This is a one-time only pressing of this 12" single and will be deleted on release. Two killer tracks that are not on the vinyl version of the Kaleidoscope album. Theon Cross's superb Candace of Meroe and Pokus' equally striking Pokus One

Postcard-sized flyer from surely the best club in the world ever! Queues round the block to get in every night for about 15 years! Dynamite created its own world - the best secret ever for the people who used to come every two weeks listening to reggae, funk and soul (later jungle and ragga too) it nevertheless began attracting curious famous people (who nevertheless all had to pay their £4 to get in!). Sinead O'Connor (who came with Adrian Sherwood!), Kylie Minogue, Peaches Geldof, Richard Branson's son (who tried to get in free) ...

This is from the early days at the Blue Angel in Islington and lists the Soul Jazz Sound System with regular guests Jerry Dammers, Pete Holdwsorth (Pressure Sounds), Manassah, Dave Hill (Nuphonic), Mark Ainley (Honest Jons), Wilbur Wilberforce and The Equaliser. Not bad for £4

This is a FREEPOST product when you ADD to any other purchase.

If you are ordering just the flyer on its own then order as 'Flyer (postage applied)'. Thanks!

Double-sided flyer with two of our favourite clubs - 100% Dynamite and Saturday Night Fish Fry. 100% Dynamite was Saturdays every two weeks and Fish Fry was Saturdays every four weeks - which gave us one night off a month!

This flyer was for three Xmas specials which featured the Blood and Fire Soundsystem among other specials. Admission £4!

This is a FREEPOST product when you ADD to any other purchase.

If you are ordering just the flyer on its own then order as 'Flyer (postage applied)'. Thanks!

Dynamite flyer - Xmas special with Lone Ranger, New Year's eve special, followed by Andrew Weatherall in January and David Holmes in February - £5 to get in! Geenie max!

This large format flyer is long and so we suggest you order it with a vinyl purchase rather than a CD purchase (which means it would have to be folded)

This is a FREEPOST product when you ADD to any other purchase.

If you are ordering just the flyer on its own then order as 'Flyer (postage applied)'. Thanks!

Soul Jazz Records one-night only club event in 2004 - The legendary Nicky Siano flew in for a one-off recreation of his legendary 70s New York club The Gallery, which as Nicky often says, 'more of a party than a disco'. This night was no exception with the whole of Electrowerkz covered in tinsel and balloons and about 1500 peeps shaking their thang to Nicky's awesome DJing style mixing funk, soul and disco. Good night!

The event coincided with the release of Nicky's Gallery compilation which was Soul Jazz Records' 100th release at the time!

Driving home after the event we had to stop someone running down Islington High Street with one of the massive six-foot tall blown up photographs - this one of Nicky Siano dressed up as the Statue of Liberty - that decorated the space. The person kindly gave it back - we still have it!

This is a FREEPOST product when you ADD to any other purchase.

If you are ordering just the flyer on its own then order as 'Flyer (postage applied)'. Thanks!

Very groovy club night that we like a lot! Monday nights at the Notting Hill Arts Club ran for a few years circa 2000. A very mad but successful mix of latin and disco. My favourite memory is of one evening that started off with Yoruban-dressed people dancing to ritual Santeria music and ended the evening with formation line-dancing to Eddie Drennon's Latin Hustle! Best seguing of two tracks was always Ocho's 'What Are You Doing For The Rest of Your Life' into The Trammps 'Disco Inferno' - worked every time!

This two-sided flyer is long and thin so we suggest you order it with a vinyl purchase rather than a CD purchase (which means it would have to be folded)

This is a FREEPOST product when you ADD to any other purchase.

If you are ordering just the flyer on its own then order as 'Flyer (postage applied)'. Thanks!

Opening night! Latin, disco, soul and funk - a great combination! Our Nu Yorica night had been up and running for a couple of years in Notting Hill on Monday nights and we decided to move to Gossips in Soho, London to make it a weekend club. Gossips was a fantastic 70s throwback club - complete with mirror balls and walls and red velvet-esque furniture - very faded glamour which suited us just fine. It soon became apparent that there were a few idiosyncrasies to the space - depsite its long history the club always had problems with neighbours so the music could never be pumped up loud enough. This got really weird when the DJ booth had to be moved to a different room to the people dancing! (try it!). Lots of good nights despite this!

