The Sun Ra Arkestra Salah Ragab The Cairo Jazz Band
In Egypt

Collectors rejoice - this is a hugely rare and sought after album of deep spiritual jazz fused with Brazilian and Latin sounds. It originally came as a private press in 1978 on flautist Lloyd McNeill's own Baobob label but has been out of print for 43 years. Now remastered with care by the good folks at Soul Jazz, the stunning record sinks you deep into a world of musical perfection. A mega strong band made up of the likes of Buster Williams, Howard Johnson and John La Barbera all contribute and add to the seamless mix of pan-global musical styles.

To write these few lines, we spoke to saxophonist François Jeanneau, an old friend of Jacques Thollot who also played on several of his albums, including the “Watch Devil Go” which interests us here. He told us a story which, according to him, sums up the personality of Thollot. A noted studio had reserved three days for a Thollot recording session. The first morning was devoted to sound checks and putting some order in the score sheets which Jacques would hand out in a somewhat anarchic manner. Then everyone went for lunch. When the musicians returned to the studio, Thollot had disappeared. He wasn’t seen again for the three days. When he reappeared, he had already forgotten why he had left, The music of Jacques Thollot is in the image of its’ author: it takes you somewhere, suddenly escapes and disappears, returning in an unexpected place as if nothing had happened.Four years after a first album on the Futura label in 1971, Jacques Thollot returned, this time on the Palm label of Jef Gilson, still with just as much surrealist poetry in his jazz. In thirty-five minutes and a few seconds, the French composer and drummer, who had been on the scene since he was thirteen, established himself as a link between Arnold Schoenberg and Don Cherry. Resistant to any imposedframework and always excessive, Thollot allows himself to do anything and everything: suspended time of an extraordinary delicacy, a stealthy explosion of the brass section, hallucinatory improvisation of the synthesisers, tight writing, teetering on the classical, and in the middle of all that, a hit; the title-track - that Madlib would one day end up hearing and sampling.“Watch Devil Go” was in the right place in the Palm catalogue, which welcomed the cream of the French avant-garde in the 70s. But it is also the story of a long friendship between two men. Jacques Thollot and Jef Gilson had known and respected one another for a long time. Though barely sixteen years old, Thollot was already on drums on the first albums by Gilson starting in 1963 and would play in his big band (alongside François Jeanneau once again), ‘Europamerica’, until the end of the 70s.In a career lasting half a century and centred on freedom Jacques Thollot played with the most important experimental musicians (Don Cherry, Sonny Sharrock, Michel Roques, Barney Wilen, Steve Lacy, François Tusques, Michel Portal, Jac Berrocal, Noël Akchoté...) and they all heard in him a pulsation coming from another world.Jérôme "Kalcha" Simonneau

Latin Jazz originally released in 1958Leo Quica With The Earl Hagen Orchestra – Caliente / Oh Leola

The follow up to the highly acclaimed reissue of the first volume Ethiopian Hit Parade. This 2nd volume features 'Ethiopian Hits' from 1972 to 1975. The track layout is Identical reissue to the original vinyl"After releasing around fifty 45 rpm singles and his first 33 rpm album (Ethiopian Modern Instrumental Hits AELP 10, re-released by Heavenly Sweetness HS092VL), Amha Esthèté set about compiling his best 45s on a series of now legendary albums (the originals are impossible to find) in 1972. The first four volumes of Ethiopian Hit Parade were released in September and October 1972, with the fifth volume appearing in January 1973. You are the proud owner of Volume 2.It is worth reminding ourselves that when Amha Esthèté set up his Amha Records label in 1968-69, it was in defiance of a state monopoly designed to regulate the imports and production of records by an imperial decree of July 1948. This extravagant state privilege had produced only 78s of traditional music , which though thrilling, excluded anything at all modern. To the best of our knowledge, only sixty-seven of these prehistoric discs were pressed in Great Britain between 1955 and 1961 and released by His Master’s Voice. They were supposed to be part of celebrations of Emperor Haile Selassie’s silver jubilee . . . even though 33s and 45s had existed since 1948 and 1949 respectively! Such incompetence and servility, combined with a rejection of an effervescent contemporary music scene, were symptomatic of the decadence surrounding the end of an era.An audacious, funky outlaw, a music lover and an entrepreneur in tune with the baby-boomer generation, young Amha Esthèté (he was only twenty-four when he launched his label) will be remembered as the instigator of a peaceful revolution thick with soul and rock’n’roll.After the acclaimed reissue of the first volume Ethiopian Hit Parade. Here is the second volume that include all the greatest Ethiopian Hits from 1972 to 1975. Identical reissue to the original vinyl which is extremely rare and expensive.The opening track of the compilation is the song Tezeta Slow and Fast by GETACHEW KASSA were featured on the album Ethiopiques, Vol. 10: Ethiopian Blues & Ballads. and originally released on 1972. The other tracks on this second volume celebrate such pioneers of modern Ethiopian groove as Abayneh Degene, Tèshomè Meteku, Menelik Wossenachew Mulatu Astatqe and Muluken Melesse, alongside “tradi-modern” singers representing Amhara and Oromo culture, so rich and so long marginalized."s

The Dap-Kings' electro-sax space warrior returns with a groove-heavy sequel to All My Relations. Vol. II: Baca Sewa, an expressive, transcendental voyage through the archives of his indigenous roots and beyond. Drawing on ancestral memories and family histories to wrap new flesh around the bones of history, this album is a bold, semi-autobiographical work that leads us deeper into the annals of family histories, mythology and the cultural imaginary.“Baca Sewa” is Cochemeaʼs original family name prior to Spanish colonization and the fracturing or erasure of ancient knowledge and ways. The melody for the title track was composed by Anthony Gastelum and features vocals and drumming by the Baca Sewa Singers- a group composed of several generations of family members. The album runs thick with sonic tributes and remembrances. “Chitoʼs Song” is a contemplative, ethereal tribute to a beloved uncle. “Curandera” conjures the memory of the irrepressible healing power of medicine women. “Black Pearl” recalls his great grandfather, heir to a legacy of indigenous peoples enslaved as pearl divers in the Sea of Cortez.Leading a 7-piece ensemble composed of New Yorkʼs top percussionists and members of Daptoneʼs rhythm section, Cochemea recombined ancient elements of drums, winds, and voice, creating his own world of emotional textures and rhythmic possibilities. His musical and spiritual synthesis is made possible through his deep reverence of the horn and of the music and traditions preceding him. Vol II: Baca Sewa - is an offering and continuation of Cochemeaʼs explorations, part of a musical process of cultural reclamation and healing through connection, relations, memory and imagination.