Funk/Soul

It's back in stock!!! EXCLUSIVE - ONLY AVAILABLE HERE!

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WORLD EXCLUSIVE limited edition seven-inch 45 ONLY AVAILABLE to customers at Soul Jazz Records and Sounds of the Universe!

The world's greatest ever break? Here it is - The first official re-release of The Winston's Amen Brother with the LEGENDARY Amen Break as featured on 1000s of hip-hop and jungle releases. This record has been a collectors' 45 for ages and OUT OF PRINT for 50 years - sounding fresh!

Not only that but the flip-side Color Him Father is a superb Curtis Mayfield-esque ANTHEMIC soul tune - as essential as the A-side.

WORLD EXCLUSIVE limited edition seven-inch 45 ONLY AVAILABLE to customers at Soul Jazz Records and Sounds of the Universe!

THIS RECORD IS 100% ESSENTIAL and ONLY available HERE - DO NOT MISS OUT!

Soul Jazz Records are releasing Funk 70 Box Set, a limited-edition one-off pressing, exclusive for Record Store Day, collectors seven-inch box set, featuring ten superb, rare and classic funk cuts across five individual bespoke 7" singles housed in a hardbox set, with each single housed in individual innersleeves.

Seriously rare, killer and classic funk tunes brought together here in this unique one-off Record Store Day box-set edition.

This release features so many great singles. The super-rare Winstons MASSIVE 45 featuring Amen Brother (the drum break of all drum breaks for all jungle records ever!) as well as the soul anthem Color Him Father. A superb rare Detroit funk cut from Jackie Harris, Joe Bataan’s Latin Strut – the best latin funk tune ever made that helped launch Salsoul Records, rare groove hi-adrenalin funk from Untouchable Machine Shop and finally a KILLER slice of New Orleans funk produced by Eddie Bo with the amazing drums of James Black in the mix.

All tracks have been digitally re-mastered and the singles come housed in a thick, heavyweight deluxe card box.

This box set is a one-off pressing exclusively for Record Store Day.

New fully remastered re-release of Soul Jazz Records’ ‘The World of Arthur Russell’, the seminal collection of Arthur Russell’s essential music back in print on awesome limited-edition heavy deluxe triple vinyl and deluxe CD edition.

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This album brings together some of Russell’s best-loved and most accessible works including his wide-ranging music both solo and in groups including Dinosaur L (the essential ‘Go Bang’), Loose Joints (the equally classic ‘Is It All Over My Face’) as well as rarities such as the 7” only ‘Pop Your Funk’, Indian Ocean’s ‘Schoolbell/Treehouse’, Lola’s ‘Wax The Van’ and more.

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“Arthur Russell fused the avant-garde with disco and sounds like nothing else on earth.” The GUARDIAN

“Russell is the great enigma of the New York music scene” THE WIRE

“Simply one of the best compilations of this or any year.” RECORD COLLECTOR

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Arthur Russell’s music effortlessly crossed musical boundaries making it timeless. His dance music credentials are faultless and this collection features mixes from Larry Levan, Françcois Kervorkian and Walter Gibbons. Similarly, his song-writing, musicality and performance skills are equally cherished as composer Philip Glass wrote, ‘this was a guy who could sit down with a cello and sing with it in a way that no one on earth has ever done before or will do again.’

When Soul Jazz Records’ The World of Arthur Russell first came out in 2003, Russell’s music had slipped into near obscurity. Nearly 18 years later there are over a dozen releases of his music, reissues of his original albums and more. ‘The World of Arthur Russell’ is the classic first collection of his work available once more.

IN STOCK - Get it while u can!

Soul Jazz Records' Brazil Funk Power – Brazilian Funk & Samba Soul features ten superb, rare and classic Brazilian funk and soul cuts across five individual bespoke 7" singles housed in a box set.

This release is the 2nd of Soul Jazz Records 3 Record Store Day 2020 titles and is an exclusive one-off pressing, limited-edition collectors seven-inch box set, which will be deleted on the day of release.

This release features some of the funkiest Brazilian music ever made - music by Jorge Ben, Banda Black Rio, Tim Maia, Toni Tornado, Cassiano performing some of the best tunes ever to come out of Brazil!

