Jubilant, party-hearty deejay cut to a thumping, body-rocking Jah Life do-over of the almighty Love Without Feeling rhythm. Sister Carol smashes it out of the dancehall and into the trees. The dub is knockout, too: raw drum & bass, in your face.
‘Mi have di potential an mi have di credential… in a dance hall, concert an’ rehearsal… mi will mash it, as per usual.’

Featuring Norma Winstone.
Club versions.

‘Classic vinyl.’

In the ‘Blue Note Classic Vinyl’ series.

The trumpeter in peak form, leading a crack band through extended versions of CTI killers like Povo and First Light.
Kent Brinkley and Michael Carvin from Hugh Masekela’s band; George Cables from Child’s Dance and Capra Black; Horace Silver’s saxophonist Junior Cook, playing with surprising intensity.
Recorded in 1973 for French radio.

For Michael Carvin — who in the next couple of years would play on Pharoah Sanders’ Elevation LP, and Lonnie Liston Smith’s Expansions — the session was something else: ‘I felt that we were being used by a higher force. That’s the first time we played that way, and it was the last time we played that way. We actually got the lightning in a bottle, we caught the magic… we caught it.’

Aged 25, signing off Impulse! with a wayward flourish, Hubbard plays beautifully throughout, boldly leading an orchestra and string section, 16-piece big band, and a septet with Curtis Fuller, Eric Dolphy, Wayne Shorter, Cedar Walton, Reggie Workman, and Louis Hayes. Shorter is arranger and conductor. Buckle up for Dolphy flipping his wig in Clarence’s Place.
‘Verve By Request.’

Bardic epics and nomadic songs, with dombra lute accompaniment.

A mouthwatering series in prospect, full of discoveries, but also charting every turn in the careers of giants like James Carr at this great Memphis label, as rhythm and blues turned southern soul.

James Carr and The Ovations to the fore, with some great southern soul from Specer Wiggins, Percy Milem, Eddie Jefferson, George Jackson and Dan Greer, and Barbara Perry, and a splash of country, and garage too.

With the funky, bad-ass Smoking Cheeba-Cheeba. A bit of a skeleton in the closet, surely — the debauched transition from Wes Montgomery-styled 60s soul jazz, to the urbane sophistication of his super-stardom.

Another expert compilation, featuring some of his early English recordings — like Run A Way (nice try) and Flower Of Love — alongside smashes like Sari Çizmeli Mehmet Aga and Aynali Kemer, with a sprinkling of instrumental gems from his 70s concept albums.

‘Their vividly definitive statement: haunting tones from an unusual combination of instruments, filtered through multiple layers of reverb and delay. Their music has strong stylistic affinities with the trippy ambience of cosmic and psychedelic rock, but the Taj Mahal Travellers were tuning in to other vibrations, drawing inspiration from the energies and rhythms of the world around them rather than projecting some alternative reality.
‘The electronic dimension of their collective improvising was coordinated, as usual, by Kinji Hayashi. Guest percussionist Hirokazu Sato joined long-term group members Ryo Koike, Seiji Nagai, Yukio Tsuchiya, Michihiro Kimura, Tokio Hasegawa, and the renowned, enigmatic electric violinist Takehisa Kosugi.
‘Films of rolling ocean waves often provided a highly appropriate backdrop for their lengthy improvised concerts. This is truly electric music for the mind and body.’