"Gil Scott-Heron and I, we saw each other as conspirators you know, as co-conspirators and trying to get the message of sensitive urgency about becoming more involved with our lives, more involved about what it’s going on at the time in America."
American band The Pyramids first came together back in 1972, disbanding just five years later. Fate can sometimes make you wait: the band finally reformed in 2012 and their classic Afro-jazz style holds true on An Angel Fell (2018).
The instrumentation of Polish group EABS delete the 4,000-plus miles between their home nation and New York City with a hip-hop-led jazz style that leans on golden age rap gods like A Tribe Called Quest and Guru.
The remit of French jazz outfit Florian Pellissier Quintet is to connect Paris to New York; to link the classical to the modern. This ambitious task is fully realized on BijouVoyou Caillou, a relaxing record of chilled arrangements, smooth horn work and a hell of a lot of cool vibes.
Originally released in the mid-’80s, this intriguing funk-laced album finds the iconic pocket trumpeter navigating through the sonic landscapes that some of his jazz leftist contemporaries such as Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy, Joe Bowie’s Defunkt and Ronald Shannon Jackson’s Decoding Society (and Herbie Hancock’ collaborations with Bill Frisell) trafficked.
Together, there’s something fascinating about Binker Golding and Moses Boyd. Their cross-sectional creativity launches them through spiritually-stimulating free jazz with several pit stops.
An historic figure in French jazz, Henri Texier is infatuated with Sand Woman, his latest disc with six long, intense, magnificent tracks by incomparable musicians.
If Both Directions At Once has sparked huge interest then it is not just because a discovery has been made. Not just another gemstone tape by the innovative saxophonist. It is an album by the ‘Classic Quartet’ – drummer Elvin Jones, double bassist Jimmy Garrison and pianist McCoy Tyner – that fully lives up to its billing.
Meeting with belgian drummer Antoine Pierre, a few months after the release of The Sketches of Nowhere, volume 2 of his Urbex projet.
The Brazilian multi-instrumentalist, who made a connection between Nordeste traditions and Miles Davis in the 1970s, just added four volumes to an already massive discography. His oeuvre is as iconoclastic as it is sophisticated, and at age 82, he is touring with it again.
