Parliament ‎– Chocolate City (1975)

Style: P-Funk
Format: CD, Vinyl, Cass.
Label: Casablanca

Tracklist:
A1.   Chocolate City
A2.  Ride On
A3.  Together
A4.  Side Effects
A5.  What Comes Funky
B1.  Let Me Be
B2.  If It Don't Fit (Don't Force It)
B3.  I Misjudged You
B4.  Big Footin'

Credits:
Bass – William (Bootsie) Collins, Cordell Mosson, Perkash John
Drums – Tiki Fulwood, Tyrone Lampkin
Guitar – William (Bootsie) Collins, Cordell Mosson, Gary Shider
Keyboards – Bernie Worrell
Synthesizer – Bernie Worrell
Vocals – Calvin Simon, Eddie Hazel, Fuzzy Haskins, Gary Shider, George Clinton, Grady Thomas, Raymond Davis
Arranged By [Horn, Strings] – Bernie Worrell
Arranged By [Rhythm] – Bootsy Collins, George Clinton
Mastered By – Allen Zentz
Producer – George Clinton
Engineer – Jim Callon, Jim Vitti

Parliament, along with its alter ego Funkadelic, defined funk in the '70s. The group delivered a series of classic albums, among them Mothership Connection and Up for the Down Stroke. Its work has also been anthologized on excellent single-disc and double-disc compilations: Funked Up: The Very Best of Parliament and Tear the Roof Off: 1974-1980. So why, you may ask, would you want to buy this new reissue of Chocolate City? 

For one, this CD contains many worthwhile songs not on Parliament compilations. Plus, the album hangs together as a coherent, cohesive statement. Like many R&B; albums of the '70s (but not the '60s or '50s), it is more than just a collection of singles. In fact, the album charted higher than either of the singles it contains. This record, like many Parliament albums after it, has a guiding concept, an overarching theme: the life and times of African-American Washington, D.C. in the '70s. 

Another selling point for this package is surely Tom Terrell's fantastic liner notes, which explain what D.C. meant to Parliament. According to Terrell, "D.C. was the first major city to give George Clinton's Parliafunkadelicment Thang mad love." Terrell points out that many of the songs on Chocolate City echo D.C. sounds –- such as "Let Me Be," which draws on '70s D.C. Gospel, and "I Misjudged You," a homage to smooth D.C. R&B; balladeers The Unifics. 

The two singles released from this album, though neither broke the R&B; Top 20, are both memorable. The title track stands as a moving, honest political statement, something that became increasingly rare in R&B; as the '70s progressed. With "Chocolate City", Clinton turns the tables on white society, which had begun to see inner cities as God-forsaken ghettos and the suburbs as the Promised Land. Though African-Americans didn't get their "40 acres and a mule", they did get the "chocolate city", which Clinton calls his "piece of the rock". Expressing love for "chocolate city", he posits it as central, dismissing the whiter areas surrounding it as mere "vanilla suburbs". With a wink and a nod, Clinton even predicts that African-American artists like Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin will one day fill the top positions in the Federal government. Musically, the spoken-word vocals of "Chocolate City" predict hip-hop, and the song's amalgam of funk and jazz stretches musical boundaries. The second single from the album, "Ride On" is a monster funk dance jam powered by a savage, distorted bass line -– courtesy of the legendary William "Bootsy" Collins -- tied to some heavy cymbal work on the one. 

The remaining songs on Chocolate City also offer much to enjoy. All of them feature the ace team of musicians and vocalists that composed Parliament, including, among others, "Bootsy" on bass, Bernie Worrell on keys, Tiki Fulwood on drums, and Gary Shider on guitar, with Calvin Simon, Fuzzy Haskins, and Grady Thomas joining George Clinton on vocals. "Big Footin'" comes down on the one like "Ride On" and features the catchy refrain, "I know what you can do, let us lay some funk on you." "Together" shares the heavy Funk sound of "Big Footin'" and "Ride On", but its choruses feature smooth soul vocals and beautiful harmonies. Like the title track, "Let Me Be" draws on jazz, but it also calls on gospel vocals and baroque classical piano as well, creating, in the process, a distinctive mix. 

