Wednesday, March 19, 2014

NEW RELEASES: CITRUS SUN - PEOPLE OF TOMORROW; KENNY GRAHAM - THE WORLD OF SAMMY LEE; NIELS VINCENTZ / CAMERON BROWN / BILLY HART / TOM HARRELL - IS THAT SO?

CITRUS SUN - PEOPLE OF TOMORROW

A really sweet set from this Incognito side project – a group who are even jazzier than usual work from Bluey and crew! The album's mostly instrumental – save for some great guest vocals from Valerie Etienne – and the focus is on longer solos on keyboards, guitar, and trumpet – all spun out over the kind of classic grooves you'd expect from Incognito! Think of the record as a jazz fusion project from the late 70s, with some R&B undercurrents – just the kind of set that only a rare few like Bluey could do so well. Valerie sings on a great cover of Terry Callier's "What Color Is Love", and the album also features an instrumental take on "What's Going On", plus the tracks "Yesterday Detroit", "Cooking With Walter", "Tonight We Dance", "Mais Uma Vez", and "People Of Tomorrow". ~ Dusty Groove

KENNY GRAHAM - THE WORLD OF SAMMY LEE

A wonderful jazz soundtrack from the legendary Kenny Graham – the important postwar Brit bandleader who was known for his seminal Afro-Cubists group – heard here in a much different context! Kenny's still got all that great sense of tone and color he brought to some of his more powerful music – but he uses it here with a sensitivity that's really breathtaking – careful use of woodwind passages, percussion, and other light instrumentation – all used to illustrate the seamier underbelly of London in the early 60s! The tapes were thought lost for years, but have been marvelously reclaimed by the folks at Trunk Records – and although there's no historical record of the musicians on the date, we're guessing that they're the same top-shelf jazzmen who graced Kenny's other groups. Titles include "Patsy Asleep In The Flat", "Salt Beef", "Dash To Bellman's", "Four O'Clock Hop", "Thoughts At Home", "Peepshow Bins", and "Soho At Dawn". ~ Dusty Groove

NIELS VINCENTZ / CAMERON BROWN / BILLY HART / TOM HARRELL - IS THAT SO?

A wonderful follow-up to the previous trio album that tenorist Niels Vincentz cut with bassist Cameron Brown and drummer Billy Hart – and a record that also adds in the wonderful voice of Tom Harrell on trumpet! The quartet have this cool, compressed vibe that's right up there with Harrell's best work under his own name – that impeccable trumpet style really shaping the top end of the tunes, and balanced by some of the deeper, more soulful lines coming from Vincentz's trumpet – as Brown does some amazing work on the bottom end, with these round, warm tones that leave us breathless throughout. Hart's drum work is more than able to shift and match all the right patterns needed throughout – and titles include "Baby Suite", "Modal Dancer", "Haiku", "Cecile", and "Raison D'Etre". ~ Dusty Groove


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