Classics from the superb 70s Afro-Brazilian Funk & Soul era of Brazil’s own Black Power Movement (‘Movimento Negro’) sit alongside a dancefloor-heavy selection of Samba Soul and Boogie, Afro-percussive Brazilian funk and more!

All tracks have been digitally re-mastered and the singles come housed in a thick, heavyweight deluxe card box.

This box set is a one-off pressing exclusively for Record Store Day.

‘Space Funk – Afro Futurist Electro Funk in Space 1976-84’, is an intergalactic journey into black space, fuelled by funk, powered by computers.

‘Space Funk’ is a lovingly compiled collection of superb, rare and off-the-wall space funk and electro releases mostly released on small independent labels in the late 1970s and 1980s.

Reactors are reacting, boosters are boosting, pack your funk and shake your booty! Computer funk … makes you jump! This is the space funk program!

The album comes in deluxe artwork and three formats – digipack + slipcase CD, a very limited deluxe 2xLP + bonus 7” single + download vinyl version, and a standard 2xLP + download standard vinyl version.

Features music by Jamie Jupitor, Solaris, Robotron 4, Juju & the Space Rangers and many more intergalactic space warriors!

The shuttle program has been altered – there is no Star Wars only electro funk jam joyriders in Space – hold tight!

In collaboration with Tate Liverpool, Soul Jazz Records release this stunning new collection entitled The World of Keith Haring featuring music influential to the artist Keith Haring including Fab 5 Freddy, Yoko Ono, Gray (Jean-Michel Basquiat’s group), The Jonzun Crew, Larry Levan, Talking Heads, Sylvester, Johnny Dynell and many others.

The World of Keith Haring coincides with the presentation of the first major exhibition in the UK of Keith Haring’s work at Tate Liverpool on now.

The album comes in deluxe artwork and three formats: Double CD + 48-page book; 3xLP + download vinyl version. All formats of the album feature original photography, extensive sleevenotes and interviews.

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Haring’s many friends and collaborators included Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, Madonna, Fab 5 Freddy, William Burroughs, Jenny Holzer, Yoko Ono, Bill T Jones, Larry Levan, Timothy Leary, Futura 2000. If you were looking for a person to guide you through the wide variety of nightclub scenes of downtown New York in the 1980s, then Keith Haring would have been your man.

Keith Haring was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1988 and died at the age of 31 on February 16, 1990. During his short time on the planet his work featured in over 100 solo and group exhibitions across the world and was seen on subways, in public spaces, on club flyers and consumer products.

Keith Haring was one of the key members of a group of New York-based artists who redefined the boundaries of modern art in the 1980s. Like his friends, including the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and graffiti artists Fab 5 Freddy, Lee Quiñones and LA II, Haring helped first bring the aesthetics of graffiti and street art to New York’s downtown; into both the fine art world, with his own shows at the Shafrazi Gallery and Patti Astor’s Fun Gallery, as well as into the alternative punk and new wave club scene, curating art shows at spaces like Club 57 and the infamous Mudd Club.

During this time the art and music worlds of downtown New York, especially that of the East Village, were colliding as the musical boundary lines between punk rock, dance music and hip-hop also blurred. Musicians were also artists, film-makers or actors. Artists formed bands and music was art. This was the world of Keith Haring’s New York; a collaborative world where the numerous artists he worked with were also friends, all inhabiting the same fertile, febrile and creative world of New York City in the 1980s.

Music played a central role in the creation of Haring’s art. In 1981 Keith Haring, Fab 5 Freddy and Futura 2000 organised ‘Beyond Words,’ the first downtown graffiti show on the top floor of the Mudd Clubb, with Afrika Bambaataa DJing at the opening, while downstairs the sounds of spiky punk/dance music played to a dancefloor populated with New York’s new punk and no wave glitterati – David Byrne, Deborah Harry, The Contortions et al – who mixed with poor East Village aspiring artists and Studio 54 celebrities like Andy Warhol, Grace Jones and David Bowie.

At his early solo art shows Haring hired break-dancers and DJs (including his partner Juan Dubose) to play at gallery openings. As hip-hop and electro exploded into the world, body-popping and electro boogie-ing characters also populated Haring’s paintings with much of the kinetic energy of his work part inspired by the dancefloor and street moves of B-Boys and B-Girls.