This is a FREEPOST product when you ADD to any other purchase.

If you are ordering just the flyer on its own then order as 'Flyer (postage applied)'. Thanks!

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Here's someone yibbedy-yabbadying about visiting the club on instagram - see what you missed!

"#london ... circa 2000 #gossipsnightclub #soho #soholondon #soholondon... I’m almost positive this is a small hotel now. #londontube from #kingscrossstation over to #coventgardenstation and a little May humidity walk to #nuyorica #souljazzrecords #souljazzsoundsystem champion selectors had that ish on lock and it was all new sound to me. I went because of the flyer. Either way I got drenched into the real world of #soul #funk #latin #jazz #brazilian vibes all meshed to one and the vibes were crisp and welcoming. @souljazzrecords shop, slick label .. releases (which I started getting an ear for years later and would buy on spot), and nights to educate your ear drums = a rounded out influence in all aspects"

Two-sided flyer - Andy Weatherall guested at our Fish Fry Night monthly all night funk and soul session held in a fetish club in South London. Andy Weatherall played a few times playing only funk 45s and rocked it every time!

This is a FREEPOST product when you ADD to any other purchase.

If you are ordering just the flyer on its own then order as 'Flyer (postage applied)'. Thanks!

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Here's someone talking about the night back in the day (somewhere around the end of the 1990s):

"Tiny little blink-and-you-miss-it venue currently home to the fab Saturday Night Fish Fry night, The Fringe is a sweaty, grubby place - just the way we like it. The main dancefloor is downstairs and always rammed. Upstairs there's a smokey chillout room which comes complete with a bizzare S&M cage and plenty more fetish accessories. Look but don't touch is our advice".

Seminal, uplifting, righteous, soulful roots anthem!

BACK IN STOCK!!

MONSTER STUDIO ONE TUNE FIRST TIME EVER ON A SINGLE !

Two highly sought after tracks from Jackie Mitoo's legendary 'Showcase' album, originally released on Studio One in 1980

Hypnotic, blissed out funky reggae from Jamaica's finest - Bagga Walker on bass, Leroy 'Horsemouth' Wallace on drums, Ernest Ranglin on guitar and, of course, the inimitable Jackie Mittoo on keyvoards

Cut super loud on a 12" single, its literally impossible to find a copy of this album, and if you did it would set you back hundreds of £'s

Housed in a heavyweight card Studio One sleeve these won't be around for long ! Very Limited edition 1000 copies worldwide 12” pressing

Soul Jazz Records are releasing Count Ossie and The Mystic Revelation’s seminal 1975 album Tales of Mozambique in an expanded double album/single CD/digital format, fully remastered and with the inclusion of two bonus rare single-only tracks, full sleevenotes, exclusive photographs and interview.

Count Ossie is the central character in the development of Rastafarian roots music, nowadays an almost mythical and iconic figure. His importance in bringing Rastafarian music to a populist audience is matched only by Bob Marley’s promotion of the faith internationally in the 1970s.

Count Ossie’s drummers performed on the first commercially released single to integrate Rastafarian traditional music with popular music: the vocal group The Folkes Brothers’ groundbreaking song ‘Oh Carolina’, recorded for producer Prince Buster in 1959. In 1966 his drummers greeted the momentous arrival of Haile Selassie at Kingston airport.

His legendary jam sessions up in his Rastafarian compound in the hills of Wareika, Kingston, are famous for the many Jamaican musicians who attended including The Skatalites players – Roland Alphonso, Don Drummond, Johnny Moore, Lloyd Knibbs – and many others.

The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari formed in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1970, a union of Count Ossie’s Rastafarian drummers – variously known as his African Drums, Wareikas or his Afro-Combo – and the saxophonist Cedric Im Brooks’ horns group, The Mystics.