How is this reissue of Chocolate City different than the original album? The remastered sound here, the work of Ellen Fitton, is excellent, and the package contains three bonus tracks. Though alternate versions of "If It Don't Fit (Don't Force It)" and "I Misjudged You" don't really add much to the originals, the third bonus track -- a previously-unreleased recording of "Common Law Wife" -- is a barnburner. It features nasty, syncopated horn lines, a gorgeous falsetto vocal, and topical lyrics. Like "Chocolate City", "Common Law Wife" seems to express pride for where African Americans were in the '70s, though that place may not have been where they wanted or expected to be. 

If you already have a copy of Chocolate City, it may make sense to forego this reissue, despite its superior sound, its great liner notes, and its inclusion of one great bonus track. If you have no Parliament at all in your collection, I suggest starting with a compilation such as the aforementioned Funked Up: The Very Best of Parliament. But if you have some Parliament at home and do not own Chocolate City, I recommend picking up this new reissue. If you do buy it, put it in your CD player, go to the second track, and follow Clinton's call to the dance floor: "Put a hump in your back, shake your sacroiliac, and ride on!"

Jordan Kessler / popMATTERS

The Group ‎– The Feed-back (1970)

Style: Abstract, Avantgarde, Prog Rock
Format: CD, Vinyl
Label: Schema Easy Series

Tracklist:
1.   The Feed-back
2.   Quasars
3.   Kumâlo

Credits:
Composed By – The Group
Contrabass [Uncredited] – Walter Branchi
Drums [Uncredited] – Renzo Restuccia
Guitar [Uncredited] – Bruno Battisti D'Amario
Liner Notes – Franco Evangelisti
Percussion [Uncredited] – Egisto Macchi
Percussion, Piano, Timpani, Vocals [Uncredited] – Mario Bertoncini
Piano, Trombone, Violone [Uncredited] – John Heineman
Trumpet [Uncredited] – Ennio Morricone

The Feed-Back, by Italy's Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza (aka the Group), is a wild ride along the seams of free jazz, 20th century avant-garde classical music, psychedelic rock, and emerging funk. While no members of the unit are credited we know that on this recording, the revolving ensemble of composers/studio musicians include Ennio Morricone (trumpet), bassist Walter Branchi, drummer Enzo Restuccia, guitarist Bruno Battisti D'Amario, percussionist Egisto Macchi, percussionist/pianist Mario Bertoncini, and trombonist and violinist John Heineman. (On different recordings, Franco Evangelisti -- who penned the liner notes here -- and Frederic Rzewski were also in the band). These three extended pieces get pretty outside, but are always circular due to grooving drums and basslines. On the opening title cut, dissonant harmonies on trumpet, violin, reverbed electric guitar, and trombone are brought together by breaking snares and a funky bassline, even as other instruments, such as an angular piano played in the middle-lower register, channel-to-channel psych guitar, and near droning horns dialogue together. This is where Stockhausen and Don Cherry meet Idris Muhammad and Melvin Sparks. "Quasars" is more on the psych rock tip. A tribal, chant-like pulse swirls in the foreground as the violin takes the front line. But the near-Motorik drums and one-note bassline hold the individual elements in tension -- think the Velvets in their freer moments. The set's longest cut, the side-long "Kumâlo," is the spaciest thing here, developing with incremental piano played on the keys and its strings, and disjointed sounds from myriad instruments and sound effects are layered in, appearing and disappearing. They are moved forward initially by a hypnotic breakbeat. Morricone's trumpet is played in the high register with a mute before unwinding itself in full tone atop restrained feedback, taut violin, dissonant guitar, and rumbling piano. The drums pick up the tempo in dialogue with the guitar -- using a sitar-like effect -- and the interplay of the other instruments becomes more frequent and dizzying, all before it turns around on itself and Eastern modalism and Krautrock psych take the center. The disaster quotient for this date was high; there are times when it feels as if the entire proceeding will just collapse in on itself. Instead it spirals out, rippling across genre lines, textures, and dynamics like water. The Feed-Back is a timeless classic, as relevant in the 21st century -- it shows younger players how improvisation is done -- as it was in 1970 when, if anything, it was ahead of its time.