But the decisive moment in creating Haring’s musical tastes and inspiration came with a chance discovering of the Paradise Garage one night in 1984 while walking through the streets of the West Village with his friend Fab 5 Freddy. As Haring told biographer John Gruen:

‘I have never been the same since I walked into Paradise Garage … The music was phenomenal – Larry Levan was the DJ there and he was like a god in the DJ booth. I was totally mesmerized.’

Haring fell in love with the Paradise Garage, creating large scale artworks and flyers for the club, flying home from his exhibitions around the world to religiously attend Saturday nights there. Haring became friends with Larry Levan and in 1984 he put on his own Party of Life at the Garage with DJs Levan and Juan Dubose, and live appearances from his friends John Sex and the then-unknown singer Madonna.

By the second half of the 1980s Haring was spending more and more time away from New York and working in Europe. Despite this he remained connected to New York’s dance culture at all times through a constant stream of cassette mixtapes that he would listen to while working. These mixtapes were supplied by friends and lovers such as Jean Dubose and Gil Vazquez and playlists from the likes of Larry Levan, Frankie Knuckles and Junior Vasquez.

About the music:

The music collected on The World of Keith Haring is a combination of rare disco, early electro and New York punk/dance tracks reflecting the vibrant and hybrid world of downtown New York in the 1980s.

Here you will find early electro from The Jonzun Crew, Adiche and The Extra T’s alongside angular jerky crossover punk/dance and disco/not disco tracks like Pylon’s ‘Danger,’ John Sex’s ‘Bump and Grind’, Yoko Ono’s ‘Walking on Thin Ice’ and Mudd Club DJ Johnny Dynell’s ‘Jam Hot.’

The music of some of Haring’s favourite visual artists (and friends) also feature heavily including Jean-Michel Basquiat’s experimental group Gray, George Condo’s art rock group The Girls (produced by David Thomas of Pere Ubu) and early rap from Fab Five Freddy.

Paradise Garage soul and disco classics here include Sylvester’s seminal ‘Over and Over’; London DJ Tony Williams’ fusion of Jamaican dub and New York dance music as The Funk Masters, Damon Harris’s uplifting ‘It’s Music’ and disco producers extraordinaire Peter Brown and Patrick Adams’ homage to the new phenomenon of the day – The Guardian Angels of the New York subway system.

Together these are some of the tracks first heard in New York’s prolific underground club scene of the 1980s – including Club 57, The Mudd Club, Danceteria, Hurrah, Area, The Fun Club, Tier 3, The Palladium, Roxy, Pyramid and Paradise Garage. Haring was a regular face at many of these clubs, often a creative participant, both shaping and defining the cultural identity of downtown New York.

Also included is a track by the long-standing French experimental group Art Zoyd. ‘Sortie 134’ made as part of the music for ‘Le Mariage du Ciel et de L’Enfer’ (‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’), a ballet created by Roland Petit, choreographer at the National Ballet of Marseille, based upon a collection of pose and poetry by William Blake. As one of many works that Haring took on in Europe at the time, Petit commissioned the artist to create a massive 100-square metre backdrop painting for this show.

The selection of music on this collection is itself like a mixtape that reflects Haring’s wide-ranging musical influences and connections. And for someone who neither DJ’d nor played in a band he had impeccable musical tastes, with music playing a pivotal part in both his life and work, and functioning as an essential and always present soundtrack to both.

Exhibition details:

Keith Haring exhibition at Tate Liverpool 14th June 2019 - 10th November 2019

In 2020 the show then travels to:

Centre for Fine Arts (BOZAR), Brussels, Belgium: 5th December 2019 - 20th April 2020

Folkwang, Essen, Germany: 22nd May 2020 - 20th September 2020

Formats: Tr 10 CD/D only, Tr 8,14 on deluxe 3xLP/CD/D only

Reviews:

"★★★★★ Soul Jazz compilations make an excellent argument for the physical album purchase in the age of Spotify: substantial liner notes, great photos, collections put together to tell a story. The label has outdone itself with this one, released to coincide with Tate Liverpool’s retrospective of Eighties New York’s foremost creator of blocky, stylised pop art." The TIMES

All of the music featured here on this new Soul Jazz Records collection was created by Brazilian artists living and working in the USA in the 1970s.