The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari are the defining group in bringing authentic Rastafarian rhythms into the collective consciousness of popular music, their unique music is at once rooted in the deep traditions and rituals of traditional drumming and chanting alongside a forward-thinking, even avant-garde, artistry influenced by the likes of John Coltrane, Sun Ra, Pharoah Sanders and other pioneering African-American jazz artists radicalised and charged by the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

Tales of Mozambique is a truly unique and fascinating ground-breaking album.

Count Ossie and The Mystic Revelation of Rastafari are the central group featured on Soul Jazz Records recent "Rastafari - The Dreads Enter Babylon” a collection showing the influence of Rastafari in Reggae and Jamaican popular culture.

Soul Jazz Records will also be releasing Count Ossie and The Rasta Family 'Man From Higher Heights’ in the near future.

* Bonus tracks

REVIEWS

" All roads in Rastafarian roots music lead to Count Ossie.He’s the lead character in this compelling subplot, the musician who was one of the first to put Rasta tenets into the heart of popular music.

He did so from his camp in the hills above Kingston, Count Ossie and his drummers casting a spell on the musicians who gathered to check him out and then went on to spread the word about the powerful nyabinghi rhythms and mesmerising percussion.

This is a reissue of the 1975 album Count Ossie made with his Rastafarian drummers and saxaphonist Cedric ‘Im’ Brooks’s group The Mystics.

It’s a groundbreaking, majestic work, by turns righteous in tone and joyous in execution. It’s the sound of Ossie and his ensemble narrating a history lesson and you’d be daft not to want to find out more."  IRISH TIMES

Super-limited new 1000 copies special white vinyl edition!

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When the band Trees Speak, coming out of nowhere, released an exclusive one-off 100-pressing white label 45, described as CAN/NEU! meets LIQUID LIQUID, it sold out so quickly (in less than 30 mins - one for sale on Discogs now at £400!) that Soul Jazz Records decided to release their album almost immediately.

Here it is! And it's awesome!

Soul Jazz Records rarely release new music but found the music of TREES SPEAK’s album ‘OHMS’ so stunning and to have so many elements of music that they admired that they felt compelled to release it.

The group Trees Speak are from Tucson, Arizona and create new music that sounds like GERMAN KRAUTROCK meets NO WAVE/POST-PUNK and PSYCH ROCK – music for fans of CLUSTER, TANGERINE DREAM, CAN, NEU!, SILVER APPLES and early KRAFTWERK.

The album ‘OHMS’ sounds at times like a tripped out & moody JOHN CARPENTER/GOBLIN/MORRICONE soundtrack that seamlessly segues into propulsive, ‘motorik’ Krautrock instrumentals loaded with fuzzy, hypnotic mellotron, synths and analogue effects, as well as elements of ART ENSEMBLE free jazz, and all at times reaching a kind of post-rave psychedelia. More recent comparisons would include BEAK and GHOST BOX who draw upon similar themes and styles.

Trees Speak are Daniel Martin Diaz and Damian Diaz plus musicians from the Tucson, Arizona scene such as Giant Sand, XIXA and James Hunter. ‘Trees Speak’ relates to the idea of future technologies storing information and data in Trees and plants - using them as hard drives – and the idea that Trees communicate collectively.

Trees Speak - Ohms :

Album of the Month - Splintered Eye/50 Best albums 2020 - Pop Matters/Favourite albums 2020 -The Soap Company/Albums of the Year 2020 -Bear Tree Records/Independent Albums of the Year -Love Records/Albums of the Year -Concrete Islands

This is the first in Soul Jazz Records’ new series of one-off pressings of limited-edition 1000 copies vinyl-only releases of Afro-funk/Afro-beat exact-replica, super-rare albums that were previously only ever released in Nigeria.

The series starts with Kollington Ayinla’s celebrated 1978 album ‘Blessing,’ a rare lost classic of Nigerian Fuji music, featuring Ayinla’s sharp political lyrics together with his new band Fuji ’78. ‘Blessing’ blends the heavily percussive style of Fuji music with a stunning array of modern instruments, including synthesizers, Bata drums and guitars, to create one of the most forward-thinking and heavily danceable sounds ever to come out of Nigeria – a highly successful mixture of profound Fuji rhythms and Fela Kuti-style Afrobeat.

