Category: jazz

New Audio: The Filthy Six Share Strutting, Funky “The Favourite”

London-based, Grammy Award-winning trumpeter Nick Etwell has worked with an electric and varied list of music legends and superstars including David Axelrod, Beck, Roger Daltrey, Foo Fighters, Noel Gallagher and Tom Jones, as well as a decade-plus long stint touring with Mumford & Sons. Over the years, Etwell has leaned heavily into his deep and abiding passion for Black American music, working with Carla Thomas, Ronnie Spector, Mavis Staples, Cyril Neville, Fred Wesley, Jill Scott, Thee Sacred Souls, Antibalas, Jon Cleary and Adrian Quesada.

Along with his busy schedule as a highly-sought after session player, Etwell is the founder and leader of the soul jazz outfit The Filthy Six, an act that features a collection of highly accomplished members who have worked with Amy Winehouse, Jack White, Dionne Warwick, Mark Ronson, Robbie Williams, Jamie Cullum, Duran Duran and Madness. The London-based sextet has released three albums on UK label Acid Jazz back in the 2010s, while firmly cementing themselves as one most authentic soul jazz acts in the UK — and as one of the most eclectic live acts in the UK scene.

Sonically, the London-based sextet take the blueprint of legendary Blue Note and Prestige Records artists Lou Donaldson, Grant Green, Jack McDuff and others and add a bunch of modern influences to the mix, giving the classic soul jazz sound a bit of a modern sensibility and flair.

Etwell and company’s fourth album Return of The Swagger Junkies: Vol. 1 is slated for a November 27, 2026 release through Color Red. Throughout the album, their unique blend of soul jazz, funk blues and Boogaloo present musical adventures for the mind, body and soul — with a heavy dose of filthy, nasty ass funk. Trust me here, we all need a little bit of that stank in our lives, y’all. The album will also feature guest spots from longtime collaborator Snowboy on percussion.

Return of The Swagger Junkies: Vol. 1‘s will include the previously released, hauntingly gorgeous and mournful “911 Blue (For George)“and the album’s latest single, “The Favourite.” “The Favourite” is a strutting and gritty bit of funk anchored by a deep funky groove, big, swaggering horn, glistening organ lines and a shimmering blues-meets-jazz guitar paired with Latin-influenced percussion by longtime collaborator Snowboy. Sonically nodding at Booker T and the M.G.‘s, “The Favourite” showcases the deft musicianship of a band, who can balance improvisation with songcraft.

“An old school funk number that keeps the rhythm deep and the energy high all theway through,” The Filthy Six’s Nick Etwell says. “James’ Guitar solo leads us off into slightly psychedelic territory first up, followed by Mark laying down some seriously Filthy tenor in response. As the opening track off the album it’s the first opportunity to hear our special guest Snowboy on the record, giving it some welly on the Congas alongside Simon’s heavy grooves for a tasty little drum break before we take it home.”

New Audio: Tony Moreno Pays Tribute to Mentor and Friend Elvin Jones on “EJ’s Blues”

Elvin Jones (1927-2004) was known for redefining jazz drumming as we know it, liberating the instrument from simple timekeeping and instead treating it as a fluid, multi-layered voice. He was also famously known for being the polyrhythmic backbone of John Coltrane’s legendary quartet, contributing to some of the most beloved and influential recordings ever made.

Back in 1967, an 11-year old Tony Moreno was determined to see the legendary drummer Elvin Jones perform live for the first time, and soon realizing he was out well past his bedtime fell asleep on the table of the jazz club he was at. He was awakened by Jones, who sat down at the table, and upon leaning that the young Moreno hadn’t owned a drum set yet, invited him up to his apartment. Jones quickly assembled and gifted Moreno, a drum set, which he played on as a member of the Coltrane Quartet. The exchange kicked off decades of mentorship and friendship. (And in case you were wondering, Moreno still owns that drum set.)

For Moreno, who has worked with Dave Liebman, Barry Harris, Mal Waldron, Frank Kimbroough, and a lengthy list of others across the globe, that day in Jones’ home marked the beginning of a career that has now spanned more than 50 years. In 2024. the 20th anniversary of Jones’ death, Moreno felt that the time was right to assemble a project to pay tribute to his most formative mento and dear friend.

Intent on celebrating the titan from his own lens, he collaborated with arranger Rich Shemaria to present the music orchestrally, providing an interpretation that combines the ferocity the drummer is widely known for with the sensitivity and attention to detail that isn’t brought into the spotlight often. He eventually assembled an all-star ensemble featuring there-time Grammy Award-nominated tenor saxophonist Troy Roberts, Grammy Award-nominated pianist Manuel Valera, Grammy Award-winning percussionist Mauricio Herrera, alto saxophonist Patrick Cornelius, and bassist Gene Perla, who spent the first half of the 1970s in Elvin Jones’ band.