The album brings together some of these finest works and comes complete with extensive notes that explains the path these musicians took from Brazil to the USA and shows the political and musical links between Brazil and the USA that created the conditions for this unique fusion of these two distinct cultures, North American Jazz and Brazilian music, that occurred in the 1970s.

In the early 1970s North American jazz musicians were eager to work with upcoming Brazilian musicians. Miles Davis invited Airto Moreira to join his new ‘electric’ band, Dom Um Romao (part of Sérgio Mendes’ legendary Brazil ‘66 in the 1960s) joined the fusion group Weather Report, Flora Purim and Airto both became a part of Chick Corea’s new project Light As A Feather, Wayne Shorter collaborated with Milton Nascimento, George Duke recorded Brazilian Love Affair, and so on.

With all the attention placed on them from these important jazz artists, North America became the new musical playground for a large number of these Brazilian artists – Airto Moreira, Flora Purim, Sérgio Mendes, Luiz Bonfá, Eumir Deodato, João Donato and many others.

Most of these musicians had already experienced success through the earlier popularity of bossa nova in the 1960s, either at home in Brazil or in the USA. But by the end of the 1960s many Brazilian artists had left their own country, as the military dictatorship became progressively more authoritarian and repressive. In the USA, through their critically acclaimed work for Miles Davis, Weather Report, Light As A Feather etc., all of these artists were now given reign to explore new musical terrains away from the restrictions of both a musical genre and a state censor back in Brazil.

The album comes as a deluxe gatefold double vinyl LP, complete with download code, full sleeve notes, exclusive photography, double inner sleeves. The CD contains CD plus a large 40-page outsize booklet all housed in Soul Jazz slipcase.

Soul Jazz Records are re-releasing keyboardist Eddie Russ’s seminal debut deep jazz LP Fresh Out (and the first album ever released on Soul Jazz Records!) in a new limited edition COLOURED vinyl 1000 copies worldwide (+ free download code) and new CD edition.

Eddie Russ's Fresh Out was independently released in Detroit in 1974 and has remained a collector's item ever since. Russ was an important figure to emerge from the vibrant underground jazz scene that thrived in Detroit in the early 1970s, existing in the cultural and economic desolation of the city after the departure of Motown in the late 1960s.

This scene included the musical collective Tribe (including members Wendell Harrison, Marcus Belgrave, Phil Ranelin, Harold McKinney and Doug Hammond) and Kenny Cox’s Strata Records. Eddie Russ’s Fresh Out was first released in 1974 on the independent Jazz Masters record label.

As well as including the classic jazz dance cut The Lope Song, Eddie Russ’s Fresh Out featured the debut of the group The Mixed Bag who subsequently recorded for both Tribe and Strata Records. Eddie Russ released two further classic jazz funk albums in the late 1970s, See the Light and Take a Look at Yourself.

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.

This unique box-set edition is only available as a one-off pressing seven-inch box set which brings together a stunning five-single/ ten track selection of mind-blowingly groovy selection of African, Latin, Jazz and Funk music from the Congo.

Absolutely killer and essential tracks (mostly unknown) from the masters of the vibrant Congo scene in the 1960s – featuring the groups Franco & OK Jazz, Rock-A-Mambo, African Jazz, African Fiesta and more.

Roots African meets Cal Tjader, James Brown, Ray Barretto & more. The bomb!

This album coincides with the massive new exhibition Soul of A Nation - Art in the Age of Black Power at Tate Modern, London.

Watch Channel 4 news piece here

Read Guardian feature here

The album shows how the ideals of the civil rights movement, black power and black nationalism influenced the evolvement of radical African-American music in the United States of America in the intensely political and revolutionary period at the end of the 1960s following the assassinations of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King and the rise of the Black Panther party.

Featuring groundbreaking artists such as Gil Scott-Heron, Roy Ayers, Don Cherry, Oneness of Juju, Sarah Webster Fabio, Horace Tapscott, Phil Ranelin and many others, Soul of A Nation shows how political themes led to the rise of ‘conscious’ black music as new afro-centric styles combined the musical radicalism and spirituality of John Coltrane and radical avant-garde jazz music alongside the intense funk and soul of James Brown and Aretha Franklin and the urban poetry and proto-rap of the streets.