Kollington Ayinla ranks alongside his friend and competitor Ayinde Barrister as the two most important artists to dominate Fuji music from its inception in the 1970s through to the 1990s by which time it had grown to become one of the most popular dance genres in Nigeria.

At the start of the 1980s Ayinla started his own record company, Kollington Records, to release his music and remains to this day an extremely prolific artist, having recorded over 50 albums, most of which have never been released outside of Nigeria.

Soul Jazz Records new ‘Apala: Apala Groups in Nigeria 1967-70’ is the first ever collection of Apala music to be released outside of Nigeria.

The album focusses on a wide selection of recordings made in Nigeria in the 1960s, a time when Apala music was at the height of its popularity. Apala is a deeply rhythmical, hypnotic and powerful musical style that combines the striking nasal-style vocals and traditions of Islamic music, the Agidigbo (thumb piano), and the equally powerful drumming and percussion rhythms and techniques of the Yoruba of Nigeria.

The most significant figure in Apala music is undoubtedly Haruna Ishola who features throughout this album. Ishola holds an almost mythological status in his role as populariser of Apala music in Nigeria. Ishola’s singing was believed to be so powerful that, without proper restraint, it could kill the recipient of his music.

Apala is a popular music that also functioned as a form of cultural resistance – Apala music involved no western instrumentation and is sung in the Yoruba language, its aesthetic an implicit cultural rejection of the British Empire’s colonial rule over Nigeria which lasted from 1901 until independence in 1960.

Apala music was popular and widely accepted in Nigeria due to its philosophical and profound lyrical content alongside the complex rhythmic patterns of this heavily percussive style, which highlighted many of the percussion instruments of south-west Nigeria.

Apala is one of a number of popular urban styles of music that came out of Nigeria in the 20th century and sits alongside the more well-known (in the West) styles of Fuji, Highlife, Juju and Afrobeat. Of these modern forms Apala remains perhaps the most ‘roots’ style (sometimes described as ‘neo-traditional’) due to the authenticity of its sound. It has similar Islamic roots to other neo-traditional styles of Nigeria – including Waka and Sakara – examples of which are also included on this collection contextualising the music of Apala.

These recordings were originally made and released locally by Decca and EMI Records as well as a variety of independent labels in Nigeria and have never been released outside of the country before. Soul Jazz Records are releasing this album as a deluxe double gatefold vinyl (+ download code), CD, slipcase and booklet, both containing full text and photography.

It's the bomb! Two massive Studio One cuts back to back.

‘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!

Soul Jazz Records are issuing the awesome deep jazz album Rhythmatism (1976) from the legendary Steve Reid long out of print in a new edition very limited 1000-copies COLOURED vinyl (+download code) and CD.

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‘Steve Reid is one of the greatest drummers.

He is a musical genius’ KIERAN HEBDEN (Four Tet)

‘A truly phenomenal artist.’ GILLES PETERSON

‘Steve Reid reflects the spirit of a generation- Art Ensemble of Chicago, John Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders, the Black Artists Group.’ THE WIRE

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Drummer and composer extraordinaire Steve Reid’s Rhythmatism is one of his deepest and most radical of albums of all time and features some of the heaviest jazz players - Arthur Blythe ‘AKA Black Arthur’, Charles Tyler, David Wertman and others – joining Reid. The album was originally released on Reid’s own Mustevic Sound label in 1976

As a radical jazz artist, Steve Reid played with an extraordinary group of artists – including Miles Davis, Sun Ra, Fela Kuti, James Brown, Ornette Coleman, Lester Bowie, Freddie Hubbard, Jackie McLean, Dionne Warwick, Archie Shepp, Chief Bey, Olatunji, Arthur Blythe, , Dextor Gordon, Gary Bartz, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Sam Rivers, Leon Thomas, Lonnie Smith and Horace Silver!

