Jazz

“New York’s Harlem River Drive is a dividing line, a highway where the rich zip past the poor,” says singer Jimmy Norman. Eddie Palmieri’s Latin-funk band of the same name tackled these hard truths, playing prisons and speaking to the common man. Ultimately, Norman and Palmieri made a powerful socio-political statement that continues to resonate to this day. - Pablo Yglesias/Wax PoeticsWhen initially released in 1971, many critics panned Eddie Palmieri’s 1971 album Harlem River Drive. Clearly, those critics were wrong. Regardless of critical opinion, the release was not the crossover success Palmieri and Roulette Records had hoped for, at least in the immediate. Over the years the release has developed a following among listeners, DJs and aficionados of rare-grooves.The record may have been recorded towards the end of the Latin soul era, yet it features that genre's wonderful mix of Puerto Rican soul, Spanish Harlem Latin, and New York funk. Palmieri worked with an incredibly talented crew of Latin and R&B session musicians to create this quintessential New York vibe, a synthesis of funk and Afro-Cuban sounds. Contributors include Victor Venegas from Mongo Santamaria’s band, Palmieri’s brother Charlie, an accomplished musician in his own right, Bruce Fowler who went on to join Frank Zappa’s band, Dick Meza who went on to great things with Tito Puente, Ray Barretto and Celia Cruz, as well as Andy Gonzalez who’s pedigree includes recordings with Barretto, Johnny Pacheco, Willie Colon and even Chico O’Farrill. Also appearing Randy Brecker and one of the all-time greatest of the greats Bernard Purdy.An over-arching theme of Harlem River Drive is the thought that, as Palmieri puts it “The U.S. is richest country, all this immense wealth, side by side with the most intense poverty, racial prejudice, how is that possible?” A question that’s perhaps more even more relevant today than it was in 1971. A question that can be further explored with Get On Down’s reissue of this seminal recording.

Our long awaited reissue of Caribbean Jazz Fusion masterpiece Doubout Pou Gadé by Guadeloupean musician José Manclière is now available. Co-produced by Pierre-Edouard Decimus, José has cooked a really personal & singular record with amazing experimental composition merging Gwo Ka, Jazz-Funk, Biguine with an early electronic synthetic production. This ultra rare album privately distributed in the West Indies has now reached the Holy Grail status amongst collectors. This is definitely a real masterpiece with deep tunes like Syka a fierce synthetic jazz funk hybrid with incredible clavinet, synth and trumpet solos halfway between Placebo and Fabiano Orchestra. Vini Couté E Tann' is the amazing funky biguine we choose to compile on Kouté Jazz with incredible piano and guitar solo respectively by Patrick Jean Marie & Gilbert Coco. Tipi Fanm', is another wicked tune gwo ka percussion laden jazz tune. Features the Who's Who of modern guadeloupean jazz : Patrick Jean-Marie, Ramon Pirmé, Herbert Lewis, Roger & Gilbert Coco, Germain Cédé, Philippe Dambury and even Pierre-Edouard Decimus on bass.Limited to 500 hand numbered copies.Reissued from the original Master Tapes.LISTEN : https://soundcloud.com/diggers-digest/jose-mancliere-doubout-pou-gade-official-limited-reissue-snippets

Revolutionary, spiritual jazz from the unlikely city of Houston, Texas, reissued for the first time.Drummer, bandleader and activist Bubbha Thomas had toured America with R&B revues, served as a session musician for Peacock and Back Beat Records, and played straight ahead jazz with legends before the political and social upheaval of the late 1960s led him to a path first charted by Coltrane.Fancy Pants is his second LP with his Lightmen band and, like the deep-set, maverick jazz issued by the likes of Tribe and Strata East, is amongst the best of the 1970s jazz underground, a collective voice of resistance to the musical and cultural status quo. Presented in both stereo and mono mixes. Extensive booklet, download card for WAV files and footage of live performances included.