The Soul of a Nation exhibition draws on the links between Black art forms – art, music, poetry - and how they came together during the civil rights and black power era as part of the wider black arts movement across the United States.

Iconic African-Amercian revolutionary figures such as Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Angela Davis, John Coltrane, Muhammad Ali all appear in the radical artworks of Barkley L. Hendricks, Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis, Lorraine O’Grady and Betye Saar.

Stuart Baker (founder of Soul Jazz Records) will appear with the curators on the panel of Jazz for Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power discussion at the gallery as part of the show. You can book a ticket for this event here

The Soul of a Nation album comes with extensive sleeve-notes and exclusive photography in a large 36-page outsize booklet and slipcase. Double gatefold vinyl album edition comes with full colour inners + bonus download code and includes full sleeve-notes/photography.

Read More Reviews of the Soul of A Nation Exhibition:

Independent

Time Out

The Telegraph

Frieze

BBC News

Betty Harris’ The Lost Queen of New Orleans Soul features all of her classic deep soul, sister funk and northern soul songs recorded in New Orleans in the 1960s - all written, produced and arranged by the legendary Allen Toussaint, and featuring the cream of New Orleans musicians and the incredible Meters.

All of these singles featured here were released on Allen Toussaint and his business partner Marshall Sehorn’s local New Orleans label Sansu, widely distributed in the southern city but in only limited quantities elsewhere. As a consequence, Betty Harris’ music failed to achieve the commercial success of other New Orleans artists such as Lee Dorsey (who she recorded with) and The Meters (who backed her). And so at the end of the decade she stopped recording, retired from the music business to raise her family in Florida.

This is no reflection of the stunning musical quality of all these songs which encompass everything from southern soul, heavy funk, deep soul ballads and northern soul. Betty Harris has been a cornerstone of Soul Jazz Records’ New Orleans Funk and New Orleans Soul compilations. 

Always soulful and always funky, Betty Harris’ music contains the essence of New Orleans music. She is the Lost Soul Queen of New Orleans. 

This collection is released on CD, heavyweight gatefold double LP vinyl (+ download code) and digital and comes complete with full biography, original label artwork.

To coincide with this album New Orleans legend Betty Harris  will in the new year be performing two rare live UK shows at the 100 Club, London on Feb 17,2017 and Band on the Wall, Manchester on Feb 18, 2017.

Soul Jazz Records’ are releasing Tee Mac’s ‘Night Illusion’, a lost classic Nigerian Afro soul meets disco boogie funk album originally released in Nigeria in 1980. Impossibly hard to find, the record remains practically unknown outside of Nigeria.

Tee Mac Omatshola Iseli is a multi-instrumentalist, composer and arranger and features on Soul Jazz Records’ recent collection Nigeria Soul Fever – Afro Funk Disco and Boogie alongside Joni Haastrup, Christy Essien and others, as well as on a recent compilation ‘Nepa Oh Nepa’ (released on Hot Casa earlier this year). 

The timelessness of this soulful, ground-breaking funk jazz lost masterpiece ‘Night Illusion’ leads to comparisons with James Mason’s legendary lost classic album Rhythm of Life, with his unique individualism and intensity hinting at the boogie funk of groups such as Mass Production and Slave so loved by artists such as Moodyman and Theo Parrish.  While Fela Kuti is now a cultural icon of Nigerian music throughout the world, the recent crossover success of William Onyeabor shows just how much undiscovered Nigerian music remains waiting to be explored outside of the country.

Tee Mac was born in Lagos, the son of a Nigerian princess and a Swiss diplomat. He picked up the flute at age 7 and ten years later was studying classical musical in Switzerland under his uncle the composer J.J. Direndirger. Returning to Lagos, Nigeria in 1970 he formed the heavyweight afro rock group Tee Mac and Afro Collection (which included Johnny Haastrup on keyboards and The Lijadu Sisters on vocals). This band was famously joined by the legendary Cream drummer Ginger Baker who came to Nigeria to play with them in 1971 (captured in the film Ginger Baker in Africa).

At age 24, Tee Mac moved to Germany where he co-wrote and recorded the European disco group Silver Convention (whose ‘Fly Robin Fly’ became number one in the USA charts). 