Reid was born in the South Bronx, and grew up in Queens, New York. He played in the house band at Harlem's Apollo Theatre, accompanying James Brown, as well as playing in Sun Ra's Arkestra. He lived next to John Coltrane, worked in a department store with Ornette Coleman, had a son who played drums with NWA. He began his career as a teenager in the 1960s as a drummer at Motown when he played on Martha and The Vandellas "Heatwave" (aged 14).

At the end of the 1960s Reid was sentenced to four years in jail as a conscientious objector of the Vietnam war. On his release from prison in 1974, he formed the Legendary Master Brotherhood and started the independent record label, Mustevic Sound, to release his debut LP in 1976. Rhythmatism is released in its entirety and with full original cover art here and is one of a series of stunning independent records he released in the 1970s.

At the start of the 21st century, his career took a new twist when Steve Reid began a successful collaboration with Kieran Hebden (Four Tet). Hebden referred to Reid as his ‘musical soul mate’, resulting in a number of joint albums.

Steve Reid died in New York in 2010. Subsequently the Steve Reid Foundation was set up in his name, to help aspiring musicians and artists.

Seriously rare, killer and classic Nigerian 70s Afro-Funk, Afro-Disco & Afro-Rock tunes bought together.

Originally released as a now-long-out-of-print collectors’ 7” RSD box, this fully expanded album release now also includes extra tracks from Sonny Okosuns, Wings, Chief Kollington Ayinla and more.

Soul Jazz Records’ Nigeria Soul Power 70 album showcases the influence of funk, rock and disco on Nigerian music during the 1970s

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While for many people the fusion of funk and jazz music with Nigerian rhythms and aesthetics began with Fela Kuti and his afro-beat sound, in fact this can be traced further back to the phenomena of the 1960s Nigerian artists and house bands in nightclubs and hotels who interpreted US soul and pop music with a local flavour and none more so than Geraldo Pino, the ‘African James Brown’ who features heavily in this collection. Other similarly inspired Nigerian funk and soul artists featured here included Tony Grey and his Ozimba Messengers and Don Bruce and The Angels.

Nigeria Soul Power 70 includes a number of tracks from the group Wings originally known as BAF (Biafran Air Force) Wings, an army band formed during the Biafran civil war in Nigeria. The groups’ heavy mixture of funk, rock and African styles was popular among many Nigerian groups at the time.

Beneath the shadow of the few Nigerian artists who signed international recording deals in the 1970s – Fela Kuti, King Sunny Ade, Chief Ebenezer Obey – lies a vast wealth of largely undiscovered musical transmutation and cultural cross-pollination, and included here are heavy afro-funk/rock and disco tracks from artists such as the legendary Sonny Okosuns as well as rare cuts from little-known outside of Nigeria - groups such as Colomach and MFB. Most of these obscure artists signed to major labels in Nigeria in the commercial slipstream that opened up as Philips, Decca and EMI tried to emulate the international success of the big three international Nigerian artists.

Finally featured here is Kollington Ayinla, one of the co-founders of Nigerian Fuji music, who gives us perhaps the heaviest of all tracks on this album. Ayinla is the great moderniser of the Fuji sound and in the late 1970s began adding Bata drums and synthesizers to his authentic music to create a powerful and heavy new fusion of traditional and modernist aesthetics, embracing both new technology and experimentation while rooted firmly in Nigerian historical lineage.

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Nigeria Soul Power 70 is released as a heavyweight gatefold double vinyl LP (+ free download code), deluxe slipcase CD and digital album.

This stunning new release looks at the explosion of music that came out of the Congo in the years leading up to independence in 1960. Congolese rumba, a wild combination of African, Jazz and Latin influences, created future stars of its now legendary creators – Franco, Grand Kalle, Tabu Ley, Dr. Nico, Papa Wemba - and all feature here in their ground-breaking early groups such as O.K.Jazz, Brazzos, Rock-A-Mambo, African Jazz and The Beguen Band.

