Tag: jazz fusion

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of their first two albums’ 2020’s All News Is Good News and Daylight Savings, the Melbourne, Australia-based instrumental, jazz-funk outfit Surprise Chef — Lachlan Stuckey (guitar), Jethro Curtin (keys), Carl Lindberg (bass), Andrew Congues (drums) and their newest member, Hudson Whitlock (percussion, composition and production) — quickly amassed a fanbase internationally, while establishing their self-proclaimed “moody shades of instrumental jazz-funk” sound, which draws from 70s film scores, the samples that form hip hop’s foundations and jazz fusion and jazz funk. 

But while inspired by the sounds of the past, the Aussie outfit actively push the boundaries of instrumental soul and funk with an approach honed by countless hours in the studio, studying the masters, and perhaps more importantly, “the tyranny of distance” that helps create a unique perspective to their work. 

The band was limited in the fact that there weren’t many people making or even talking about instrumental jazz/soul/funk in Southeast Australia, let alone putting out records. And as a result, this gave the band an opportunity to develop their sound and approach in a sort of creative isolation, where a small circle of friends and like-minded musicians fed off each other. 
“Being in Australia, being so far away, we only get glimpses and glances of this music’s origins,” Surprise Chef’s Lachlan Stuckey says. “But hearing a label like Big Crown was one of the first times we realized you could make fresh, new soul music that wasn’t super retro or just nostalgic.” 

The Aussie outfit’s third album Education & Recreation is slated for an October 14, 2022 release through Big Crown Records. Their Big Crown Records debut sees the band putting their unique sound and approach on full display. Now, earlier this month I wrote about album single “Money Music,” a strutting and funky pimp walk featuring an expansive arrangement consisting of skittering breakbeats, twinkling key and vibraphone, a sinuous and propulsive bass line paired with a wah wah pedaled guitar that ends with a dreamy fade out. Sonically “Money Music” struck me as being a slick, mischievous and remarkably self-assured synthesis of Polymood and Sauropoda-era L’Eclair, old school hip-hop breakbeat compilations and jazz funk within a mind-bending twisting and turning song structure with rapid tempo changes. 

“Suburban Breeze,” Education & Recreation‘s latest single clocks in at a little over two minutes and yet manages to be an expansive and trippy composition that features elements of Return to Forever and Headhunter-era Herbie Hancock, hip hop breakbeats and film scores centered around twinkling keys, bursts of organ arpeggios, soulfully fluttering flute, sinuous bass lines and metronomic-like percussion. Sonically, the song evokes breezy, easy-going summer afternoons of daydreaming and hanging out without anything in particular to do.

The Aussie jazz funk band will be embarking on their first North American tour this October. The tour includes a stop at this year’s Desert Daze and an October 13, 2022 stop at The Sultan Room. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.

Surprise Chef Tour Dates

Oct 1-2 – Lake Perris, CA – Desert Daze

Oct 4 – Zebulon – Los Angeles, CA

Oct 5 – Bottom of the Hill – San Francisco, CA

Oct 7 – Star Theater – Portland, OR

Oct 8 – Fox Cabaret – Vancouver, BC

Oct 9 – Barboza – Seattle, WA

Oct 13 – Sultan Room – Brooklyn, NY

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Seattle’s High Pulp Shares Surreal and Symbolic Visual for “You’ve Got to Pull It Up From The Ground” feat. Theo Croker

Seattle-based jazz outfit High Pulp features:

  • Antoine Martel (keys, synths), a self-professed mad scientist with a wall of modular synthesizers and a passion for film scores and abstract soundscapes
  • Rob Homan (keys), whose innate ability to process, deconstruct and reassemble material on the fly bordered on the impressive and scary
  • Scott Rixon (bass), who comes from a punk and hardcore background and possesses pop sensibilities
  • Victor Nguyen (tenor sax), a Pharaoh Sanders acolyte with an ear for urgent, entrancing solos
  • Andrew Morrill (alto sax), whose bold tones and fearless harmonic sensibilities earned him a reputation for pushing the old school into the 21st Century
  • Bobby Granfelt (drums), whose hip-hop and bebop-inspired drumming laid the rhythmic foundation for the entire project

High Pulp can trace their origins to a loose, weekly jam session at Seattle’s historic Royal Room. “When you put us all together, our sound isn’t so much a fusion as it is a synthesis,” the band’s Bobby Granfelt says in press notes. ““There’s a lot of different personalities coming from a lot of different places, and we use it all as fuel to create something that’s totally our own.”