Tee Mac continues to live in Lagos today and travels the world as a composer – one of whose pieces is The City of Mer Kailash (2009), a two-hour ballet featuring over 60 dancers and a 100+ piece orchestra.

Soul Jazz Records are releasing this lost classic Nigerian album as a strictly limited-edition 1000 copies worldwide exact-replica artwork reproduction LP (+ sleevenotes + free download), CD and digital album.

Soul Jazz Records’ new Nigeria Soul Fever is their first release to explore the vast wealth of Nigerian music recorded in the 1970s. The new album comes with introductory sleevenotes by Bill Brewster (author of Last Night A DJ Saved My Life).

Packed-full with Afro-Funk, Disco and Boogie all from Nigeria, this triple album/double CD set brings together a stunning collection of diverse West African sounds. Whilst a small handful of the artists featured (Joni Haastrup, Tee Mac, Christy Essien) have seen the light of day outside Africa, this is essentially a collection of killer tracks by an array of artists completely unknown outside of Nigeria. 

Artists such as Don Bruce & The Angels, Akin Richards & The Executives, Angela Starr, Jimmy Sherry & The Music Agents. It’s no surprise that these records are extremely rare and expensive to buy individually so this album will save you going broke trying to find them.

These recordings were made at a time when Nigeria’s trade restrictions banned imported records. Whilst new musical trends (such as American soul, funk, disco etc) entered and influenced the country, the local music scene remained just that – local. Consequently, these recordings remain practically unknown to anyone outside of the country.

Nigeria Soul Fever is released as triple-album vinyl + download, double-CD digi-pack and digital download. This album follows on from Soul Jazz Records’ 1960s collection Nigeria Freedom Sounds, released last month, and will be followed by the reissue of the incredibly rare and groovy Nigerian 1980 disco boogie funk album Tee Mac’s Night Illusion.

"Excellent new soul jazz compilation Nigeria Soul Fever: Afrofunk, Disco And Boogie: West African Disco Mayhem!" THE GUARDIAN

READ Guardian top 10 Nigerian Disco full feature here

This is the 20th anniversary expanded edition of one of Soul Jazz Records earliest definitive releases: ‘Nu Yorica : Culture Clash In New York City – Experiments in Latin Music 1970-77’, a stunning and ground-breaking collection of music bringing together Latin, Soul, Jazz, Funk and more from the melting pot of New York City in the 1970s.

Out-of-print for more than ten years this new edition has been fully digitally remastered with new tracks, additional photography and is released as a deluxe 2CD pack + large outsize booklet, as well as a new edition of two super-loud super-heavy separate volumes of double vinyl. The album is also available for the first time as a worldwide digital release.

Nu Yorica! is one of Soul Jazz Records most critically acclaimed albums of all time.

The album features seminal Latin artists such as Eddie Palmieri, Joe Bataan, Machito, Ocho, Grupo Folklorico, Cortijo, Ricardo Marrero, Cachao and many more.

Reviews:

"Latin music never sounded so good. Ever.

Some compilations are so influential and universally loved that they become classic albums in their own right – Harry Smith’s Anthology Of American Folk Music, for example. And just as Smith cemented forever the underground sound of the US between the wars, so did the then young Soul Jazz imprint immortalise the Latin music emerging from 70s New York with Nu Yorica!, originally released 20 years ago." Record Collector

“A brilliant introduction to some of the most energising & misunderstood music ever” Wire

“A truly inspired selection. If ever a CD was worth buying, this is it” The Guardian (CD of the week)

“A percussive colossus. Mighty and frightening.” Q

“If you buy one CD this week buy Nu Yorica!” The Observer

“Soul Jazz go beyond dancefloor trends and explore the political agendas’ of their musical idols with this brave and diverse album” Maxim

“From gritty funk to free-form experimentation, Soul Jazz’s selection of Latin-influenced dance music is sterling” The Face

“A challenging and revelatory compilation of pure quality” Music Week

“Positively throbs with energy.” NME

“This music has influenced everything from Salsoul Disco to the Masters at Work”DJ

“An excellent document of a key phase in musical history. Every single one of these tracks is superb. An absolute f***ing blinder” Echoes

“Genre defying madness” Select

“An utterly brilliant and well documented snapshot of the musical culture clash in 70’s New York” Muzik

“Miraculous” Time Out, New York

Tracklisting: CD1/LPA: Tracks 1-9, CD2/LPB: Tracks 10-18

Soul Jazz Records’ latest excursion into the Crescent City vaults delves deep into the roots and history of the Voodoo world of New Orleans Funk.

