Oneness Of Juju African Rhythms (2018 Edition)

Funky deep jazz!

Strut reissue one of the most in-demand and significant albums from the archives of Jimmy Gray’s Black Fire Records, ‘Bow To The People’ (1976) by theatre collective Theatre West, based out of Dayton, Ohio.

Shelved following the original recording, the Bow To The People album eventually surfaced on a limited CD on Black Fire in 1993. Now receiving its first full international release, the album features the previously unreleased tracks ‘Man Of Many Means’ and ‘I Don’t Knpw Much About Love’.

Strut present the definitive edition of Patrice Rushen’s landmark, boogie album from 1982, ‘Straight From The Heart’. Includes the classics ‘Forget Me Nots’ and 'Number One' and bonus 12” versions of the album’s singles including a previously unreleased extended mix of ‘Tired Of Being Alone’.

Deluxe, definitive issue of the greatest Sun Ra album, recorded in NYC, 1978!

Super-deep, funky odd-ball jazz with spooky whispered vocals! Cult classic deep experimental jazz with an outer-space alien groove! Highly recommended!

Strut continue their reissues from the Black Fire label with a definitive edition of JuJu’s ‘Live At 131 Prince Street’, recorded in 1973 at Ornette Coleman’s gallery in New York and featuring a previously unheard recording of the Pharoah Sanders composition 'Thembi'.

Strut reissue 'My Pure Joy', a 90s album by Philadelphia jazz musician Byard Lancaster. He was known for blending together various styles - which, on this particular album, included a heavy Nigerian jazz influence amongst the spiritual grooves.

Strut release the debut album from Ghana’s Alostmen, led by Stevo Atambire. Produced by Wanlov The Kubolor (Fok’n Bois) and Percy Yip Tong and features Gyedu-Blay Ambolley, Yaa Pono, Medikal and Villy. 'Kologo' is based around kologo music traditions and driven by contemporary arrangement. Superb!

During a tour of Egypt in the early 70s, Sun Ra made a number of live recordings. 'Dark Myth Equation Visitation', also known as 'Live In Egypt Vol. 1' or 'Nature’s God', and was recorded in 1971. Side one of the LP features a recording of a TV performance, including an interview, and side two fronts tracks recorded during a concert in Heliopolis near Cairo.

Sun Ra's 11th studio album 'Horizon' was recorded at the Ballon Theatre in Cairo, Egypt. Contains a wild version of the classic 'Space Is The Place' and 'The Satellites Are Spinning'.

'Nidhamu' is one of a number of albums that Sun Ra recorded during an Egyptian tour in 1971. Features songs from a concert in Cairo with his Astro-Intergalactic-Infinity Arkestra plus a solo keyboard performance, recorded that same year.

Afro futurist sensations Onipa unleash their debut album, combining Afro grooves, electronics and fierce energy. Featuring guest vocals from Ghanaian star Wiyaala, and also collaborations with South African rapper Spoek Mathambo.

The Souljazz Orchestra continue to be an unstoppable force! The Canadian collective are back with a journey into politically-charged tropical, latin, afro, and soul jazz styles!

Strut reissue reissue this stunning (and now very rare) original album from the early career of Nigerian juju star Shina Peters, ‘Sewele’ from 1986!

12 piece, Nubiyan Twist blend elements of jazz, soul, hip hop and African styles on this killer single via Strut!

Strut present this killer compilation compiled by Optimo’s JD Twitch, ‘Kreaturen Der Nacht’, bringing together classics, rarities and oddities from Germany’s original post-punk and DIY scene!

Strut present the definitive reissue of one of the all-time classic Caribbean soul and funk albums, the self-titled album by The Beginning Of The End, originally released in 1976

Strut present the first in a series of essential original LP reissues exploring rare and under-rated African, Latin and Caribbean music classics kicking off with the killer ‘Sugar Daddy’, an experimental highlife / disco outing by Nigerian highlife guitarist Joe King Kologbo. Vibes!

Strut focus in on the séga sound of Mauritius, the “blues of the Indian Ocean", with a comprehensive look at this utterly unique dance music sounds of Mauritius.

