SOUL TOGETHERNESS 2017 (VARIOUS ARTISTS)
Expansion’s most successful and longest running compilation
series returns with a 2017 edition. The concept remains the same, fifteen
must-have modern soul room gems taken from the year’s biggest dance floor spins
on the soul scene. While tracks here have topped UK soul charts, many have not
been available in all formats. Once again, attention is paid to the ‘flow’ of
the 15 gems chosen here from shuffling beats to boogie to more soulful house as
played at modern soul events. Participants this year include Omar with Los
Charly’s Orchestra, Tawatha Agree (voice of Mtume’s “Juicy Fruit”) with
Aeroplane, Kenny Thomas with Thames River Soul produced by and featuring
Incognito, and both Wez and The Groove Association formerly members of Brit
Funk group Second Image. Leela James is here after her stint in a US realty TV
show “R&B Divas: Los Angeles”, other guests including Amp Fiddler, Faith
Evans, Trina Broussard and Lifford.
SOUL FESTIVAL 1971-1979 SOULFUL FLOORFILLERS (VARIOUS ARTISTS)
While “Soul Togetherness” on Expansion continues to feature
the best new floor fillers of each year, “Soul Festival” is here now with a
collection of music reflecting the label’s love of 70s soul. “Soul Festival”
spans the period from when new soul music took influence from the Northern soul
we enjoy here at UK clubs and events. As the decade progressed, records became
more lavish in their arrangement and grander in production, always with that
essential soul feel, and that’s what you will find here on this compilation. Music
from this era is thankfully plentiful, always something to discover or enjoy
all over again. Much has been reissued before, not always legally or of great
sound quality, and so the intention of this series is to bring tracks together
on both LP vinyl and CD of a high standard that are rare or have not previously
appeared on one of these formats or the other.
ORNETTE COLEMAN – ORNETTE AT 12 / CRISIS
As the man who basically invented free jazz and even coined
the term, Ornette Coleman has had the vast majority of his catalog reissued on
CD, and rightfully so. But there are two records, both released on the
legendary Impulse! label, that have somehow escaped digitization until now, The
first, 1969’s Ornette at 12, features Ornette on alto sax, trumpet, and violin
with Dewey Redman on tenor sax, long-time collaborator Charlie Haden on bass,
and son Denardo (age 12 at the time of the 1968 recording) on drums. The jazz
world was still getting over the effrontery of Denardo playing drums—he had
made his debut two years earlier on The Empty Foxhole—which may explain why
this one’s remained in the vaults till now. But Redman’s playing on tenor is
just stellar, and Ornette’s untrained trumpet and violin technique make a nice
foil for Denardo’s fresh approach to the traps. Another boundary-pushing record
in a career full of them. But if it’s a puzzle that Ornette at 12 has not been
previously reissued, it’s a downright mystery why 1972’s Crisis also hasn’t
come out; recorded live in 1969 at N.Y.U. with a killer band of Redman, Haden,
Denardo, and Don Cherry on flute and trumpet, it takes its place with Broken
Shadows and Science Fiction as one of Ornette’s great small group recordings of
the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. The version of Haden’s “Song for Che” is one of
the best on record, the rendition of “Broken Shadows” here is simply beautiful,
which is not a term many associate with Coleman’s playing, and the addition of
Don Cherry—fresh from his own experiments in Indian and African music—spices up
what is already a pretty heady brew. Real Gone Music’s two-for-one reissue of
this pair of albums features the original gatefold album art and an essay by
Howard Mandel, author of Miles, Ornette, Cecil: Jazz Beyond Jazz. Remastered by
Mike Milchner at SonicVision from original tape sources.
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