remember Dave.)

An afternoon in Osaka, 1975. With an On The Corner kind of gang — Sonny Fortune, Pete Cosey, Reggie Lucas, Michael Henderson, Al Foster and Mtume. ‘The greatest electric funk-rock jazz record ever made’ (Allmusic).
LP from Music On Vinyl.

From 1957… with Monk and Milt Jackson on the title-track; Rollins and Horace Silver on the rest.

From 1964, with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter and Tony Williams on drums; and young Sam Rivers replacing George Coleman (pushing the sound further out, and spiking Davis’ signature cool).
‘High-energy live versions of songs by Rodgers & Hart, Cole Porter, and Richard Carpenter, as well as a restlessly fast-paced take on the Davis staple So What.’
Vinyl via Get On Down.

With Hank Mobley, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb, live in San Francisco in 1961.

At Fillmore West in 1970 with Airto, Steve Grossman, Chick Corea, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette (just before Keith Jarrett joined). The Bitches Brew sound.