Moreno’s newest effort, A Celebration of Elvin Jones is slated for a November 6, 2026 release through Mayimba Music. Playing tribute to his mento and friend, who gave him his first drum set, the album features ten tracks associated with Jones’ work as a bandleader with spirited new renditions that pain a portrait of the legendary drummer’s dynamism and humanity. A widely acclaimed, singular drummer, who came up in the famed Jazz Composer Orchestra Association (JCOA) loft scene, A Celebration of Elvin Jones served as a portal that transported Moreno back to the moments that sparked his profound love of the music. “Playing Elvin’s music is like going home,” he explains. “My formative years were based on the things that I learned from him, but every musician gets to a point where they realize that your own identity is paramount. It may be difficult to shed some of the history that you’ve lived in your music, but you realize at a certain point that you have to make personal statements, which took me in different directions. So this feels like returning home, and it’s been an emotional journey.”

The Jones tribute album’s first single “E.J.’s Blues” is a strutting, swinging blues that simultaneously marks Moreno’s return to his musical roots and showcases the adept, soulful musicianship of Moreno and his cast of collaborators.

Reflecting on the profound impact Elvin Jones had on him, Moreno said, “This album is a tribute to a man I consider to be my father figure. Elvin gave me a purpose, to live and grow and to be a musician, so this is my way of giving thanks.”

New Video: Sirintip Shares Dizzying, Introspective “Lotus”

New York-based Thai-Swedish producer, composer and singer/songwriter Sirintip creates work that sits at the intersection of avant-garde pop, jazz, electronic music and interdisciplinary art. Raised in Thailand by her recently departed father, Sirintip spent her teenaged years in Sweden, before relocating to the States to pursue her music and artistic career. Through her multilingual identity, she has learned to communicate in countless ways, with the understanding that expression is expression, and deeply human, no matter the context. Her musical work is ethereal yet impassioned, with her voice moving across sophisticated harmony, dense electronics and rhythmic experimentation, shaped by her musical roots, which span across jazz, pop, traditional Thai music and European classical music.

The Thai-Swedish artist has released two acclaimed albums, 2018’s Michael League-produced Tribus, which features Mark Guiliana and 2022’s Carbon, which landed on DownBeat‘s Best Albums of 2022 list. She’s a highly-sought after collaborator, who has contributed to over 50 recordings, as well as composed the score for the 1925 silent film, The Lost World.

Sirintip has toured internationally as a bandleader and as an opener for Snarky Puppy and Sungazer, performing at SJFAZZ, The Nobel Museum, Wonderfruit and Winter Jazzfest.

Her broader artistic practice spans scientific collaboration, orchestral composition and sustainability, including solar-powered concerts and bioplastic vinyl, driven by a desire to uncover connections between cultures, ecosystems, disciples and people. The Thai-Swedish artist’s interdisciplinary project Mycelium transforms scientific research on fungi and plankton through music, data signification, projections and dance.

The acclaimed New York-based artist’s Elliot Moss co-produced White Lilies EP is slated for an October 30, 2026 release through Birdwatcher Records. The six-song EP may arguably be some of her most personal songwriting to date. Thematically, the EP’s material engages with grief through place and memory with the EP being a transmission of vulnerability through music. The EP and its creative process helped Sirintip process the loss of both her father and her childhood home back in Bangkok, while connecting with listeners on the universality of memory and identity.

Rather than bring external research and scientific inquiry, White Liilies reportedly sees the acclaimed artist turning inward. Each of the EP’s songs captures the breadth of her creativity: Pop song forms are blended with electronic textures, deep grooves and elevated, often dissonant harmonies. This all emerged organically, almost unconsciously. “I was trying to write very intuitively,” she says.

For the EP, Sirintip assembled a backing band of musicians and artists, whose versatility served her vision: Kengchakaj (piano, effects), Nolan Byrd (drums), Ben Wendel (tenor sax, effects) with the acclaimed New York-based artist on vocals, vocal effects, programming and various production elements. As co-producer, Elliot Moss helped her achieve an open-minded “pop perspective” for the overall production and sound. “I’m really, really, really happy with the production,” she says.

Commissioned by Greenwich House Music School, White Lilies sees Sirintip extending its creative expression even further, moving from musical gesture to sense-memory experience. The release includes biodegradable vinyl pressings, the acclaimed artist’s original photography, album artwork from Nitcha Tothong and a scent activations.

“Lotus,” White Lilies EP‘s dizzying second and latest single features dusty, trip hop-meets-hip hop breakbeat with twinkling keys, a Thai choral vocal sample, oscillating synths and a Quiet Storm-like groove beneath Sirintip’s expressive, jazz-meets-pop delivery. “Lotus” references a famous Thích Nhất Hạnh saying “No mud, no lotus,” while thematically touching on complicated parent-child relationship and celebrating breaking traumatic cycles.

“‘Lotus’ was inspired by Thích Nhất Hạnh’s idea of ‘no mud, no lotus.’ It’s about recognizing how our families, cultures, and the things we inherit shape who we become, while still choosing for ourselves what we want to carry forward,” the New York-based artist explains. “I think we can honor where we come from without repeating every pattern we inherited. The lotus is beautiful, but without the mud, it never would have grown into the flower it is.”

