Jazz Recommends Jazz March 2020

Review: For the second missive on his Jazz Room Records imprint, legendary London DJ Paul Murphy has chosen to reissue two quality - and, we should add, obscure -slabs of Latin-fired dancefloor jazz. For us the real highlight is Kaoru Liyoshi and The Whip's A-side cut, "Soul Tripper", a breezy, sun-kissed chunk of lazy and hazy boosa-jazz that features some superb organ solos. If you want something a little more energetic, Alberto Baldan Bembo's "Abat Jour" ticks the box. It was originally released on the soundtrack to an obscure Italian film and fully deserves a single release - it's a jaunty Latin jazz delight!

Review: During the early 1980s, German composer Gerhard Trede donned the Victor Cavini alias for a trio of library music albums that have since become confirmed collector's items. Here dusty-fingered diggers Be With Records offer up a new re-mastered edition of the first of these, "Japan". As the title suggests, Trede's compositions are short "pictures" of the Far East nation built around traditional Japanese instrumentation and familiar musical tropes. They're all rather good though, evoking mental images of temples hidden in glades and the incidental music often found on some of the more bizarre martial arts movies of the '70s and '80s. If you dig library music with an exotic twist, they're well worth a listen.

Review: Arguably slightly overlooked on its 2016 digital download release, the debut album from New York improvisers Amirtha Kidambi and the Elder Ones is undoubtedly one of the most inspired debuts of recent years. It's great to see Jazzman pick it up for a vinyl release, because its unique combination of influences - Indian and South Asian music, spiritual jazz, avant-jazz, modal jazz and freestyle improvisation - makes it one of the most remarkable jazz releases of recent years. There's something particularly arresting about epic A-side "Treta-Yuga", where squally, high-octane horn solos ride a metronomic, seemingly never-ending bass loop and wild drums, though it's the spaced out flipside composition - all droning Indian tones, echo-laden vocals and off-kilter drums - that makes the greater impression.

Review: Mule take us back 40 years for a timely reissue of Longstanding Tokyo jazz sage Eiji Nakayama's debut album. Across four tracks we're shot across the plains for a little Afro fusion on "Aya's Samba", we're tooted into a blissful slumber on "Yellow Living" and taken out across choppy oceans on "See Sea Town" before we're driven down bluesy country lanes at fast pace on the white knuckle organ led finale "Far-away Road". Deep in narrative detail, dynamic in pace, this album has stands just as tall as the man himself.

Review: Angus Fairbairn may split his time between London and Manchester, but his music as Alabaster dePlume speaks to a kind of old-world romanticism that takes him out of time and place. Affiliated with Total Refreshment Centre, this mightily talented artist unfurls the kind of strikingly fresh twist on jazz we've come to expect from the London-based studios. His saxophone flutters in a most unusual of ways, while around it the mood and mode varies from Americana wooze to African spiritual and on to Middle Eastern mysticism. This is music of the Earth undoubtedly, but it celebrates the ability of distinct cultures to transcend the trappings of terra firma through song.