Peruvian psychedelic folk collective, Kanaku Y El Tigre surface on Strut with long player 'Quema Quema Quema'.

'Quema Quema Quema' (meaning ‘Burn Burn Burn’ in Spanish) is the product of two years honing the Kanaku sound at the band’s Lima studio HQ and the result is a record which is feverish in intensity and which screams with joy and cries for help in the same breath. The album is a testament to the collective's new found approach with its euphoric, unapologetically feel-good hooks littered with electronic jitters, ghostly delays, serene Hawaiian slide guitars and a chorus of other-wordly vocal harmonies.

New studio album by one of Ghana’s all-time great vocalists, “The Golden Voice Of Africa”, Pat Thomas, in conjunction with the Kwashibu Area Band led by multi-instumentalist Kwame Yeboah (Cat Stevens, Patrice) and saxophonist Ben Abarbanel-Wolff (Ebo Taylor, Poets of Rhythm).

Strut and Art Yard collude once more for the first release anywhere of a live Sun Ra performance from Amiens, France in 1973, Planets Of Life Or Death. Features rare photos from Sun Ra’s 1973 European tour by photographer Jan Persson. 

This is the brand new album from cult ethio-jazz hero Mulatu Astatke on Strut Records!

His first solo album in over 20 years refines his singular musical vision and builds upon the foundation he has laid in his storied career! A collaboration with musicians of varying ages and nationalities.  The album is soaked in his 60's and 70's Ethopian deep jazz legacy as well asincorporating contemporary western jazz. Deep medative, spiritual, soulful ethio-jazz grooves, that will appeal to listeners of all ages!

An essential compilation showcasing defintive tracks from cult ethio-jazz legend Mulatu Astatke on Strut!!!

Vibraphone and keyboard player, master arranger and bandleader, Mulatu Astatke is one of the all-time greats of Ethiopian music and the creator of his own original music form, Ethio jazz. Through the acclaimed Ethiopiques album series and through featuring on the soundtrack to the Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers, his music has belatedly reached a global audience and a new, younger generation of fans. Last year, he recorded an inspired new album with London psych jazz band The Heliocentrics for Strut’s ‘Inspiration Information’ studio collaboration series. Now, the good peple at Strut have for the first time anywhere have compiled the definitive Mulatu career retrospective covering his landmark ‘60s and ‘70s recordings

Mulatu is a true pioneer of African music. He was the first Ethiopian musician of his generation to travel extensively and to record abroad – he studied in the UK in Wales and at Trinity College Of Music in London, cutting his teeth on the buoyant London jazz scene of the early ‘60s. He became the first African student to attend Harvard and he lived and recorded in New York, developing a unique sound that fused Western jazz with traditional Ethiopian melodies.

Tracing the progression of his Ethio jazz experiments with full access to all of the labels for whom he recorded, Mulatu Astatke: New York-Addis-London is the essential Mulatu. Covering his first recordings in the UK during 1965, his groundbreaking fusions for the small Worthy label in New York and his key ‘70s recordings back in Addis on Amha,

Includes extensive sleeve notes from Miles Cleret from Soundway Records and photos!

YOU NEED THIS ALBUM!

The stunning and ground-breaking album from the composer and saxophonist Chris Bowden back in print 20 years on!

“This is the album that connected it all.” Gilles Peterson 2018

Chris Bowden’s debut album Time Capsule was first released on Soul Jazz Records in 1992 to universal and widespread critical acclaim. Now 20 years on a new wave of current jazz artists led by the likes of Kamasi Washington in the USA and a host of British artists - Shabaka Hutchings /Sons of Kemet, The Ezra Collective, Moses Boyd, Nubya Garcia, Fourtet, Yussef Kamaal, Tenderlonious, Binker & Moses - have brought this original ground-breaking album into the limelight once more as a pivotal starting point, sharing many of the aesthetics of these current artists at work today.

Musically all are inspired by the spiritual jazz of John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, Don Cherry et al paired with a modern electronic music sensibility. Chris Bowden’s Time Capsule has stood the test of time like few other albums (as the title of the album suggested), and remains a pivotal, wholly-successful and original experimental musical collage, a radical inspiration and forebearer to many of the best progressive jazz and electronic artists working today.