The Congo is in fact two countries – The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, formerly Zaire) and the Republic of the Congo. Congo Revolution was first released as a sampler 7” box set for RSD, and this expanded release includes a 50-page booklet/double gatefold and inner sleeves containing extensive text explaining the evolution of the music and history of the two Congos, and how music, politics and popular culture intersected at the point of independence from the two Congos’ European colonisers – Belgium and France – through songs such as ‘Vive Patrice Lumumba,’ and ‘MNC Uhuru,’ which celebrated the Congolese independence leader prior to his political assassination.

Also included is the stunning images of the Congolese photographer Jean Depara who documented the Congo’s vibrant nightlife in the period 1955-65 as well as being the official photographer for the superstar Congolese artist Franco up until his death in 1989. Depara also documents the rise of the Bills (Congolese teenagers who dressed as cowboys) and sharp-suited évolués (which later gave rise to the fashion-conscious phenomenon of the Congolese ‘Sapeurs’). These superb images are reproduced in collaboration with Revue Noire in France.

This album comes as a deluxe heavyweight double vinyl with gatefold sleeve and individual inner sleeves, CD with slipcase and 50-page outsize booklet and as digital release.

Super rare deep spiritual jazz album with a heavy Brazilian influence featuring Nana Vasconceles, Dom Salvador, Portinho, Cecil McBee and more. Originally released privately by the artist and flautist Lloyd McNeill in 1980 and out of print for nearly 40 years.

Soul Jazz Records' newly remastered edition of ‘Elegia’ is released as a limited-edition 1000-copies worldwide on Vinyl (+ download) and 1000-copies worldwide CD edition.
Lloyd McNeill is a cultural polymath – a multi- disciplinarian flautist, painter, academic, poet, and photographer – who has worked with everyone from Mulatu Astatke to Nina Simone, Eric Dolphy and Nana Vasconcelos (and as a painter was befriended by Picasso!). McNeill grew up during the era of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and his life and work is a reflection of those ideals. All of his music was only ever released on his own private-press record label, echoing the Civil Rights and African-American themes of the era - black economic empowerment and self- sufficiency – and there is a beautiful spirituality in all his music.

This is the fifth Lloyd McNeill album that Soul Jazz Records have made newly available and follows on from the earlier McNeill albums ‘Asha’ (1969), ‘Tanner Suite’ (1969), ‘Washington Suite’ (1970) and 'Treasures’ (1976) all now reissued by Soul Jazz Records.

Soul Jazz Records’ new Studio One DJ Party is the latest instalment from the mighty Studio One Records catalogue, a wicked new collection of the finest DJs and toasters ever to inhabit the world of reggae – seminal Jamaican artists including Prince Jazzbo, Dillinger, Dennis Alcapone, Michigan & Smiley, Lone Ranger as well as a host of lesser known artists and rare cuts from Studio One.

From the earliest days when Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd ran his Downbeat soundsystem up and down the length of Jamaica, DJs and toasters such as King Stitt and Count Machukie were always a part of the sound of Studio One, introducing new records and exciting audiences with catchphrase lines such as:

“No matter what the people say these sounds lead the way

It's the order of the day from your boss deejay” King Stitt

So when DJ emerged as a distinct reggae style at the start of the 1970s, Studio One was, as always, way ahead of their competitors. Legendary artists of the calibre of Dillinger, Dennis Alcapone and Prince Jazzbo all queued up to record for the equally legendary label.

At the end of the 1970s, as dancehall exploded onto the island, Clement Dodd was once again able to maintain Studio One’s position on the throne as the number one sound in the Jamaica, fighting off upstart competitors such as Channel One and Joe Gibbs who tried to replicate Studio One’s unique sound. During this period Clement Dodd released a series of stunning dancehall releases from young DJ/dancehall artists at the label including Lone Ranger and Michigan & Smiley.

This selection spans the early 70s up until the mid-1980s, from the earliest days of deejay toasting right up until digital dancehall, ground-breaking tracks over the finest selection of the ultimate Studio One rhythms and tracks. Who could ask for more?

