Act Big Band
Act Big Band

At the cross section between Jazz, Soul, Rock, Blues, Hip Hop, R&B and Funk stands Stimulator Jones. Coaxing strings that tremble with a cosmic frequency, keys beat in soulful repose while percussion relays some ancient, deep-rooted pulse. This is Stimulator Jones on La Mano.Stimulator Jones’ sophomore LP finds its way on the Oslo-based record label Mutual Intentions as the artist explores the musical possibilities contained in his hands. La Mano is a striking collage of sonic hues, developed through 13 musical vignettes across the LP. Prodigious and far-reaching influences are re-defined in succinct musical clusters as La Mano travels from Kingston’s bustling yards to serene Parisienne walkways.A multi-instrumentalist whose talent matured through the iconic Stones Throw camp, Stimulator Jones broke onto the world with the sensational Exotic Worlds & Masterful Treasures in 2018. Developing a distinctive fusion in his craft, the artist made bold strides on his debut, as rumbling bass-lines and visceral keys, counterpointed Jones’ delicate and tender vocals. The album presented an artist, who could harness the intricacies of the great musical languages of our age in the accessible executions of a pop song.La Mano finds the artist treading a new, yet familiar path, resting his vocal chords as he puts his hands into action. Playing an arsenal of physical instruments, Stimulator Jones’ dexterity is visceral as he moves between keys, guitars, drums and wind instruments. Arrangements coalesce around organic- and synthetic sounds that live in some tranquil equilibrium with the first vibration of the universe.Cruising grooves and mellow melodies convey a gauzy touch, breaking down the intellectual barriers of genre for the corporeal intimacy of the soul. La Mano finds the artist diligently pursuing an exploration in a fusion of musical languages, which he channels into novel territory on his debut for the Mutual Intentions collective.

Brownswood Recordings return to focus on Yussef Dayes and co. for their latest release. Live At Joshua Tree is Dayes' latest live album, capturing the jazz musician and drummer's stellar live performance while posted up slap-bang in the middle of Joshua Tree National Park in California, USA. With the music canopied by this natural desert amphitheater, the sound of the album is fittingly warm and dry, catching the tones of every instrumentalist to a muted, temperate T: there's bass from Rocco Palladino, sax by Malik Venna, keys by Elijah Fox and percs by Alexander Bourt. Make sure to catch the live video version of the album on YouTube.

A solo piano performance is an act of faith, a pregnant musical proposition with potential to orient the alert listener towards higher human ideals. It’s a faith in pianism as a process — so that by daring to physically shape sound into form, into coherent interplay of sonority, rhythm, inflection and phrasing, the pianist as sonic pilgrim may point us to discover a path towards more. This path we discover as listeners by being alert. It’s a promise rooted in the axiom that there is revelation in improvisation. Kyle Shepherd is a devoted improviser.After The Night, The Day Will Surely Come, recorded as the world wrestles with death, disease and losses occasioned by the Covid-19 pandemic, marks Shepherd out as a pianist and musician committed to hope in positive human possibility. In this way, he offers this bouquet of 10 songs as an elixir against darkness and despair.Shepherd’s compositions explored in this album include new articulations of well-liked familiar melodies like Sweet Zim Suite, Cry of The Lonely, along with improvised marvels in Zikr, and Desert Monk. Shepherd displays a rare ability to push towards adventurous tonal harmonies while preserving the pulse and keeping the music listenable; emerging here as more than just a pair of feet and two hands on pedals and keys. It’s in how he embodies the well-travelled compositions with renewed brilliant order and athleticism, retaining the supple filigree of their cherished earlier versions.By being attentive listeners, we may discover the pianist as a mind at work: intelligence and taste allied with formidable technical command; pursuing known sonic routes, but eschewing easy and predictable note choices on that journey — alert, alive pianism. Shepherd crafts a base of superbly controlled chordal underpinnings to every bit of sweet lilting lyricism in laments and levities, or a faintly echoed call of the adhan; the staccato of the incantatory Xhosa, or the faded IXam- ka tongues and modern Cape Malay street scamto.Shepherd embodies much of South Africa’s piano tradition with visionary clarity. More than his own ingenuity, he holds up an appreciation of the richness of a shared musical inheritance. This must be underscored by an understanding that all pianists, in fact all artists of real commitment, have a wish to be distinctive, along with a real rootedness. The selection of tunes treated here, shores this up about Shepherd. It also points to a deeper, loftier revelation: jazz, and creativity as the ultimate articulations of human hope.— PERCY MABANDU

Any coherent sense of time departs early on is LP ; kicked off with the familiar sound of the Dobes' synth. Tim Gick's already-warped patchwork editing of the entire Crazy Doberman output thus far turns increasingly glitched out across the splattered quiltwork of a nine track LP on Aguirre, all suspended in spiritual foam; then battered to bits on the greasy flat top of the record's b-side.

Beautiful !