The album has been fully hi-spec re-mastered and is available as a limited-edition heavyweight double-vinyl release with gatefold sleeve (+ free download code), slipcase CD and digital album.


A selection of original reviews:

“Lush strings and woodwind with a powerful combination of dub beats and classical orchestration. True future music.” The Face

“A divine soundtrack that Miles Davis would rise from his grave for. Heaven-sent laid back lusciousness.” Muzik

“Reminiscent of Miles Davis, Stravinsky and Star trek. Drop dead gorgeous.” True

“A beautiful and mysterious record.” Mixmag

“Out on the left field, past the edge of the solar system, music exploring new territory, forging new alliances with outer space and the future.” DJ

“A vibrant filmic quality. Bowden is out on his own. Essential.” Straight No Chaser

“True futurism: Satie, Webern and attitude creating a serious listening experience.” Echoes

“An ambitious and adventurous excursion. A deep, complex and ever-changing piece that makes the competition look half-baked.” Observer

“Sounding like a Michael Nyman tune that took a wrong turn and bumped into a Miles Davis record.” (Album of the week) The Guardian

“Supreme” NME

“Astro-jazz, luxurious strings and psycho-acoustic electronica. A journey to the centre of the head” ID

Following hard on the heels of BBE delving into the archives of Detroit’s Strata Records and the in-demand exploration of J-Jazz, comes another crate digger’s delight- Ralph Thomas’ ‘Eastern Standard Time’, which dropped the USA back in in 1980, on the obscure Zebra Jazz imprint. A true spiritual jazz gem reissued via BBE - recommended!

Amazing sought-after record from the brainchild of one J. Pluncky Branch and one of the greatest underground jazz groups. Space Jungle Luv goes on a slightly different tangent from African Rhythms (1975) heavy funk, to a more spiritual soul jazz (and soul vocals provided by Eke-Eta Jackie Lewis), technical playing, mixing fusion, funk and Coltrane's modal style - expanding styles. Check out "River Luvrite", "Space Jungle Funk", "Soul Love Now", but all the tracks are killer!

Soul Jazz Records’ new release ‘Soul of A Nation: Jazz is the Teacher, Funk is the Preacher’ is a powerful new collection of radical jazz, street funk and proto-rap made in the era of Black Power (1969-75).

This is the second ‘Soul of A Nation’ album released by Soul Jazz Records to coincide with the exhibition ‘Soul of a Nation – Art in the Age of Black Power’, critically acclaimed and enormously successful when it opened at the Tate Modern in London last year (as was Soul Jazz Records’ accompanying first album ‘Soul of A Nation – Afro-Centric Visions in the Age of Black Power 1968-79’). The blockbuster international exhibition is now at the Brooklyn Museum, New York and then travels to Los Angeles in 2019.

This new album features a number of important and ground-breaking African-American artists – The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Don Cherry, Funkadelic, Gil Scott-Heron and more – alongside a host of lesser-known artists all of whom in the early 1970s were exploring new Afrocentric poly-rhythmical styles of music – radical jazz, street funk and proto-rap – while at the same time exploring the Black Power and civil-rights inspired notions of self-definition, self-respect and self-empowerment in their own lives.

During this era African-American jazz musicians ripped up traditional definitions – rejecting the term ‘entertainer’ to redefine themselves instead as ‘artists’. They worked outside of the mainstream music industry perceiving this artistic relationship to be fundamentally exploitative and politically flawed. Artists instead formed their own pan-arts community-centric collectives, set up their own record labels, ran concerts in alternative performance spaces – art galleries, parks, lofts, community centres – all as a way of taking control of their own creative destinies.

At the start of 1960s jazz musicians had embarked on an intense period of musical experimentation as artists John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry sought to dismantle the traditional definitions of jazz by creating new music that broke free from its establishment shackles. By the end of the 1960s, forward-thinking African-American jazz musicians had absorbed the ideas of this radical and avant-garde path but also began to introduce many new elements – not just civil rights concepts of freedom but also black power ideas of self-respect, righteousness and anger.