The Seattle sextet’s latest album Pursuit of Ends is slated for a Friday release through Anti- Records. The band’s unique brand of experimental jazz is simultaneously vintage and futuristic, often hinting at Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Aphex Twin and My Bloody Valentine and a wide range of others. The album’s material sees the band carefully balancing meticulous composition with visceral spontaneity and centered around virtuosic performances.

While High Pulp is primarily centered around their core six, Pursuit of Ends sees the band making judicious use of a board network of collaborators with guest spots from Jaleel Shaw (sax), who has played with Roy Haynes and Mingus Big Band; Brandee Younger (harp), who has played with Ravi Coltrane, The Roots, and Makaya McCraven; Grammy-nominated Theo Croker (trumpet); Jacob Mann (keys), who has played with Rufus Wainright and Louis Cole to help push their sonic boundaries even further.

Pursuit of Ends‘ latest single “You’ve Got To Pull It Up From The Ground” is a mind-bending and incredibly slick synthesis of bop, jazz fusion, funk and hip hop. The composition begins with an extensive bop jazz-inspired, drum solo. The song then quickly moves to a section featuring rapid fire percussion paired with sinuous bass lines, twinkling keys and a mournful, modal horn line led by Theo Croker’s expressive Miles Davis-like playing. Throughout the rest of the song, the melody floats and dances through the instrumentation. While the material is rooted in precise performance of the written composition, there’s ample room for soulful, free-flowing improvisation among a collection of sensitive and thoughtful artists.

“During COVID we spent a lot of time listen to Miles Davis’ Second Quintet, and specifically the drum solo at the start was inspired by ‘Agitation’ off of E.S.P.,” Granfelt explains “There’s something about that quintet that is so awe-inspiring. I think it’s the way they have such a deep shared concept which allows them to improvise in a meaningful way.”

“Pull It Up” is really a concept that is at the core of the band,” Granfelt explains. “It’s sort of about magic, sort of about will, sort of about self-love. It’s a concept based in the idea that things are already where they need to be, and it’s about unearthing what is already there as opposed to creating something ‘new’.”

Directed by Isaac Calvin and Seth Calvin, the accompanying video draws on the song’s overarching theme of digging deep, being persistent and staying humble. The video features Granfelt doing useful but mundane tasks: pulling nails out of a board, washing dishes, tying knots and so on. Towards the end f the video, Granfelt builds a shrine, but the offerings aren’t high quality of expensive; rather, they’re scuffed up, well-worn items including roadside flowers, cigarette butts, trinkets, tchotchkes and knick-knacks.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of their first two albums’ 2020’s All News Is Good News and Daylight Savings, the Melbourne, Australia-based instrumental, jazz-funk outfit Surprise Chef — Lachlan Stuckey (guitar), Jethro Curtin (keys), Carl Lindberg (bass), Andrew Congues (drums) and their newest member, Hudson Whitlock (percussion, composition and production) — quickly amassed a fanbase internationally, while establishing their self-proclaimed “moody shades of instrumental jazz-funk” sound, which draws from 70s film scores, the samples that form hip hop’s foundations and jazz fusion and jazz funk.

But while inspired by the sounds of the past, the Aussie outfit actively push the boundaries of instrumental soul and funk with an approach honed by countless hours in the studio, studying the masters, and perhaps more importantly, “the tyranny of distance” that helps create a unique perspective to their work.

