Vinyl-Jahresrückblick 2021 – Topseller Organic Grooves 19 Items

. Talk Memory,
the band's first album with XL Recordings, features 9 new songs and is due October 8th. The album
features musical contributions from Arthur Verocai, Karriem Riggins, Terrace Martin, Laraaji and
acclaimed harpist Brandee Younger, who has worked with Moses Sumney, and Thundercat. Sporting
visuals from Virgil Abloh, whose design firm Alaska-Alaska™ designed the cover for Talk Memory,
the album is an evolution focused on collaboration and the magic of improvised live performance.Demonstrating emotional and poetic progress, the new album is an aural odyssey and a heartfelt
expression of joy for the music and community the band considers itself lucky to inhabit.
Of the album, BBNG says: "It took a year or two of just living life to get to the place where the
creative process was exciting again and once we actually went in to the studio it was the most
concise recording and writing process we’ve ever had. We hope that the improvised studio
performances bring the listener closer to our live experience."

Sons of Kemet returns in 2021 with their new album Black To The Future. The follow up to 2018’s Mercury Prize nominated breakout release Your Queen Is A Reptile. This is their 4th record, and 2nd on impulse! Compared with ”Your Queen is a Reptile”, this album has featured vocalists and more of an emphasis on fuller compositions and arrangements. Guest artists include Kojey Radical, Moor Mother, Angel Bat Dawid, Joshua Idehen, D Double E.

Following the highly acclaimed Volume I, dig further into the Wamono sound - the cream of the Japanese jazz, funk, soul, rare groove and disco music developed throughout the years since the end of the sixties in Japan!

Fully licensed Nippon Columbia and Victor Japan masters available for the first time outside of Japan, featuring rarities from Jiro Inagaki & Soul Media, Hiroshi Sato, Bread & Butter, Hatsumi Shibata, Fujio Tokita and more!
Tracks selection by Japanese super diggers and Wamono specialists DJ Yoshizawa Dynamite and Chintam
Mastered and cut at Timmion Cutting Lab
Artwork by Yoxxx (Tokyo)
180g heavy vinyl pressing, reverse board jacket

Active as a professional DJ in Japan since the late eighties, DJ Yoshizawa Dynamite is also a renowned remixer, compiler and producer. An avid record collector and an expert of the Wamono style, Yoshizawa published the Wamono A to Z records guide book in 2015 which instantly sold-out. The book unveiled a myriad of beautiful and rare records from a highly prolific, but still then unknown, Japanese groove scene. After many years working as a record buyer for several stores, DJ Chintam opened his own Blow Up shop in 2018 in Tokyo’s Shibuya district. A member of the Dayjam Crew and a specialist of soul, funk, rare groove and disco music, Chintam is also an expert of the home-brewed Wamono grooves.
He supervised and wrote the Wamono A to Z records guide book together with Yoshizawa
In this second volume of the acclaimed Wamono series, Yoshizawa and Chintam dig into some of the best and rarest funky tunes produced in Japan during the seventies. Put the needle on the record, turn up the volume and dig right now into the Wamono sound - the cream of the Japanese jazz, funk, soul, rare groove and disco music developed throughout the years since the end of the sixties in Japan!

Among the heroes and innovators of 70s spiritual/progressive/funk/jazz, Doug Carn has always flown a little under the radar.He has long plied his trade with patience and dedication, releasing absolutely stunning albums that are cherished by cognoscenti but lesser known even to the jazz mainstream, even as his influence can be detected among his colleagues.Carn's newest project, his entry in the Jazz Is Dead album series helmed by Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, takes his unique and timeless art and places it within the context of a musical culture that has always taken cues from his '70s classics.There's no mistaking the musical mind that created legendary albums like Infant Eyes and Adam's Apple, but the encounter of that with the distinctive jazz-hip hop-funk-noir that is the Younge/Muhammad/JID trademark creates something worthy of comparison to Carn's past work but which could only have been made right now.

Alfa Mist is one of the driving forces behind a young and vibrant scene of UK musicians, who’ve taken on jazz as their musical narrative. On his new album Bring Backs the producer, self-taught pianist and rapper takes us on a sonic trip back to his beat-making past on the streets of East London, through the depth and musicality he discovered composing and playing jazz.



2017 saw the release of Alfa’s breakthrough record, Antiphon and the 2019’s album Structuralism were both self-released on his Sekito label. His latest endeavour, 2021’s Bring Backs, sees Alfa taking on new challenges. The record marks his first release for the label Anti and is also the most detailed exploration of his upbringing in musical form.

More than any other album in the canon of Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, 1958’s Moanin’ — featuring the great drummer with trumpeter Lee Morgan, tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, pianist Bobby Timmons, and bassist Jymie Merritt —was the perfect crystallization of the band’s bluesy, soulful sound, and it still stands today as perhaps the most quintessential hard bop recording of all-time.