Their music developed into a radical and intense Afrocentric mix of jazz, funk, soul and street poetry, all in search of a new musical language that could better represent artistic African-American cultural expression.

All of the featured artists here were involved in this search in different ways; A shared sense of Afrocentric collectivism joined the dots between the deep avant-garde experimentalism of The Art Ensemble of Chicago (here featuring soul singer Fontella Bass singing the powerful ‘Theme de Yoyo’) to the hyper funk psychedelia of George Clinton’s Funkadelic.

The poetry of Gil Scott-Heron and Sarah Webster Fabio performed with a backdrop of street funk and heavyweight percussion laid down the template for the birth of rap. The Har-You Percussion Group, a group of young Harlem teenagers, showed how government-sponsored social initiatives helped create great art and music. Gary Bartz and The Oneness of Juju offer spirituality and cosmology. Collectives like The Pharaohs and Detroit’s Tribe add deep jazz and street funk in equal measures. And so on.

Influenced and radicalised by Black Power and civil rights, all these artists were involved in creating – in the words of the Art Ensemble of Chicago – ‘Great Black Music: Ancient to Future.’

This album is available as heavyweight triple vinyl (+free download), full and extensive text, exclusive photography, with house inners, and as deluxe CD with slipcase, 40-page outsize booklet and jewel case.

BBE continue their Japanese jazz series with a reissue of the stunning and super obscure gem, Takeo Moriyama's 'East Plants' from 1983.

HEAVY, HEAVY, HEAVY break-heavy deep, deep funk - check out the incredible vocal cut Ghetto Misfortunes Wealth and the moody left-field instrumental cut 24-Carat Black theme. 100% essential rare album!

Superb follow up compilation of early Joe Gibbs productions from 1967 to 73 featuring killer rocksteady and early reggae tunes from Lee Perry, The Pioneers, Reggae Boys, Errol Dunkley, Soul Sisters and many more.

John Coltranes switch in musical style was not universally popular, with critics and audiences alike turning on him as they struggled to understand the nuances of his music. To some he was anti-jazz, a moniker that was also attached to Eric Dolphy, who linked up with Coltrane in 1961. Even Coltrane himself would admit that his early solos were based more on technical ideas that were swirling around his head, but gradually he began to win over even the most vociferous of critics. In November 1961 producer Bob Thiele came up with the idea of recording four consecutive nights of Coltranes performances at the Village Vanguard, bringing in legendary engineer Rudy Van Gelder to oversee the recording. Just three songs were chosen for eventual release on the album (the remaining tracks were issued many years later as part of a box set), comprising a standard in Softly As In A Morning Sunrise and two Coltrane compositions, Spiritual and Chasin The Trane. The latter, which took up the whole of the second side of the vinyl album, has been described as one of the most important jazz recordings of all time.

Exclusive Studio One Official T-shirt!

An essential compilation showcasing defintive tracks from cult ethio-jazz legend Mulatu Astatke on Strut!!!

Vibraphone and keyboard player, master arranger and bandleader, Mulatu Astatke is one of the all-time greats of Ethiopian music and the creator of his own original music form, Ethio jazz. Through the acclaimed Ethiopiques album series and through featuring on the soundtrack to the Jim Jarmusch film Broken Flowers, his music has belatedly reached a global audience and a new, younger generation of fans. Last year, he recorded an inspired new album with London psych jazz band The Heliocentrics for Strut’s ‘Inspiration Information’ studio collaboration series. Now, the good peple at Strut have for the first time anywhere have compiled the definitive Mulatu career retrospective covering his landmark ‘60s and ‘70s recordings

Mulatu is a true pioneer of African music. He was the first Ethiopian musician of his generation to travel extensively and to record abroad – he studied in the UK in Wales and at Trinity College Of Music in London, cutting his teeth on the buoyant London jazz scene of the early ‘60s. He became the first African student to attend Harvard and he lived and recorded in New York, developing a unique sound that fused Western jazz with traditional Ethiopian melodies.

