Jazz Is Dead レコード& CD

Review: Arriving sometime after the passing of legendary Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen, and utilising some of the final recordings he made during his lifetime, the latest edition of Adrian Younge's Jazz Is Dead series is naturally tinged with melancholy. Yet Younge refuses to succumb to emotion, and instead uses Allen's impeccable grooves and polyrhythmic patterns as the basis of tracks that blend jazz, Afrobeat, Afro-funk and soul. There's a classic Fela Kuti feel to opener 'Ebun', where sax lines reminiscent of the Nigerian musical icon rise above a typically crunchy Allen groove, pots and pans percussion and ear-catching bass, while the flute-sporting 'Don't Believe The Dancers' adds a little more jazziness into its righteous blend of heavy Afrobeat horns, meandering solos and loose-limbed grooves. In other words, it's a spot-on tribute to a genuine musical legend.

Review: On the latest instalment in their essential Jazz is Dead series, musical polymaths Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad have joined forces with Katalyst, a Los Angeles-based collective of musicians whose work is inspired by their 1960s Californian predecessors Afrikan People's Arkestra and Union of God Musicians Ascension Association. What's an offer is undeniably impressive and, at genuinely life-affirming, with the assembled cast doing a superb job of joining the dots between spiritual jazz, soul-jazz, horizontal jazz-funk and deeper, more sun-kissed flavours. Highlights are plentiful and include, though are no way limited to, the breezy 'Juneteenth', the languid dancefloor shuffle and sustained electric piano motifs of 'The Avenues' and the morning-fresh wonder that is 'Daybreak'.

Review: To mark the 20th instalment in their popular and ongoing series of collaborative albums, Jazz Is Dead, Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad have decided to serve up fresh remixes of cuts from the series' bulging back catalogue. Given the series love of fusing jazz's past and present, it's a concept that makes perfect sense. The resultant rubs are uniformly inspired, too, with our picks of a very strong bunch including Shabaka Hutchings' fantastic revision of Henry Franklin hook-up 'African Sun', Mophono's psychedelic, dancefloor-ready tweak of Tony Allen collaboration 'Don't Believe The Dancers' (which comes complete with heavy drums and hazy, Fela-esque horns), Theon Cross's drum & bass style re-imagining of 'Phoenix' (featuring the Midnight Hour), and Bei Ru's duty, head-nodding hip-hop interpretation of Katalyst collab 'Reflections'.