Freddie Hubbard
Open Sesame

Birthed from informal sessions in South London around 2013; the Ferg Ireland Trio combines three of the UK’s most exciting musicians. The trio is a vehicle for Ireland to consolidate his influences and explore the Sax/Bass/Drums format with an alchemical blend of intense spiritual jazz, broken beat flavours, angular swing and playful conversations.This, their debut recording, was captured over the course of a summer’s day in 2017 and the result, stripped of artifice and any studio trickery, represents the pure expression of three great instrumentalists, as well as three great friends. Ireland (Kansas Smittys, Soweto Kinch, Ashley Henry, 22a), Nathaniel Facey (Empirical) and James Maddren (Kit Downes, Jacob Collier, Gwilym Simcock) have been playing together for over a decade, and this is reflected in the telepathy of their musical conversation. The twists and turns of their dialogue delve deep into the dark heart of modern jazz.

Another killer release by Jazz Is Dead imprint, this time with the legendary compagnon of Gil Scott Heron, the OG Brian Jackson... One happy thing to be grateful for during otherwise trying times is finally getting to hear and enjoy new work by a man whose music is familiar to millions even if his name is less so. Indeed, Gil Scott-Heron continues to cast such a wide shadow that even many of his biggest fans often seem to forget that there's another name next to his on the bulk of his albums, the name of a man teamed up with Gil as a teenager and proceeded to ride out the decade as his writing partner, keyboardist, arranger, and bandleader for their Midnight Band. That man's name is Brian Jackson. His considerable backlog of unheard material reveals a stillenergetic and still-vital icon of the music wing of the Black Liberation movement. Prepare to hear from a musician whose work has contributed to the enhancement of all our lives in some form or another with the latest installment of the Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge's Jazz Is Dead series.

Nat Birchall follows up on his killer reggae roots album "Sounds Almighty" and returns with a couple of sides of blissful cosmic & spiritual jazz. Recommended!!!!

Moving musis is out with it's third Soundtrack release, the 1982 Norwegian cult feature "Carl Gustav, the Gang and the Parking Bandits" A teenage flick set in the outskirts of Bergen. A Band of black dressed greedy corporate thugs are converting all the playgrounds in the area to parking lots. This doesn't fit well with the local youth, Carl Gustav and his friends finds all the clues, traces down the thugs and get their revenge at the castle finale. Well respected Norwegian director Ola Solum again hired Pete Knutsen (see also Operasjon Cobra MM02 ost) and his bandmates from Popol Ace for the job to make the score. And the result is a brilliant small group funky rock outfit with plenty of open breaks, quirky instrumentation and interludes. Songs from the film includes vocal tracks by famous Norwegian pop artist Jahn Teigen and the punk group Alle Tiders Duster.Never before released and remastered from multitrack tapes by Timmion Finland, this score is long overdue but finally available for the first time! Comes with downloadcodes and limited to 500 copies!

Cheick TIDIANE SECKTimbuktu: The Music Of Randy WestonKomos FranceCheick Tidiane Seck's latest album is something of an all-star affair. It sees a banquet's worth of guest musicians (including fellow African music legend Manu Dibango) help the Malian music maestro send "an Afro-Jazz prayer" to the late, great Randy Weston - a musician whose unique Pan-African vision influenced so many of his contemporaries. The resultant set is vibrant and alluring, with Seck and company underpinning Weston's fluid jazz piano motifs with dense, heavy, intricate and often delightfully polyrhythmic rhythms. There are some more atmospheric and intoxicating numbers present, too - the version of "Timbuktu" is stunning, as is the bluesy "In Memory Of" - but the album's greatest calling card remains it's energetic and effervescent approach.