Packed to the brim with serious break-heavy, heavyweight funk tunes from classic New Orleans artists including Eddie Bo, Betty Harris, Dave Bartholomew, Johnny Adams and Eldridge Holmes (with the ever-present Allen Toussaint and The Meters as always behind the scenes). There is also a host of rare cuts from a number of lesser-known second line New Orleans artists, whose fame rarely reached past the walls of the city, including Gus ‘The Groove’ Lewis, James K-Nine, Norma Jean, Bob French, Chuck Colbert, Zilla Mayes and Joe Haywood.

In the 1960s the syncopated beat of New Orleans Funk developed out of a gumbo mix of New Orleans local flavours – rhythm and blues, Mardi Gras Indians, the street percussion Second Line of the Jazz Funeral and Marching bands, Caribbean rhumba and mambo rhythms – all of which are in full effect. Even Zydeco, the rhythm and blues offspring of Louisiana Cajun music, had the funk as the King of Zydeco, Clifton Chenier, shows us here. 

New Orleans music and Voodoo both have their roots in the African-American free black and slave gatherings held at Congo Square from the 18th century onwards. Here Voodoo king Doctor John (the original one!) and Voodoo queen Marie Levaux held court over their followers, and here also could be heard the first sounds of New Orleans jazz music. Soul Jazz Records’ latest album describes how these two cultural forms are inextricably inter-related. 

The album traces the path of funk from the very first glimpses of the style – Dave Bartholomew’s super-tight ‘The Monkey’ (recorded in 1957) and James Waynes’ junkie jailbird anthem ‘Junco Partner’ (1951, later covered by Dr John, Professor Longhair, James Booker, and The Clash) through to the 1970s heavyweight boogie funk of Chocolate Milk’s rare groove classic Action Speak Louder Than Words and The Baron’s ‘Making It Better’. 

Also featured is a selection of hard-core classic funk productions from the legendary Eddie Bo (James K-Nine, David Robinson) and the genius of Allen Toussaint (Eldridge Holmes, Gus ‘The Groove’ Lewis, Lou Johnson). There also a number of super-rare independent New Orleans’ one-off 45 single funk productions from the likes of Chick Colbert and Bob French. And lastly, New Orleans Funk female vocalists are in full effect with tracks by Betty Harris (whose ‘Lost Queen of New Orleans Soul’ has just come out on Soul Jazz Records), Zilla Mayes and Norma Jean. 

This album is released as a heavyweight double gatefold vinyl (+ download code), CD pack and digital album, and comes with extensive long-form sleeve-notes and stunning photography from the Ralston Crawford New Orleans collection and Hogan Jazz Archives at Tulane University, New Orleans.

Recent related Soul Jazz Records release: Betty Harris 'The Queen of New Orleans Soul' (SJR LP/CD/D345).

Digital album includes all tracks. Tracks 4,7,11,12 not available individually (only as bundle).

EXCLUSIVE NEW 45rpm - ONLY available direct from Soul Jazz Records or Sounds of the Universe.

KILLER rare groove funk bomb! This is a monster HEAVY FUNK double-sider!

THIS 7-inch can ONLY be bought directly here from Soul Jazz Records or Sounds of the Universe websites and shop. It is a very limited 500-copies pressing and you need to buy it now!

See all the EXCLUSIVE Funk and Soul 45s titles only available here

See all the EXCLUSIVE Reggae 45s titles only available here

NEW LTD. FIRST EDITION 300 copies. Only available EXCLUSIVELY to customers at Soul Jazz Records/Sounds of the Universe.

Stone-cold CLASSIC monster soul anthem! Sounds wicked!

THIS 7-inch can ONLY be bought directly here from Soul Jazz Records or Sounds of the Universe websites and shop.  

See all the EXCLUSIVE 45s titles only available here!

CHECK THIS OUT!!! SUPERB sweet, sweet rare uplifting soul 45!

ONLY  available EXCLUSIVELY to customers at Soul Jazz Records/Sounds of the Universe.