Ahmad Jamal is a jazz giant and The Awakening is his iconic masterpiece. The landmark deep trio session - recorded in NYC and released on Impulse! in 1970 - is an essential album and perennially sought-after on vinyl, so Be With Records are delighted to make it available again.As a "Zen master of jazz piano" and one of its greatest innovators, Jamal evolved his elegant sound with this adventurous record. The Awakening showcased his fast, richly melodic chops in remarkable variation. A consummate orchestrator of his own complex arrangements, Jamal was emboldened here by his potent sidemen. Backed by the exquisite timing of bassist Jamil Nasser and the precision of Frank Gant's drumming, he was liberated by the reliability of the trio setup. Free to juggle rhythmic dexterity with harmonic intricacy, Jamal brilliantly performed groove-oriented compositions written by himself, alongside wonderful renditions of tracks by Herbie Hancock, Oliver Nelson and Antonio Carlos Jobim.It is impossible to discuss The Awakening without acknowledging its indelible mark on golden age rap. A defining album of hip-hop culture, producers of the highest calibre have famously sampled elements of this timeless record to lace all-timers with a foundation for their most legendary tracks. Indeed, both the experimental "DJ Premier In Deep Concentration" and Shadez Of Brooklyn's seminal "Change" utilised Jamal's sparse title-track to stunning effect.A melancholy motif from "I Love Music" was employed by Pete Rock for Nas's crucial "The World Is Yours" whilst, over a more abstract refrain from the same track, Jeru memorably delivered his "Me Or The Papes" ultimatum. Over in Chicago, No I.D. elevated Common's peerless "Resurrection" by lifting a precise riff from Jamal's plaintive rendition of "Dolphin Dance" whilst the head-nod quality of All Natural's hypnotic "Renaissance" owes it all to the looped keys of Jamal's take on "You're My Everything".With bold beauty and unhurried grace, Ahmad Jamal plays piano differently from everyone else. He was a huge inspiration to Miles Davis and influential to how Wynton Kelly performed across Kind of Blue. In his autobiography, Miles describes being blown away by Jamal's dynamic "concept of space, his lightness of touch [and] his understatement". It's why The Awakening will always be so revered.In line with the quality of all Be With reissues, the record is presented in a luxurious gatefold sleeve and comes adorned with the original eye-catching artwork throughout, along with the original sleeve notes. Simon Francis' sensitive mastering ensures the sonics are majestic throughout and, for the first time, it has been pressed at a reassuringly weighty 180g.

World’s Experience Orchestra’s As Time Flows On has not been available as a stand-alone vinyl release since first being issued as a private pressing out of Boston in 1980. And those pressings where in small runs – set in motion by a visionary, bassist/composer/arranger John Jamyll Jones. Jones is a magical type, who communicates with his instrument, his ensembles, and jazz’s ancient lineage in a manner so profound that his late-‘70s album are out of time with jazz’s trajectory, but timeless when presented today.By the late ’90s the music of World’s Experience Orchestra was circulating throughout the collections of esoteric jazz fans, the likes of Gerald “Jazzman” Short and Gilles Peterson, who played WEO for those, the Coltrane-enthralled searching for something new, something different. Something spiritual and honest. As interest in spiritual jazz and WEO grew, Now-Again set about an ambitious plan to reissue Jones’ landmark works. “I knew it was going to happen, but I didn’t know when,” says Jones of the road to seeing his music re-issued. “It’s 35 years or more now, and I’ve been waiting for this, and I’m quite sure I’m not the only one.”

Sublime private spiritual jazz-funk/fusion album, now hard to find. Finally available again, fully licensed and remastered, with original artwork. LIMITED PRESS!!

Double LP with 2 booklets, lyrics, and download cardAs some of you may know, Alice Coltrane was a legendary pianist, composer, spiritual leader, and the wife of John Coltrane, the most venerated and in?uential saxophonist in the history of jazz. In 1967, four years after meeting John, he died of liver cancer, leaving Alice a widow with four small children. Bereft of her soul mate, Alice su?ered sleepless nights and severe weight loss. At her worst, she weighed only 95 pounds. She had hallucinations in which trees spoke, various beings existed on astral planes, and the sounds of “a planetary ether” spun through her brain, knocking her into a frightening unconsciousness.The critical event of this period was not that Alice fell into the nadir of her existence, but rather that she experienced tapas, a vital period of trial. These tapas (a Sanskrit term she used to describe her su?ering) helped prepare Alice for the spiritual ally she found in Swami Satchidananda, an Indian guru, with whom Alice made her frst trip to India. On her second trip there, Alice had a revelation instructing her to abandon the secular life and become a spiritual teacher in the Hindu tradition – so she moved out West – eventually opening the Shanti Anantam Ashram on 47 acres she’d bought in Agoura Hills, California.Music was the foundation of Alice’s spiritual practice. From the mid 1980’s to mid 1990’s, Alice Coltrane self-released four brilliant cassette albums. These cassettes contained a music she invented, inspired by the gospel music of the Detroit churches she grew up in, mixed together with the Indian devotional music of her religious practice, and even fnds Alice singing for the frst time in her recorded catalog. Originally only made available through her ashram, they are her most obscure body of work and possibly the greatest re?ection of her soul.