The band was limited in the fact that there weren’t many people making or even talk ing about instrumental jazz/soul/funk in Southeast Australia, let alone putting out records. And as a result, this gave the band an opportunity to develop their sound and approach in a sort of creative isolation, where a small circle of friends and like-minded musicians fed off each other.
Being in Australia, being so far away, we only get glimpses and glances of this music’s origins,” Surprise Chef’s Lachlan Stuckey says. “But hearing a label like Big Crown was one of the first times we realized you could make fresh, new soul music that wasn’t super retro or just nostalgic.” 

The Aussie outfit’s third album Education & Recreation is slated for an October 14, 2022 release through Big Crown Records. Their Big Crown Records debut sees the band putting their unique sound and approach on full approach. Education & Recreation‘s latest single “Money Music” is a strutting and funky pimp walk of a composition featuring an expansive arrangement consisting of skittering breakbeats, twinkling key and vibraphone, a sinuous and propulsive bass line paired with a wah wah pedaled guitar that ends with a dreamy fade out.

Sonically, “Money Music” strikes me as a slick, mischievous, and self-assured synthesis of Polymood and Sauropoda-era L’Eclair, old school hip-hop breakbeat compilations and jazz funk within a mind-bending twisting and turning song structure with rapid tempo changes.

The Aussie jazz funk band will be embarking on their first North American tour this October. The tour includes a stop at this year’s Desert Daze and an October 13, 2022 stop at The Sultan Room. Check out the rest of the tour dates below.

Surprise Chef Tour Dates

Oct 1-2 – Lake Perris, CA – Desert Daze

Oct 4 – Zebulon – Los Angeles, CA

Oct 5 – Bottom of the Hill – San Francisco, CA

Oct 7 – Star Theater – Portland, OR

Oct 8 – Fox Cabaret – Vancouver, BC

Oct 9 – Barboza – Seattle, WA

Oct 13 – Sultan Room – Brooklyn, NY

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Steve Terry Project is a Denver-based jazz/jazz-fusion/funk outfit. The band’s latest single “Hot Mess Express” is a a loose and laid back track seemingly drawing from 70s funk and jazz fusion centered around a bluesy and soulful horn line, twinkling organ, sinuous bass lines, bursts of retro-futuristic synths, rolling percussion placed within an expansive and improv-driven composition featuring a explosive peaks and meditative valleys. The composition also manages to be spacious enough for each musician to take the metaphorical wheel, catch the song’s funky groove and jam out.

Written during a caffeinated drive across Georgia and South Carolina, Terry found himself humming the bass line, connecting its repetitious nature to the seemingly endless sameness of trees, road, highway sign, trees, road, highway sign, sky. The composition’s horn line is meant to represent the stop and start nature of breaks in the trees — or a new landmark approaching. The track is also heavily influenced by the Grant Green standard “Jan Jan,” as Terry recalls having just performed it at an open jam prior to recording “Hot Mess Express.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy (Belated) 75th Birthday, Carlos Santana!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Carlos Santana’s 75th birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 96th Birthday, Miles Davis!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms belatedly celebrates the 96th anniversary of Miles Davis’ birth.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Brooklyn-Based Jazz Fusion Outfit Kolumbo Shares a Trippy Groove-driven Homage to Imperial Bikers MC

For the Dallas-born, Brooklyn-based composer, arranger, keyboardist and bandleader Frank LoCrasto, beach culture has held a certain, tropical mystique — despite growing somewhere completely landlocked. Family trips documented on camcorder, featuring slinky jazz-fusion soundtracks are etched into LoCrasto’s memory. So it shouldn’t be surprising that in his mind, there will always be a fantasyland with wicker furniture, pristine beaches, swaying palm trees, the smell of vanilla-scented suntan lotion, cerulean blue skies and clean, aqua blue water.

The Dallas-born, Brooklyn-based composer has released four solo albums, recorded music for three feature length plums and has songs appear in 2014’s Obvious Child and the HBO series How to With John Wilson. Additionally, LoCrasto has toured and recorded with Cass McCombs, Grateful Shred, Pat Martino, Jeremy Pelt, James Iha, Parquet Courts, Fruit Bats, Nicholas Payton, Greg Osby, Okkervil River, and Wallace Roney. 