Studio One DJ Party includes specially commissioned sleevenotes by Chris Lane, founder of the legendary British reggae label Fashion Records, as well as fantastic original artwork commissioned by the illustrator Ski Williams. The album is released as double heavyweight vinyl (+download code), and distinctive Soul Jazz Records CD with slipcase.

Soul Jazz Records are re-releasing Airto Moreira’s classic album ‘Samba de Flora’, out of print for 30 years ever since its original release in 1988. The album is very limited to just 1000 copies only, pressed on both vinyl and CD.

The impact of Airto Moreira in both the world of American jazz and in Brazilian music is unparalleled. At the start of the 1970s Airto was invited to join Miles Davis’ groundbreaking ‘electric’ group, which with albums such as the seminal ‘Bitches Brew’ helping Davis regain his title from John Coltrane as the most important jazz artist of all time.

Two years later Airto helped establish two of the most important jazz fusion groups of all time: Weather Report, with Wayne Shorter, Joe Zawinul and Miroslav Vituous; and Return to Forever, with Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke and Flora Purim.

Airto Moreira also began his solo career in the USA in 1970, and alongside his wife, the singer Flora Purim, and Brazilian artists such as Hermeto Pascoal, Sivuca, Deodato, Raul de Souza, Azymuth, all played a major part in the Latinised sound of American jazz fusion throughout the 1970s.

By this time Airto established himself in the USA in the 1970s, he had already had a formidable career back in Brazil in the 1960s as an important figure in the Bossa Nova movement, which soon after spread throughout the world. Airto played in a number of important groups during this time – Quarteto Novo Sambalanco Trio and Sambrassa Trio (all of with Hermeto Pascoal) – which proved to be three of the most ground-breaking groups of this era.

The album ‘Samba de Flora’, including the seminal jazz dance title track, is a masterpiece of jazz and Brazilian fusion and features Airto Moreira alongside Flora Purim, fellow Brazilian artist Raul de Souza and heavyweight USA jazz musicians Alphonso Johnson, percussionist Don Alias (from Stone Alliance), Cuban conga player Cachete and Argentinian pianist Jorge Dalto.

The album was originally released on the small independent Montuno Record label (which was run out of the unassuming Record Mart record store situated in the Times Square underground subway station!) and has been unavailable for many, many years.

This album is fully re-mastered and re-released by Soul Jazz Records for the first time ever, packaged in full original artwork on both vinyl (+ download code) and CD.

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 releasing flautist Lloyd McNeill’s album ‘Treasures’ (1980). Originally released on the artists’ own private press Baobab label in New York, the album is a serious collectors’ piece, a heavyweight and fascinating fusion of deep spiritual jazz with Brazilian and rhythms and melodies. The album has been out of print for nearly 40 years. This is a very limited edition pressing of 1000 vinyl + 1000 CDs only.

This groundbreaking album is the culmination of Lloyd McNeill’s many years involved with Brazilian musicians and features the great percussionist Nana Vasconcelos alongside fellow Brazilian’s Portinho and Dom Salvador alongside US jazz musicians including bassist Cecil McBee.

In a 50-year musical career, McNeill has worked with many artists including Nina Simone, Eric Dolphy, Mulatu Asatke and Sabu Martinez.

McNeill grew up during the era of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and his life and work is a reflection of those ideals. All of his music was only ever released on his own private-press record label, echoing the Civil Rights and African-American themes of the era - black economic empowerment and self-sufficiency – and there is a beautiful spirituality in all his music.

In the late 1960s McNeill became teacher of both jazz and painting at the New Thing Art and Architecture Center in Washington and in 1969 was the first African-American professor hired to teach African-American Music History, at Rutgers University.

This is the fourth Lloyd McNeill album that Soul Jazz Records have released and follows on from the recent release of ‘Treasures’ (1976) and the earlier albums ‘Asha’ (1969), ‘Tanner Suite’ (1969) and ‘Washington Suite’ (1970) all of which are being re-pressed to coincide with this new release.

This album is fully re-mastered from original source and is re-released for the first time ever on Soul Jazz Records in a very limited edition of 1000 vinyl (+ download code), 1000 limited edition CD pressing and digital.