Tracing the progression of his Ethio jazz experiments with full access to all of the labels for whom he recorded, Mulatu Astatke: New York-Addis-London is the essential Mulatu. Covering his first recordings in the UK during 1965, his groundbreaking fusions for the small Worthy label in New York and his key ‘70s recordings back in Addis on Amha,

Includes extensive sleeve notes from Miles Cleret from Soundway Records and photos!

YOU NEED THIS ALBUM!

Two classic albums from 1968 and 1966 originally issued as "Vortex" and "Atlantic #3004".

Very rare dub roots album from Matumbi, originally released in 1980 on Extinguish Records. Produced by Dennis Bovell & Eaton Jah Blake and featuring DJ Ranking Ruben on "Afi Laugh", Trombonist Vin Gordon on "Hearts Of Art". Check first track "Frenz"!

One of Dorothy Ashby's hardest records to find! Classic 1969 release produced by the legendary Richard Evans for Chess Records. Nice Brazilian cuts such as 'Canto De Ossanha" and "Reza".

Another eccentric release from hip-hop futurist and companion release to 'Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines'. 

N.B. Vinyl format is the limited coloured version.

Killer

Orig= with original inner, sleeve cut out some wear, vinyl in great condition shiny

Floating Points drops 'Bias' via Ninja Tune, the second tune taken from his 'Crush' long-player. Bumpin' 2-stepper wrapped in fizzing electronics - a colossal arrangement geared straight towards the big room. Ace!

Highly anticipated 3rd album from Run The Jewels, the firebrand rap duo of El-P and Killer Mike. RTJ3 features contributions from Danny Brown, Kamasi Washington, Boots and more - essential!  

Vinyl formats pressed on 'gold' coloured double vinyl inc. stickers, lyric sheet and cover poster. 'Deluxe' vinyl format includes a gold pendant - of which are extremely limited!

Double disc live recording, London, 1988

Warp's playful electronic music duo, Plone, make a return on Julian House's cult, hauntological imprint, Ghost Box! The duo's signature sound is ever present - catchy, melodic and full of whimsy for fans of Sterolab, Raymond Scott, Delia Derbyshire and the Radiophonic Workshop.

Bilal applies his characteristic falsetto and teams with Adrian Younge on 'In Another Life' - the composer/producer who specializes in reinterpreting ’60s and ’70s funk and soul. Highly recommended! 

New edition of this classic set of funk and soul from Chicago's legendary Chess Records. CD comes in new deluxe hardback card case edition and perfect bound booklet, 2xLP comes on heavyweight loud vinyl with with full accompanying sleevenotes.

Soul Jazz Records latest release features classic and rare electric blues, funk and psychedelic soul music recorded in Chicago in the 1960s.

Chess Records, the infamous soul, blues and jazz powerhouse record company in Chicago was, in the 1960s, one of the main rivals to Motown in neighbouring Detroit and Atlantic Records in New York in its relentless charting of black music in the US charts. Owned by Leonard and Phil Chess, two Polish immigrants, the label brought Chicago’s urban black music to the masses on a huge scale.

Later Leonard’s son Marshall took the label in new directions, first by courting rock artists such as the Rolling Stones to record at the studios and then in the late 60s releasing genre defying radical psychedelic and experimental rock and funk releases by blues legends Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and the progressive Rotary Connection, featuring a young vocalist Minnie Riperton, originally a secretary at the company.

After the closing of Chess in the 1970s, Marshall went on to launch Rolling Stones Records with the legendary group.

The label was recently the subject of two Hollywood films, ‘Who Do You Love’ and 'Cadillac Records', as well as both a BBC4 television documentary and a four-part BBC6 radio documentary celebrating the story of this amazing independent label that took on the mighty giants of soul music in the 1960s.

This hardback CD edition showcases a stunning selection of the radical funk, psychedelic soul, rock and jazz tracks recorded for Chess mostly under the production of the genius composer arranger Charles Stepney or Richard Evans and the direction of Marshall Chess. Stepney would later become partners with Maurice White producing seminal Earth, Wind and Fire albums in the 1970s. White was both founder of E,W and F and pert of the regular in-house players at Chess in the 1960s (as a drummer).