As the leader of tropical, jazz-fusion outfit Kolumbo, LoCrasto creates dreamy musical locales seemingly inspired by his fond memories and his imagination. Kolumbo’s full-length debut Gung-Ho is slated for a June 29, 2022 release through the Allah-Las‘ label, Calico Discos. The eight-song album reportedly conjures the lush sounds of symphony 1950s and 1960s exotica and jazz-pop orchestral albums recorded in Capitol Records‘ studios. The album’s title speaks to the herculean task of producing an album with songs averaging 11 musicians per track during a pandemic.

Gung-Ho‘s first single, the trippy and strutting “Imperial Bikers MC” is a centered around a staggered and arpeggiated Rhodes, squiggling guitars, spacey synth bursts, tropical percussion, a soulful flute line paired with a sumptuous and funky groove. While evoking memories of lazy, summer days at the beach with a cold beer, sonically the track reminds me of L’Eclair and Mildlife, who also specialize in a similar brand of funk, rooted in mind-bending grooves.

The song is a loving homage to the Imperial Bikers MC motorcycle club, who have proudly called Crown Heights home for the past 40+ years. “About 15 years ago I used to work at a scooter repair shop in Brooklyn and also rode motorcycles around the city. As a result, I befriended many bikers and fell in love with the culture,” LoCrasto explains. “Probably the best celebration of riding I came across is the annual bike blessing, a rally hosted by Imperial Bikers MC, an African American motorcycle club located in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. There’s hundreds of bikers from all over the tri state area that get together to show off their bikes and wish one another a safe season. The song is an homage to them and their community service for the past 40+ years.”

The accompanying video by Robin Macmillan begins with features footage of the Imperial Bikers MC motorcycle club riding their bikes and quickly turns into a trippy affair: we see a sunglasses and track suit-clad LoCrasto playing a Roland piano and grooving over 70s and 80s styled computer-generated graphics and through the visual representation of a ‘shroom trip.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Happy 82nd Birthday, Herbie Hancock!

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Herbie Hancock’s 82nd birthday.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: BADBADNOTGOOD Shares Cinematic and Trippy Visual for Meditative “Open Channels”

Acclaimed Toronto-based jazz outfit BADBADNOTGOOD — currently founding members Chester Hansen (bass), and Alexander Sowinski (drums) with Leland Whitty (sax) — have received attention internationally for jazz-based interpretations of hip-hop tracks, which have allowed them to collaborate with  Kendrick Lamar, Tyler The Creator, Earl Sweatshirt, Denzel Curry, Danny Brown, Mick Jenkins, Ghostface Killah and others — and for a sound and compositional approach that draws from hip-hop, electronica, jazz, acid jazz and prog rock.

Founded by Hansen, Sowinski and Matt Taveres, BADBADNOTGOOD can trace some of its origins to its founders’ mutual love of MF Doom and Odd Future: The band wrote and played a composition based on Odd Future’s music for a panel of their jazz performance instructions, who unsurprisingly didn’t believe the composition had much musical value. Instead of listening to their instructions, the Canadian outfit released the composition as “The Odd Future Sessions, Part 1.”

“The Odd Future Sessions, Part 1” eventually caught the attention of Tyler the Creator, who helped the video go viral. Building upon rapidly growing buzz, the members of BADBADNOTGOOD followed up with their full-length debut, 2011’s BBNG, which featured interpretations of A Tribe Called Quest, Waka Flocka Flame and of course, Odd Future. The band also recorded a live jam session with Tyler The Creator in Sowinski’s basement, with videos from the sessions amassing more than a million views each.

Their sophomore album, 2012’s BBNG2 was recorded over a course of a ten-hour studio session. Featuring guest spots from Leland Witty (saxophone) and Luan Phung (electric guitar), the album was a mix of their own original material, as well as renditions of songs by Kanye West, My Bloody Valentine, James Blake, Earl Sweatshirt and Feist. That year, the band was the official Coachella Festival house band, backing Frank Ocean and Odd Future over the course of its two weekends.