Originally self-titled, the album was later renamed Moanin’ due to the popularity of Timmons’ unforgettable opening track. The album also introduced several indelible Golson compositions that would become standards of the jazz songbook including “Along Came Betty” and “Blues March.”

This Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

Sam: Pharoah...
Pharoah: Huh...?
Sam: Were you asleep? I’m sorry...
Pharoah: No no... I was listening... and dreaming... and listening to music
in my head...
Sam: Oh wow... sorry.
Pharoah: Many times, people think I might be asleep... but in fact, I am just
listening to music in my head. I’m always listening... to the sounds around
me... and playing, in my mind... and sometimes I dream.
Sam: What were you dreaming about?
Pharoah: I’m on a ship. In the ocean. Bears coming around smoking cigars.
The bears are singing, ‘We have the music. We have what you’re looking for.’
* * *
Pharoah: How you like that take, Sam?
Sam: It’s cool. I think the bit in the middle, where it stops again...I think
you can hear...We were both kind of confused. I like it as well because it
sounds like two musicians that are trying to guide each other.
Pharoah: I think that’s it right there. It came out different. It came out good
though.
Sam: You happy?
Pharoah: Yeah, I’m cool with it.
Sam: Okay. Yeah, I think your playing is beautiful.

The wisdom of Tony Allen's words was as deep as his grooves, and these two sentences, which announce the dozen songs that follow, truly capture the spirit of There is No End. Tony’s motivating concept and desire was to work with younger artists, and especially the new generation of rappers, and give them voice in a time of global turmoil when music has never been more important – not necessarily as a "weapon" for the future in the manner of Fela's violently political songs, but also as medicine to heal a fractured world today.



For all those who knew him, he was a deeply spiritual man whose life's mission was not just to create a new musical language, but to pass it on to subsequent generations. In thinking back on the incredible process of creating this album without Tony physically present to guide him, producer Vincent Taeger remarked that his friend and mentor "was a teacher without speaking... a drummer and a guardian, with a great artistic vision and that vision filled the songs even after he had left us." Ben Okri, like everyone else involved in this valedictory album, had a very similar experience, declaring in awe that "this man could have lived another 150 years and kept creating new worlds. He had become the master shaman of his art. He knew himself and his mind. He wanted the album to be open to the energies of a new generation... but like a great mathematician or scientist who found a code of for a new world, with just a few beats, he created this extraordinary canvas." Featured artists include Skepta, Sampa The Great, Lava La Rue, Danny Brown, Damon Albarn and many others

Originally issued in Stereo on Prestige LP (PR 7190) Subsequently reissued in the Prestige/New Jazz budget subsidiary label Status (ST 7190) The John Wright Trio John Wright (piano), Wendell Roberts (bass), Walter McCants (drums). Recorded at Rudy Van Gelder Studios in Englewood Cliff, New Jersey, August 30, 1960 Engineered & mastered by Rudy Van Gelder Cover photo & design: Esmond Edwards Back-liner notes: LeRoi Jones Recording supervised by Esmond Edwards

The shadow that Gary Bartz casts over the last six decades of progressive Black music, and his continued dedication to same, makes him a logical and very welcome contributor to the Jazz Is Dead label. An alto saxophonist steeped in the history and tradition of his instrument who is also restlessly experimental and not prone to purism of any kind, he enjoys both the respect and admiration of his peers and the hero worship of several generations after him - including Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, which inevitably led to Gary Bartz JID 006. A look at his body of work reveals dalliances with bebop, hard bop, free jazz, spiritual jazz, soul jazz, jazz-funk, fusion and acid jazz, all while resolutely remaining unmistakably Gary Bartz. There's early work with Eric Dolphy and McCoy Tyner in Charles Mingus' Jazz Workshop, work with Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln, a stint in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and also one with Miles. There's his groundbreaking and highly influential Ntu Troop albums of the early '70s and his jazz-funk work including two classic albums with the Mizell Brothers, one of which supplied A Tribe Called Quest with a sample that was smooth like butter. And while on the subject of samples, the Bartz catalog has provided hip-hop and other genres with a rich source of them, and artists who have gone to his well when producing beats also include Black Sheep, Jurassic 5, Casual, RPM, Warren G, Photek, Statik Selektah, Chi-Ali, 3rd Bass, Showbiz, ZTrip, Young Disciples, and many others.

Conrad Yeatis Clark, otherwise known as Sonny Clark, was in many ways the quintessential hard bop pianist. Possessed of an enviable lyrical flow and a wealth of inventive melodic ideas that unfurled with clarity and without fuss, Clark had a deeply rooted feeling for the blues.

After moving from his hometown of Pittsburgh to New York, Clark emerged as a ubiquitous presence on Blue Note starting in 1957. It was on his fifth Blue Note date as a leader that Clark arrived at his masterwork, Cool Struttin’, recorded in January 1958 with a top-shelf quintet featuring Art Farmer on trumpet, Jackie McLean on alto saxophone, Paul Chambers on bass, and ‘Philly’ Joe Jones on drums. The album has only grown in stature as a timeless hard bop classic since Clark’s premature death at age 31 in 1963.

