Beau Wanzer + Rezzett = maximum worries squared. Five frazzlers for all us nutters in the dance. Borez they izn’t.
A thought-provoking, deeply enjoyable consideration of displacement and dislocation, and abiding but adaptive cultural memory, this fourth collaboration mashes expert, haunting samples of the classical Iranian pop of greats like Andy, Hayedeh, and Fereydoun Farrokhzad into tough, quick-fire beat-downs.
Clement ‘Minkie’ Moore at Harry J’s in 1980, revisiting the tough Wickedness rhythm — also favoured by Yabby You and Alric Forbes — this time to sing. Babs Gonzales died in 1980 but his genius flourishes in the insouciant exchange between a scatting, I-Do-My-Thing Minkie and some fat, newly-added trombone.
The ‘un-muting’ or ‘sonic restitution’ of African instruments held in Western museum collections, this project began with a recording session in October 2023 at the British Museum in London, when Hoyt was granted access to instruments from the Department of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. These recordings were then developed in his studio, blending in African and Western instruments from his own collection.
‘This record is not an album but a diagram, a blackground score for a people who have never stopped dancing. Instruments exiled into the vitrines of empire, their voices stilled by taxonomic theft, now murmur and hum again. This is restitution by vibration, and the sounds you hear refuse to be forgotten, to be fixed, to refuse to die. You won’t find Western time signatures here; you’ll find time folding, spilling, catching fire. His compositions bespeak an afro-sonic-philo-sophy, more drastic than gnostic. These desperate times call for desperate pleasures.’
Four portions of lonesome country, by Toody Cole from Dead Moon, and The Rats.
Surveying 1974-1978 at King Tubby’s studio, with Scientist in particular coming through. Randy’s and Channel One rhythms — Anywhere But Nowhere, No No No — featuring the likes of Robbie Shakespeare, Lloyd Parks, Sly, Carlton Barrett, Augustus Pablo, and Chinna. A bouquet of exclusive cuts, only issued once before, in the mid-nineties, by Zola & Zola.
His unmissable debut as leader in 1960, bringing with him Sam Jones and Jimmy Cobb from the Adderleys’ set-up. Highlights include the reclamations of three mighty Timmons originals — Moanin’, already recorded by Art Blakey, and Cannonball’s This Here and Dat Dere — and a near-solo rendition of Lush Life.
Unmistakable, irresistible jazz pianism — grooving, direct, gospelised, funky.