Their third album, 2013’s III featured “Hedron,” which was featured on the compilation Late Night Tales: Bonobo. That year, they also assisted with the composition and production of The Man with the Iron Fists soundtrack. 

The Canadian outfit’s fourth album, 2015’s Sour Soul saw them collaborate on Ghostface Killah on an effort that has been described as a hip-hop album that nodded heavily at jazz. They ended the year with covers of a handful of holiday standards, including “Christmas Time Is Here” with Choir! Choir! Choir!

Leland Whitty joined the band as a full-time member in early 2016, and the band quickly went to work producing “Hoarse” off Earl Sweatshirt’s full-length debut Doris and “GUV’NOR,” a remix, which appeared on JJ DOOM’s Keys to the Kuffs (Butter Edition). Capping off a busy year, they released their fifth album, the somewhat ironically titled IV, which featured Future Islands’ Sam Herring, Colin Stetson, Kaytranada, Mick Jenkins and JOVM mainstay Charlotte Day Wilson. The album was released to critical acclaim and was named BBC Radio 6’s #1 album of the year.

BADBADNOTGOOD’s Talk Memory was released late last year through XL Recordings. Composed in conjunction with legendary Brazilian composer Arthur Verocai, the album features guest spots from Karriem Riggins, Laraaji, Terrace Martin, and a list of others. More so than on their previously released material, Talk Memory sees the acclaim act capturing the focus, energy and improvisation at the heart of their live show on wax.

For the acclaimed Canadian band, a song is a living, breathing entity that naturally changes and evolves as it’s played in different settings. The album’s material plays with that thinking. After years of relentless touring, the band took a pause and looked back at their collective history and experiences before they started out on Talk Memory‘s creative process. At the heart of their new creative approach is a sense of reflection and renewed communication. That, interestingly enough, led to the album’s title.

While much of their earliest released material often took place quickly, the members of BADBADNOTGOOD took on a more deliberate, intentional approach: The album was written over a two year period, with the Toronto-based act expanding upon the album’s material in the studio, rather than on the road.

Last year, I wrote about album single “Beside April,” an expansive and breathtakingly gorgeous composition with a mind-bending and expressive guitar solo in a song that’s one-part jazz fusion, one part Boogarins-like psych rock with a widescreen, cinematic film score. Previously, only available on physical copies of Talk Memory, album single “Open Channels” was recently made available on streaming services with an accompanying visual directed by Sylvain Chaussée.

“Open Channels” is a meditative and expansive, Giant Steps meets Live at the Village Vanguard era Coltrane composition centered around twinkling Rhodes, Whitty’s expressive and mournful sax lines, Sowinski’s delicate drumming. Play this one, close your eyes and reflect on beauty in an ugly and mad world.

As for the video, the mostly black and white visual that begins with the band carrying their instruments through a snow-covered forest before switching to the band performing the song in a bare studio and some trippy footage of the individual members standing in front of psychedelic projections.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Throwback: Black History Month: Herbie Hancock

JOVM’s William Ruben Helms celebrates Black History Month — and pays tribute to the legendary Herbie Hancock.

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Acclaimed Melbourne-Based Act Mildlife Performs “Citations” on South Channel Island

2017 was a breakthrough year for the now-acclaimed Melbourne-based outfit Mildlife — multi-instrumentalists Jim Rindfleish, Adam Halliwell, Kevin McDowell and Tom Shanahan: Their full-length debut Phase, a mind-bending mix of jazz, krautrock and trippy grooves quickly became a word-of-mouth sensation among open-minded DJs and crate-diggers searching for that perfect, as-of-yet undiscovered-but-incredible beat. Their emergence — and their profile — was solidified by some extensive touring that demonstrated a loose-limbed live approach that thrilled and won over new fans, including the BBC’s Gilles Peterson.