 Thom Jurek / AllMusic

Lambarena ‎– Bach To Africa (1994)

Style: Classical, Folk, World, & Country
Format: CD, Cass.
Label: Sony Classical

Tracklist:
01.   Cantate 147
02.   Sankanda. Lasset Uns Den Nicht Zerteilen
03.   Mayingo. Fugue Sur Mayingo
04.   Herr, Unser Herrscher
05.   Mabo Maboe. Gigue De La Quatrième Suite En Mi-bémol Majeur Pour Violoncelle
06.   Bombé. Ruht Wohl, Ihr Heiligen Gebeine
07.   Pepa Nzac Gnon Ma. Prelude De La Partita Pour Violon N°3
08.   Mamoudo Na Sakka Baya Boudouma Ngombi
09.   Agnus Dei
10.   Ikokou
11.   Inongo. Invention À 3 En Ré Majeur
12.   Okoukoué. Cantate 147
13.   Was Mir Behagt, Ist Nur Die Muntre Jagd
14.   Cantate 147 Jésus Que Ma Joie Demeure

Lambarena is a tribute to Dr. Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) in which Gabon - where he built and directed the hospital at Lambarene - and the gospel according to his beloved Johann Sebastian Bach are aligned into manifold encounters with ecstasy, mystery and passion. The collaborators behind the massive project were the French producer Hughes de Courson (Malicorne, Kolinda) and Gabon's master composer, poet laureate and cultural figurehead Pierre Akendengue, both men of profound musical intuition and creative audacity. 

The classical choristers and players were brought together with ten Gabonese ensembles of mixed voices plus soloists and virtuoso instrumentalists in Paris under conditions of absolute parity. During a recording session that lasted nearly one hundred days, de Courson and Akendengue explored the common ground and telling contrasts between the Gabonese and classical material. Brazil's Nana Vasconcelos, a percussionist of international renown, contributed an introspective and sinister language, hissing and rattling among and between the voices and instruments. 

Highlights are incessant, but the juxtaposition of a traditional chorus led by a female soloist of nearly frightening power with "Lasset Uns Den Nicht Zerteilen" from Bach's "St. John's Passion" exerts an inexorable fascination as it rushes by. Later, a muted moan from one of the African choirs, exhaled over what sounds like a Zen temple bell, foreshadows the tragic opening of the "St. John," "Herr Unser Herrscherr," which is itself orbited by tamtams and forest sounds. While a child wanders alone, piping fractured quotes from "Jesus Bliebet Meine Freude," a countertenor sings the pleading "Agnus Dei" and is met by women's voices chanting a pygmy rhythm. 

Bach addresses his God by erecting measured Baroque exaltations to His glory while the Gabonese agitate the divine by performing rituals that celebrate passages on the human timeline. Lambarena is an appropriate memorial to a man whose desire for the sacred caused him to love and heal suffering flesh. 

Christina Roden / RoostWorld

Zap Mama ‎– Sabsylma (1994)

Style: Folk, World, & Country
Format: CD, Cass.‎
Label: Remark Records

Tracklist:
01.   Furahi
02.   Sabsylma (What's Your Name?)
03.   Mais Qu'est-ce? (But What Shall We?)
04.   India
05.   De La Vie A La Mort (From Life To Death)
06.   Citoyen 120 (Citizen 120)
07.   Loclat Africa
08.   Mr. Brown
09.   Awakening In Australia (Reveil En Australie)
10.   Fi Dunia
11.   Mamadit
12.   For No One
13.   The Mamas Of The Mamas (Les Mamas Des Mamas)
14.   Adiosio Omonie

Credits:
Engineer, Mixed By – Jean-Marc Geuens
Mixed By – Vincent Kenis
Producer, Mixed By – Marie Daulne

Notes:
Recorded in New York at Space Shuffle Studio and in Brussels at Jet and Madeleine Studios. Mixed in Brusseles at Jet, Caraibes, Impuls ans Synsound Studios.