 Richard Brown's Sweet and Kind was originally released and distributed locally in Gary, Indiana, in the mid-west of USA on the tiny Steeltown Inc Records, a label which despite it's size was nonetheless the first ever to sign the Jackson Five (pre-Motown) in 1968, the same year as this little-known gem.

Soul Jazz Records/Sounds of the Universe continues its SOUL 7-inch series in fine style with this FANTASTIC cut following on from Brief Encounter, Arnold Blair, Johnny Adams & other earlier exclusive soul 45.

THIS 7-inch can ONLY be bought directly here from Soul Jazz Records or Sounds of the Universe websites and shop. 

EXCLUSIVE NEW 45rpm - ONLY available direct from Soul Jazz Records or Sounds of the Universe.

All time-killer New Orleans heavyweight funk bomb on loud 7" single!

Betty Harris's seminal vocals, The Meters’ Leo Nocentelli and George Porter Jr + the incredible James Black on drums. They don't get much better than this!

THIS 7-inch can ONLY be bought directly here from Soul Jazz Records or Sounds of the Universe websites and shop. It is a very limited 500-copies pressing and you need to buy it now!

See all the EXCLUSIVE 45s titles only available here!

NEW ORLEANS  funky boogie soul disco bomb 45!

Latest Soul Jazz Records/Sounds of the Universe SOUL 7-inch series - after the now sold out Brief Encounter 'Human' 45.

A massive slice of New Orleans genius - arranged by Wardell Quezergue, produced by Senator Jones, originally released locally in New Orleans in 1979.

It's a bomb! Exact replica reproduction, wicked sound, killer funky soul boogie 7" 45!

THIS 7-inch can ONLY be bought directly here from Soul Jazz Records or Sounds of the Universe websites and shop. It is a very limited 500-copies pressing and you need to buy it now!

This is a second selection of independent disco records featuring rare and classic tracks originally released in the USA between the halcyon years of 1977 and 1985.

This release features only the finest disco, modern soul and boogie and is compiled by Disco Patrick who put together for Soul Jazz Records the mighty 'Disco - An Encyclopedic Guide to the Cover Art of Disco Records' 400+ page deluxe book, as well as the first installment of 'Disco - A Fine Selection of Independent Disco, Modern Soul and Boogie.'

This album is released as a double CD, as well as two separate volumes of double vinyl (plus free download codes) and a worldwide digital release.

Rare, classic and in-demand tracks from the mighty vaults of labels such as New York's Salsoul and Miami's TK Records - which during the main disco era became the main competitors to the major established record industry - through to killer virtually unknown tracks released on tiny bespoke one-off labels, now impossible to find either in the history books or record shops of the world.

All the music on this album has been sonically and digitally remastered with love and is presented complete with sleevenotes, original label artwork and full-length extended disco editions.

This is the first ever single from The Wild Magnolias - a massive, massive slice of super-percussive New Orleans second line funk meets Mardi Gras Indian chants and rhymes.

Originally issued on the tiny independent Crescent City label in New Orleans in 1970. This was the only ever release on this bespoke label and is issued here on Soul Jazz Records with original label art and loud pressing.

The B-side is if anything even HEAVIER than the A-side - and has never been available or issued since.

Two killer tunes on this amazing exact replica EXCLUSIVE V.LTD. 45

THIS 7-inch can ONLY be bought directly here from Soul Jazz Records or Sounds of the Universe websites and shop. It is a very limited 500-copies pressing and you need to buy it now!

See all the EXCLUSIVE 45s titles only available here!

Insane percussive heavy 60s party Mambo recorded in the Bahamas + Hypnotic 60s calypso recorded in Port-au-Prince. 

Caribbean party vibes on this Soul Jazz Records 45 only available EXCLUSIVELY to customers of Soul Jazz Records/Sounds of the Universe! Very limited 300 copies!

 NEW LTD. 300 copies (2nd Press, blue label)

Only available EXCLUSIVELY to customers at Soul Jazz Records/Sounds of the Universe.

All time party classic KILLER New Orleans Funk 45 - Professor Longhair's massive Big Chief.

Exact-replica bespoke New Orleans funk 45 BOMB.

THIS 7-inch can ONLY be bought directly here from Soul Jazz Records or Sounds of the Universe websites and shop.