By the end of 2017, the album received critical praise from  Resident Advisor, Uncut,and The Guardian, as well as airplay on BBC Radio 6. Adding to a growing profile, the album landed a handful of award nominations including Best Album at the 2018 Worldwide FM Awards,  Best Independent Jazz Album at the 2018 AIR Awards and Best Electronic Award nomination and win at the The Age Music Victoria Awards. DJ Harvey also included album track “Magnificent Moon” on his Pikes compilation Mercury Rising, Vol. II.

The Melbourne-based quartet have also opened for Stereolab, JOVM mainstays King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and Harvey Sutherland. Their first national headlining tour was sold out, and they immediately followed up with a ten-date UK and European tour, which was culminated with a homecoming set at Meredith Music Festival.

Mildlife released their sophomore album Automatic through Heavenly Recordings late last year. The album, which debuted at #10 on the Aussie charts, saw the band crafting much more danceable material, centered around tightly structured arrangements that allow room for melodic improvisation paired with ethereal vocals. Interestingly, the album manages to further cement the Aussie outfit’s approach and reputation for effortlessly gliding between live performance and studio songwriting. Capping off the year, Automatic won an ARIA Award for Best Jazz Album.

Unable to play shows in person and in front of living, breathing, sweating and dancing humans, the mebmers of Mildlife travelled by boat to a long-abandoned 19th Century island fort on South Channel Island to play for fairy penguins and abalone poachers.

The end result: Live from South Channel Island, a 70 minute concert film and live album, in which the band recreate their live show while framed by Port Philip Bay. Live from South Channel Island is slated for an April 29, 2022 release through Heavenly Recordings/[PIAS] — and the band shared the album’s first single, an expansive live rendition of the Wish You Were Here era Pink Floyd meets jazz fusion-like “Citations,” which appears on Automatic. Of course, the accompanying live footage is at simultaneously eerie and jaw-dropping.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Tony Glausi Releases a Funky New Bop Paired with Sultry Visuals

Portland, OR-born, New York-based musician Tony Glausi is an accomplished jazz trumpeter. But with his latest full-length effort EVERYTHING AT ONCE, which has already seen praise from Soulbounce, Under the Radar, Sonofmarketing, NYS Music, Earmilk, American Songwriter and Ghettoblaster, Glausi steps out into the spotlight as a bandleader, producer and singer/songwriter, boldly pushing his sound and approach into new directions with the album’s material drawing from pop, R&B and funk. “Coming out of high school and studying music in college, I was pretty fixated on jazz trumpet playing, and my earlier releases were heavily oriented around improvisation and swing,” Glausi explains in press notes. “But as I continue to write and explore new sounds, I feel like I get closer and closer to my true voice, one record at a time.”

Sonically, the album is much like a mixtape to the Portland-born, New York-based musician’s life, as a result of his willingness to try anything. But thematically, the album is quintessentially a New York album, full of the places, random faces and random interactions that you’d fully expect here. “The album is literally a two year snapshot of my life. Each story is like a scene from a film, or I guess 10 different films” Glausi says.

“Writing EVERYTHING AT ONCE, I felt like the project wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about Tony, the trumpet player. I just wanted to make fucking songs,” Glausi explains. “I sing on three of them, but I just wanted to produce the music and ultimately let my collaborators shine,” he adds. The album features guest spots from vocalist/saxophonist Braxton Cook, Latin Grammy-nominated artist Nana Mendoza Brooklyn-based vocalist Elysse, British vocalist Max Milner and emcee Charlemagne the Goddess.

EVERYTHING AT ONCE‘s latest single “Backseat Bump” is a slinky, late night funky jam centered around buzzing bass synths, wobbling bass lines, squiggling guitars, soulful cooing from Nana Mendoaz and a strutting trumpet solo from Glausi. Sonically, the track is one part Dam-Funk, one part Future Shock era Herbie Hancock — while being something that just exudes New York flavor.

The recently released video by Evan Hansen follows Morgan Bryant and Glausi on a wild day and night out on the town, with the incredibly attractive pair goofing off and being a carefree young couple, hooking up in the backseat of a cab.