Zap Mama's second album added a more polished, sophisticated and urban spin to the group's audacious musical mix, while retaining definite roots in traditional music from all around the world (India, Morocco and Australia also got (re)visited this time).

Teo Macero & Wally Cirillo ‎– Explorations (2010)

Style: Jazz
Format: CD, Vinyl
Label: Fresh Sound Records

Tracklist:
01.  Teo
02.   I'll Remember April
03.   How Low The Earth
04.   Mitzi
05.   Yesterdays
06.   Explorations
07.   Smog L.A.
08.   Level Seven
09.   Transeason
10.   Rose Geranium
11.   Heart on my sleeve
12.   24+ 18+
13.   Sounds of may
14.   Thou swell
15.   Neally
16.   Adventures
17.   TC's groove

A studio Svengali to some and a certified genius to others, Julliard-trained Teo Macero is still perhaps best known for his high profile post as Miles Davis’ longstanding producer and collaborator. Macero’s earlier careers as a saxophonist and modernist jazz-meets-classical composer earn much less ink. This invaluable Fresh Sound compilation gathers some of the best of his output from those largely forgotten years. Seventeen tracks represent four separate Fifities sessions and the notes go into decent detail about the methods and intents behind the compositions. Some of the theory-related specifics are Greek to me, but Macero’s ambitious composerly goals are audibly evident even to the layman. On “Neally”, for example, from a September 1955 nonet session comprised of all-stars like Art Farmer, Eddie Bert and John LaPorta the band negotiates forward-thinking elements of counterpoint, polyphony, polyrhythm, atonality, and free improvisation all within the brisk span of just under five minutes. Several pieces also find Macero investigating the possibilities of overdubbing horn parts, like the Blindfold Test-perfect title composition where five separate Macero sax lines (3 tenor, 2 alto) improvise freely within the loose framework of a chromatic tone series. In addition to all the compositional heavy-lifting, Macero’s tenor beguiles with an aerated cool a/tonality that sounds like a possible progenitor of modern players like Stephen Riley and Mark Turner. The other MVP on three of the four dates is obscure accordionist Orlando DiGirolamo who takes to the musical experiments in textural dissonance like a duck to water, particularly on the first session in a quintet with Macero, bassists Charles Mingus and Lou Labella and drummer Ed Shaughnessy circa 1953(!). As far as protean Fifties free jazz/third stream goes it doesn’t get much better. 

Derek / masterofasmallhouse

Drum Island ‎– Drum Island (1997)

Style: Leftfield, Abstract, Downtempo
Format: CD, Vinyl
Label: Apollo

Tracklist:
01.   Bucci People
02.   Riversprite
03.   Lift
04.   La Danse Electrique
05.   Phizzz
06.   Tomcat City
07.   Glacier
08.   Earbubbles
09.   Å Dæven
10.   Untitled

Credits: Producer, Written-By – Ole J. Mjøs, Rune Lindbæk, Torbjørn Brundtland

The group Drum Island seems to be misnamed. Sure, there are plenty of drums on this album, but instead of an island, “ice floe” would be more appropriate. The tracks here are icy and have the beautiful logic of ice, the cracks and coolness and all. The album uses ambient sounds and silences to great effect; for example, “Watersprite” begins with the sound of someone swimming, then shifts into… lounge music. It’s great contrast and is a terrific effect. “La Danse Electrique” is a sweeping track, orchestral and epic in the best sense of the words; the wobbly melody of “Tomcat” filters in and out until it’s grounded by cymbals. On “Glacier” the aching guitar line is buoyed by some light breaks. And the final, untitled track, wavers in its ambience, adding layers of reverb and sound. The Scandinavians sure know how to craft their music. So come back to the island, won't you?