This Blue Note Classic Vinyl Edition is all-analog, mastered by Kevin Gray from the original master tapes, and pressed on 180g vinyl at Optimal.

In the seventies, the Polish Radio and Television Orchestra in Łódź, despite over twenty years of experience, was rediscovering itself and sounding more modern and interesting with each successive year. Depending on the piece, forty to seventy people were taking part in it! The orchestra efficiently moved between funk and disco genres, touching on illustrative music or jazz. Despite the huge amount of recorded songs from this period, only a handful of them was published in 1975 on the album "String Beat". Moreover, the achievements of Henryk Debich and the Polish Radio and Television Orchestra from 1978 were recently released by the GAD Records label on the album "City". The rest of the recordings are still waiting to be discovered.

That is why Astigmatic Records will present not only an LP full of groove, pulsating drums, powerful brass sections and unconventional, previously unpublished compositions but also two seven-inch vinyl. Before the LP will be released, "Closeup", a limited seven-inch disc will be available to warm up, a format that is inseparably associated with this genre. The album will include two previously unreleased songs "Monika" and "Fun in the dark", which will open an important year for Henryk Debich.

While closing the project, it turned out that 2021 will be a year of many anniversaries. On January 18, the legendary conductor, founder of the Lodz Polish Radio and Television Orchestra celebrated his 100th birthday. In July it will be the 20th anniversary since his passing. To these round anniversaries, it should also be added that Radio Łódź - which has been for almost half a century the second home to H. Debich, celebrates its 80th anniversary, while 30 years ago the Orchestra, which he led until the very end, was dissolved.

Returning with another debut album for 2021, Music From Memory are delighted to introduce a new band, The Zenmenn, with their first ever release ‘Enter The Zenmenn’. Whilst little about the band is made known, their work is described by writer Winton Rousseauas an “experiment in harmonic convergence emerging from a deep respect for cosmic symmetry and a resistance to the prevailing Zeitgeist.” ‘Enter The Zenmenn’ sounds as old as it sounds new, as organic as it is electric, as harmonic as it is rhythmic, and the album’s fusion of different palettes, colours, tempos, instruments and sources offer a harmonious balance and unity that already feels like the perfect soundtrack to a better world. In a time of what they see as spiritual neglect, it offers a “human kind of stillness” through the “dualistic fusions of complexity and simplicity, mystery and clarity and East and West”. Mfm054 will be released in LP and digital format, comes with artwork by Bráulio Amado, and is expected to be out on April 12th 2021.

The circle is now complete: after three EP's in a row released under this project, Nicola Conte and Gianluca Petrella have finally joined forces to finalize a full-length record. From Africa to Detroit, from jazz to electronica, an endless voyage with one of the most sophisticated and ambitious albums of the international club scene.

Live was mostly recorded on November 1st, 2019, at Haus der Berliner Festspiele in Berlin, Germany, during the 2019 edition of JazzFest Berlin. For Angel and Tha Brothahood - which includes Deacon Otis Cooke (vocals, synth), Viktor Le Givens (vocals, auxiliary instruments), Xristian Espinoza (tenor sax, percussion), Norman W. Long (electronics, synths), Dr. Adam Zanolini (double bass, bass guitar, soprano sax, flute, percussion), Isaiah Collier (drums), and Asher Gamedze (drums) - it was the first stop of their first European tour. Angel and her band experienced a number of difficult, racially charged interactions during their two days in Berlin. But despite, or perhaps in light of the difficulties they faced, they performed a set at Berliner Festspiele that Angel considers to be one of their best ever. "The show was very deep, and really helped me to process all the rage, and uncomfortable things I was feeling... It made me think of all the artists of the past who endured way more than I ever will with this music industry. It was a very freeing and beautiful show... we played our ass off!!"

Repress of Rsd20 Black Friday release ! The Jahari Massamba Unit features Madlib on all instrumentation with the exception of drums, which are laid down by Karriem Riggins. Like Madlib, Riggins is well-versed in both the Jazz and Hip Hop worlds. Musically, Madlib’s label says: “we would call the project Spiritual Jazz, but jazz great Phil Ranelin told us to call it Black Classical Music, so that’s what we’re going with.” This is an album put together by students of jazz in its myriad and historic forms who are also proponents of jazz’s future. The resulting recording reflects a lifetime of record collecting, musical study, woodshedding, and a reverential respect for one another’s craft. Regardless of categorization, this is an exciting and all-new entry in Madlib’s Yesterday’s New Quintet canon of difficult to categorize music.

High quality 45 in a silk screen sleeve. Mind-blowing melting pot of jazz, funk, rock and ska.These two songs were the only releases by this outstanding band led by American organist / pianist Scott Bradford with musicians of the Jess and James band and Belgian jazz legend Philippe Catherine on guitar.