The accompanying video was shot in the artist’s native Bangkok and follows her as she dances and vibes out to the song in various locales, along with the titular lotus. While offering a slice of her birthplace’s breathtaking beauty, the video is punctuated by the memories of people and places that have gone, and those people are places still with us, and the uneasy push forward of our lives.

New Audio: London’s The Filthy Six Shares Mournful “911 Blue (For George)”

London-based, Grammy Award-winning trumpeter Nick Etwell has worked with an electric and varied list of music legends and superstars including David Axelrod, Beck, Roger Daltrey, Foo Fighters, Noel Gallagher and Tom Jones, as well as a decade-plus long stint touring with Mumford & Sons. Over the years, Etwell has leaned heavily into his deep and abiding passion for Black American music, working with Carla Thomas, Ronnie Spector, Mavis Staples, Cyril Neville, Fred Wesley, Jill Scott, Thee Sacred Souls, Antibalas, Jon Cleary and Adrian Quesada.

Along with his busy schedule as a highly-sought after session player, Etwell is the founder and leader of the soul jazz outfit The Filthy Six, an act that features a collection of highly accomplished members who have worked with Amy Winehouse, Jack White, Dionne Warwick, Mark Ronson, Robbie Williams, Jamie Cullum, Duran Duran and Madness. The London-based sextet has released three albums on UK label Acid Jazz back in the 2010s, while firmly cementing themselves as one most authentic soul jazz acts in the UK — and as one of the most eclectic live acts in the UK scene.

Sonically, the London-based sextet take the blueprint of legendary Blue Note and Prestige Records artists Lou Donaldson, Grant Green, Jack McDuff and others and add a bunch of modern influences to the mix, giving the classic soul jazz sound a bit of a modern sensibility and flair.

Etwell and company’s fourth album Return of The Swagger Junkies: Vol. 1 is slated for a November 27, 2026 release through Color Red. Throughout the album, their unique blend of soul jazz, funk blues and Boogaloo present musical adventures for the mind, body and soul — with a heavy dose of filthy, nasty ass funk. Trust me here, we all need a little bit of that stank in our lives, y’all. The album will also feature guest spots from longtime collaborator Snowboy on percussion.

Return of The Swagger Junkies: Vol. 1‘s first single “911 Blue (For George)” is a hauntingly gorgeous, and mournful composition that seems to channels the despair and anger of Billie Holiday‘s rendition of “Strange Fruit” that reflects on the senseless brutality of that horrible day and of a life snuffed out — on television.

Written as a tribute to George Floyd following his tragic death in Minneapolis, the composition was originally released as a standalone quartet recording featuring Snarky Puppy’s Bill Laurence. But for the subtly reworked rendition, Etwell wanted to capture the greater weight and emotional depth of the full sextet, while reflecting the darkness and pain of the subject matter.

New Audio: Elena Pinderhughes Teams Up with Immanuel Wilkins on Ethereal and Soulful Debut Single “life goes on”

Raised in the Bay Area’s progressive cultural landscape, Elena Pinderhughes is a groundbreaking composer, flutist and vocalist, who has become known for expanding jazz’s emotional range by crafting music that’s tender and sensual, mysterious and direct and grounded in a feminine creative vision without apology. Her work channels an unguarded, deeply personal voice that few in the genre have dared to show.

Informed by shaping the music of her collaborators, Pinderhughes’ work sees her seamlessly weaving R&B and neo-soul while being rooted in the jazz tradition.

Pinderhughes debut single as a solo artist “life goes on” feat. Immanuel Wilkins follows a decade of being one of the most sought-after collaborators across genres and styles: She has toured with Herbie Hancock and Chief Xian aTunde Audah, played at Coachella with Future and Metro Boomin — and sh has appeared on tracks by Giveon, Victoria Monét, Ambrose Akinmusire, Robert Glasper, Esperanza Spalding, Common and a lengthy list of others.

While marking Pinderhughes’ bold step forward into the spotlight as a solo artist, “life goes on” features two of jazz’s most distinct young voices playing off one another as they trade and weave lyrical flute and saxophone lines over a harmonic piano and a propulsive rhythm section and bursts of Kid A and Amnesiac-like-glitchy electronics. The result is a composition that’s ethereal yet soulful, cinematic yet deeply introspective while effortlessly pushing the boundaries of contemporary jazz.

“I’ve been playing the flute for almost my entire life, and for so much of that time I was searching…learning everything I could, trying different things, and figuring out what actually sounded like me,” Pinderhughes says. “Somewhere along the way, I started to hear a voice emerge that felt like my own. That’s what feels different now. I’m not searching in the same way anymore. I feel like I have a sound I believe in and something of my own to say with this instrument. And now I want to show you what the flute can do. I want people to hear how powerful, beautiful, intimate and alive it can be. ‘life goes on’ feels like the beginning of a much bigger story I want to tell about what the flute can be.”