scoundrel  / discogs

Gang Gang Dance ‎– Saint Dymphna (2008)

Style: Abstract, Psychedelic Rock, Tribal, Experimental
Format: CD, Vinyl
Label: Warp Records

Tracklist:
01.   Bebey
02.   First Communion
03.   Blue Nile
04.   Vacuum
05.   Princes
06.   Inners Pace
07.   Afoot
08.   House Jam
09.   Interlude (No Known Home)
10.   Desert Storm
11.   Dust

Credits:
Drums, Sampler, Vocals – Tim Dewit
Guitar, Guitar Synthesizer, Sampler – Josh Diamond
Keyboards, Synth, Drum [Drum Pad], Sampler, Effects – BDG
Vocals, Rototoms, Horn [Carnival Horn], Recorder, Steel Drums – LZA
Music By – Gang Gang Dance
Lyrics By – LZA
Mastered By – Joe Lambert
Mixed By – Matt Boynton (tracks: 10), Sean Maffuci (tracks: 1 to 9, 11)
Recorded By – Chris Coady (tracks: 10), Matt Boynton (tracks: 1 to 8, 11), Sean Maffuci (tracks: 9)
Recorded By [Additional Recording] – Sean Maffuci
Photography By – Katie L. Thompson
Art Direction – We Bored Ragz

Gang Gang Dance's third album, God's Money, remains a revelation three years after its release. Pouring the muffled art-beats of 2004's Revival of the Shittest and the extended space-jams of 2004's Gang Gang Dance into structured songs, the record was starry and dreamy, yet also taut and focused. It made evident what was implicit from the start-- that these four hyperactive talents with underground pedigrees (see the Cranium, SSAB Songs, Angelblood, et. al.) could funnel their ideas into melodic pop without diluting them. 

It also suggested that Gang Gang Dance might become an all-out pop band. But three EPs since God's Money have defied such expectations. Though gems like "Nicoman" did surface, Hillulah, Retina Riddim, and RAWWAR were mostly mysterious experiments akin to the band's earlier releases. Not that any of them were anything less than good-- but none were the pop epiphany the band on God's Money seemed poised for. 

It turns out they had been working on that all along, and with Saint Dymphna their patience pays off. So clear and shiny it makes God's Money seem murky by comparison, this is predominantly a relative dance-pop album. But it still sounds completely like Gang Gang Dance, preserving their core of new-wave synths, tribal beats, otherworldly singing, and Residents-style loops. The biggest difference this time around is a lack of cavernous atmospheres. Here every sound and beat is laid bare, with no heavy reverb blanketing the songs like fog. The newfound clarity produces neither thinness nor tedium, but simply a direct, unadulterated power.
That power is clear immediately, when opening instr 

umental "Bebey" melts into the rhapsodic "First Communion". Here Lizzi Bougatsos' dreamy poetry ("Prisms have kissed my lids/ Sea salt has rubbed on my hips") and the band's coiled rhythms (particularly the beat-and-synth workouts of band MVP Brian DeGraw) hit on a momentum that could easily be the album's climax. But so many peaks pop up along Saint Dymphna's continuous stream that it's tough to catalogue them all. 

Two moments in particular show that the more Gang Gang Dance change, the more they stay the same. After a lengthy synth opening, "Princes" becomes an actual hip-hop song featuring a rap from Tinchy Stryder. Sure, it's slightly jarring to hear his pulsing cadence paired with Bougatsos' ethereal howls, but the band's familiar elements-- especially Josh Diamond's wiry guitar line-- fit snugly around him. Even more surprising is "House Jam", a gleeful rip-off of Madonna circa "Holiday". But put the track on repeat and you might be more surprised that you never realized how well Gang Gang Dance's sound could work as 80s disco-pop. 

Saint Dymphna ends with "Dust", a beatific instrumental that carries the band away like a magic carpet. Often when a group with avant-garde leanings flies close to the pop sun, the results can sound forced or off-key. But since accessible melodies have always bubbled beneath their music's surface, Gang Gang Dance's evolution sounds supremely logical. And anyone who thought that the cloudy sound of previous albums was a smokescreen should think again-- it turns out the band behind that curtain really is made up of wizards. 

