Sunday, 23 June 2024

Gary Thomas • The Kold Kage

R E P O S T

 

The struggle is apparent on saxophonist and composer Gary Thomas' 1991 album, The Kold Cage, reissued in 2004 as part of label auteur Stefan Winter's remastering of his JMT label titles. Thomas is a consummate tenor man and flutist. His frustration with what had become standard jazz discourse in light of the new, influential (very narrow-minded) traditionalism ushered in a decade earlier by Wynton Marsalis and cultural conservative Stanley Crouch is obvious here. Thomas employs everything from turntables to electric guitars, synthesizers, and even rap to combat the stasis, while remaining a jazz player. From his knotty forceful compositions "Threshold" and "Gate of Faces," which open the album, Thomas engages extrapolated notions of jazz harmonics and contrapuntal considerations while relying heavily on electronic keyboard textures, and electric guitars (courtesy of Kevin Eubanks and Paul Bollenback) to stretch the margin of that engagement. But on "Intellect," the tension cracks and splinters. Here Thomas' flute and saxophone are shored up by pianist Mulgrew Miller's funky modal statements while rapper Joe Wesson pops along the synth basslines and indicts everything around him in old-school Sugarhill style -- likewise on "Infernal Machine," where Michael Caine's synths paint an off-kilter basis for baseline rhythms to underscore and jump off of. Wesson's tough street rap about faltering neighborhoods, dope, and the strength of the "black mind" introduces a chillingly futuristic series of overdubbed horn lines in the gaps. And on it goes for the rest of the hour, feinting and darting before active confrontation with the myth and magic of jazz in an attempt to make it speak outside of its historical truth and into the current cultural one. It's an exhausting but compelling and rewarding listen. It messes with those classicists in a big way by sitting on their shoes while, at the same time, pulling the tradition into the current vernacular for its validation and assertion as popular music. Far from academic, this is fire-breathing music, one that forces not only confrontation but, from any open-minded music listener, a reexamination of the jazz terrain as a once, present, and future music.
Thom Jurek

1. Threshold
2. Gate Of Faces
3. Intellect
4. Infernal Machine
5. The Divide
6. Peace Of The Korridor
7. First Strike
8. Beyond The Fall Of Night
9. The Kold Kage
10. Kulture Bandits (To Be Continued)


Gary "GTX" Thomas
tenor saxophone, flute, synthesizers, and rap vocals (7,9,10)
 
Joe "BMW" Wesson • rap vocals (3,4,7)
Kevin Eubanks • guitar (1,3,6)
Paul Bollenback • guitar, guitar synthesizers (2,5)
Mulgrew Miller • piano (2,7)
Tim Murphy • piano, synthesizers (3,4,5,9)
Anthony Perkins • synthesizers (8,10)
Michael Caine • piano, synthesizers (1,6)
Anthony Cox • acoustic bass
Dennis Chambers • drums
Steve Moss • percussion

Produced Stefen F. Winter


 
 
Label: 1991 JMT/Polygram 849 151-2
Format: 320
Country: US
Released: 1991
Genre: Jazz
Style: Jazz Fusion

Saturday, 22 June 2024

Akure Wall ‎• Afromorph Text

R E P O S T

 
 Born in Nigeria to a Nigerian mother and an British father, vocalist and poet Akure Wall structure was raised in London and gained recognition performing being a spoken word artist on the poetry circuit. Her work highlighted cultural injustice and acts as politics commentary. In 1996, Wall contributed “THE ONLY PATH Is Down” towards the Audium Capsule, Vol. 1 compilation. 3 years afterwards, she released the record Afromorph Text message through the Freakstreet imprint, support her phrases with loops, examples, and live globe music instrumentation. She has a successful modelling career. 

 

1. The Only Way Is Down


2. Defying The Linear

Oye Mealor • Vocals
Margaret Wall • Vocals
Michael Kwesi Graves • Vocals
Richard Olatunde Baker • Talking Drum

3. Come See


4. Someone

Julia Palmer • Cello

5. Oyindamola

Richard Olatunde Baker • Talking Drum

6. Travelling Throug


7. Lullaby Ganesh


8. Superniggasoulsista


9. Merman


10. Cold Storage

Keziah Jones • Guitar


11. Sticky


12. Umbrella

 




Produced by
Akure Wall, Michael Kwesi Graves, Richard Olatunde Baker,
Femi Sanyaolu, Danny Gee


 
 
Label: Freakstreet ‎– FSCD0007
Format: 320
Country: Europe
Release: 1997
Genre: Funk / Soul, Non-Music
Style: Poetry, Downtempo

Friday, 21 June 2024

James Chance RIP


 

James Chance
                                                              1953 • 2024