Other regulars included the crack team of Pete Cosey (who later played with Miles Davis), Louis Saterrsfield (another future E,W and F member) and Phil Upchurch. Chess's position on the south side of Chicago led to many musical connections with the jazz scene of the AACM, a link that continued even though the music released on the label was solidly dance-led throughout.

THe album comes with a 40 page booklet featuring extensive social, cultural and historical text and info and exclusive photographs showing how Chess Records launched urban blues in south-side Chicago, then brought it to the American masses and then in the 1960s recorded and released a stunning array of black styles, music that was both progressive and yet rich in the cities black urban musical legacy, as they created hits on an almost daily basis.

Brilliant early Gil Scott-Heron album. One of his rarest on the great Flying Dutchman label.

Leroy Duncann is back, channelling the more oddball style library music funk of labels such as KPM. Tough breakbeats and haunting arrangements Alan Hawkshaw style! Fans of Portishead through to Adrian Younge - check! Limited white label edition. Hand-numbered copies of 350

Super-funky soundtracky stuff. Paul Humphries, Hubert Laws, Grady Tate, Bob Cranshaw. All-star line-up, groovy tracks!

This is Soul Jazz Records’ new journey into the heart of New Orleans and a guide to the city’s finest Funk music produced in the late 1960s and early 1970s.’ Featuring everyone from The Meters to Eddie Bo, Lee Dorsey to Betty Harris, this is a who’s who of the Crescent City’s most famous and most funky! 

The city of New Orleans has deep musical roots that stretch back to Africa. New Orleans first gave birth to Jazz music, a Black musical form centred on rhythm, improvisation, freedom and collectivity at the turn of the century. Similarly in the late 1960s New Orleans Funk came to define a unique sound, mixing Caribbean rhythms, New Orleans second-line syncopation and rhythm and blues, all played by the Big Easy’s finest musicians. 

Whilst Jazz and Funk music spread throughout the world, many African-American musical traditions remained within the city limits such as Mardi Gras and Carnival, Saturday Night Fish Fries, Funeral Marching bands and much more which partly explains why New Orleans music is so unique. 

The album comes with extensive sleeve-notes, exclusive photography and more, and is an essential guide to the musical landscape of New Orleans and - together with Soul Jazz Records’ earlier New Orleans’ releases - presents the definitive story of New Orleans Funk.
Although on the mainland coast, New Orleans is also surrounded by lakes giving the city an island feel. Similarly its proximity to Puerto Rico, Cuba, Haiti and the other West Indian Isles means that Latin and Caribbean musical influences are in its veins as much as American musical traditions. The upside of this city’s isolation is that New Orleans musical traditions flourished away from those of the rest of America. A thriving city full of artists, musicians, singers, producers, record companies, studios (well one studio actually) led to a 24-hour, 7-day a week musical life, playing in clubs, bars, brothels, carnivals and parades. 

The downside of the cities isolation from the rest of the US was that the city never developed a solid music industry to back up the creative over-supply. Whilst New York had Atlantic, Detroit had Motown, Memphis had Stax, Chicago had Chess, Los Angeles had Modern, New Orleans had a multitude of small businesses fighting for space - and often each other. Without the marketing, promotional weight, business nouse and financial clout, New Orleans labels found it hard to get the nationwide distribution necessary to fill the million-odd jukeboxes throughout the country. So whilst every family in America knows the music of Gladys Knight or Smokey Robinson few could tell you about – let alone hum a tune from - Benny Spellman, Inell Young, Warren Lee….This is far from being a reflection of the artists creativity or musicality - as anyone can tell you New Orleans melodies are the catchiest of all - more it is a reflection of the limitations of the local music industry. Some New Orleans artists became successful throughout the US such as Fats Domino in the 1950s and in the late 1960s The Meters and Lee Dorsey, but many artists remained within the city limits. 
This makes for a fascinating goldmine of music released by a complex myriad of small labels run mainly by New Orleans producers, promoters and artists themselves. New Orleans Funk 2 brings together many of these artists along with text, sleeve-notes and photographs that gives social and historical context to the incredibly funky music of New Orleans.