Marc Masters / Pitchfork

Motohiko Hamase ‎– Reminiscence (1986)

Style: Ambient
Format: CD, Vinyl
Label: Shi Zen

Tracklist:
1.   Childhood = チャイルドフッド
2.   Plateau = プラトウ
3.   Doll = ドール
4.  Tree = トゥリー
5.   Intermezzo = インターメッツォ
6.   Duplicated Scene = デュプリケイトッド・シーン
7.   Alphaville = アルファヴィル
8.   Reminiscence = レミニッセンス

Credits:
Engineer [Assistant] – Shigetoshi Sugiyama, Takeshi Tanaka
Engineer [Recording] – Tatsuo Nagami
Producer – Taka Nanri
Producer [Associate] – Mako Nanri
Production Manager – Nozomi Tsutsui
Technician [Piano Tuned By] – Koki Nakamura
Written-By – Motohiko Hamase
Photography By [Front Cover] – Takeshi Mizukoshi
Art Direction – Kiyohiko Ito

Kamasi Washington ‎– Heaven And Earth (3xCD) (2018)

Genre: Jazz
Format: 2CD, 3CD, Vinyl
Label: Young Turks Recordings

Tracklist:
Earth
1-1.   Fists Of Fury
1-2.   Can You Hear Him
1-3.   Hub-Tones
1-4.   Connections
1-5.   Tiffakonkae
1-6.   The Invincible Youth
1-7.   Testify
1-8.   One Of One
Heaven
2-1.   The Space Travelers Lullaby
2-2.   Vi Lua Vi Sol
2-3.   Street Fighter Mas
2-4.   Song For The Fallen
2-5.   Journey
2-6.   The Psalmnist
2-7.   Show Us The Eay
2-8.   Will You Sing

The Choice

3-1.   The Secret Of Jinsinson

3-2.   Will You Love Me Tomorrow

3-3.   My Family

3-4.   Agents Of Multiverse

3-5.   Ooh Child

Ten years ago, British saxophone legend Courtney Pine painted a sobering picture of life as a modern British jazz musician in an . For all the study involved in becoming one, most jazz musicians had no hope of making a living, unless they were one of the clean-cut vocalists content to ring-a-ding-ding their way through the great American songbook to the delight of Michael Parkinson: you could fully expect your weekends to be spent not exploring the outer limits of improvisation, but playing in a wedding band to make ends meet. “An incredible sale in this day and age is 3,000 copies,” he lamented. 

Here was evidence of how modern jazz lurks on the very fringes of mainstream public consciousness. You could fill a book with ways jazz has influenced rock and pop – from post-punk’s skronk to the samples of hip-hop and trip-hop – but apart from the aforementioned ring-a-ding-dingers, no serious jazz musician has really crossed over to huge mainstream success since the 1970s, the era of ’s Bitches Brew and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, of the super-smooth George Benson and Grover Washington Jr, and of ’s  wafting around in the background of dinner parties. 

All of which makes Kamasi Washington faintly extraordinary. His last London gig was not at the intimate Servant Jazz Quarters, but the Roundhouse, a venue at which the audience was clearly not comprised of longstanding jazz buffs. He records for Young Turks – home of the xx, FKA twigs and Sampha – and is reviewed in the kind of places jazz artists seldom get a mention. It all seems to have been achieved without pragmatic compromise. The record that catapulted him from self-releasing CDs in amateurish home-made sleeves, 2015’s The Epic, was a three-hour-long concept album. 

Various theories exist as to how Washington has pulled this off, all of which are supported by The Epic’s full-length follow-up, Heaven and Earth (by Washington’s standards, this is a work of economy, clocking in at a mere two-and-a-half hours). One is that the time is simply right: his guest appearances on Kendrick Lamar’s epochal To Pimp a Butterfly didn’t merely elevate his profile, they established him as “the jazz voice of Black Lives Matter”, in a grand tradition of jazz as black protest. 

Heaven and Earth frequently appears to be a furious state-of-America address. You can hear portentous anger in everything from its track titles – Street Fighter Mas, Song for the Fallen – to its astonishing opening cover of the theme from 1972 kung fu movie Fists of Fury, which arrives not merely extended to 10 minutes, but with additional lyrics: “Our time as victims is over / We will no longer ask for justice.” Washington’s sound tends to the maximalist – he is not a man afraid of breaking out the orchestra and choir – but on the album’s closing tracks Show Us the Way and Will You Sing it doesn’t feel dense so much as tumultuous, the former heaving and yawing behind a high-drama choral arrangement, the latter calmer, but with its ostensibly positive message of empowerment and change underscored by noticeable darkness. It sounds more like storm clouds gathering than sunlight breaking through. 

Another theory is that his sound is audibly rooted in the kind of old jazz texts that non-jazz buffs tend to recognise, the kind of thing that gets collected on hipster-friendly compilations released by Soul Jazz and Strut: the spiritual jazz of John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, Sun Ra’s big band Afrofuturism, the political funk of Archie Shepp’s Attica Blues, the synth experiments of Herbie Hancock and Joe Zawinul. They’re all present here, further smoothed with ample references to early 70s soul and funk, not least the ambitious, orchestrated psychedelia of Rotary Connection. But what’s striking about Heaven and Earth is how expansive and ever-changing it is, its musical focus shifting constantly from lavish grandiosity to perspiration-soaked Latin rhythms to concentrated improvisation, from the edge of chaos to the lushly melodic – sometimes within the same track, as on The Invincible Youth. It never lingers in one place long enough for its running time to seem gruelling. Instead, Heaven and Earth feels writhingly alive and passionate, angrily of the moment but inclusive. 

If describing Heaven and Earth as “jazz for people who don’t like jazz” sounds pejorative, it isn’t meant to be. Rather, it’s simply to indicate that on Heaven and Earth, Washington continues to explore a sweet spot between artistry and approachability. Whether his success will lead audiences to further explore music that usually exists on the fringes is an interesting question. What is more certain is the quality and accessibility of his own music.

Alexis Petridis / The Guardian 

Hideo Yamaki, Bill Laswell With Dave Douglas ‎– The Drawing Center (2017)

Style: Jazz, Free Improvisation
Format: CD, Vinyl
Label: Shiosai ZiZO

Tracklist:
1.   The Science Of Imaginary Solutions

Credits:
Bass, Effects – Bill Laswell
Trumpet – Dave Douglas
Drums – Hideo Yamaki
Music By – Bill Laswell, Dave Douglas, Hideo Yamaki
Engineer [Orange Music] – James Dellatacoma
Executive-Producer – Shinobu Ishihara
Recorded By – Fuso Murase, Hiroyuki Sanada
Management [Dave Douglas] – Mark Micklethwaite
Management [Hideo Yamaki] – Sakurako Yamaki
Artwork By, Coordinator – Yoko Yamabe

Hideo Yamaki - Japan’s most renown, respected and in demand drummer. Veteran of countless recording and live projects with Japan’s most celebrated pop / rock artists. As well as many collaborations with Japanese icons such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Toshinori Kondo, DJ Krush, Akira Sakata and many others. 

Bill Laswell - Legendary, Ikonoklast, bassist / producer, has worked with Hideo Yamaki since the eighties in many diverse and unimaginable configurations. They have been able to establish a bass and drum dialog that explodes with fluid, spontaneous blasts of telepathy, an ever expanding, dynamic matrix. 

Dave Douglas - one of the leading trumpeters of his generation, was recognized as “Trumpet player of the year” by the Down Beat critics poll for the first time in 2000 and continued that billing 13 times in the 15 years since. Has worked with John Zorn’s Masada, Horace Silver, Anthony Braxton, Joe Lovano and many others. A transcendent style and sweeping vision.