St Petersburg, Russia

Saturday 15 Dec was spent DJing at the Shingaling party with Chakster in St Petersburg, Russia. I was there a few years ago and it was a blast, this one was great too! Here are some pics from 2005, and here's a video from this one just gone:

SOUL SPECTRUM

The album won't be out until Jan 2013 but we did a little 'launch' party up in Edinburgh at the weekend to give everyone a taster as to what it's all about. Fryer had the good sense to record the whole thing, and with tunes from Fryer, myself and Ian Wright it's a MUST LISTEN!

Check it out here

Jukebox Mambo 6x10" Set

Corrr!!! Available on our website now!

Interview on iCrates

Here's a short interview they did with me on iCrates - click here

We talk about Jazzman in general and our Spiritual Jazz albums in particular.

Label Love Vol. 5: The Jazz Edition

We're well chuffed to have not one but two tracks featured in the new and highly respected Label Love Mix. Hope you enjoy :)

Label Love Vol. 5: The Jazz Edition

http://labelloveworldwide.bandcamp.com/album/label-love-vol-5-the-jazz-edition

 

Tracklisting:

1. Menagerie - The Chosen (Tru Thoughts Recordings)

2. Sara Mitra - April Song (Impossible Ark Records)

3. Matthew Halsall - Fletcher Moss Park (Gondwana Records)

4. Greg Foat - Girl and Robot with Flowers Pt 5 (Jazzman Records)

5. Ivo Neame - American Jesus (Edition Records)

6. Nostalgia 77 & The Monster - The Taxidermist (Tru Thoughts Recordings)

7. Kahil El'Zabar's Ethnics feat. Nona Hendryx - It's Time (Katalyst Entertainment)

8. Troyka - Rarebit (Edition Records)

9. Dwight Trible - Hyku For Peace / Come Ye (Katalyst Entertainment)

10. Gizmo - Red Balloon (Revive Music Group)

11. Allsopp, Vosloo, Stanley, Giles - Like Someone In Love (Impossible Ark Records)

12. That's Why - Udoyeleg (Jazzman Records)

13. The Golden Age Of Steam - Waffle Throne (Basho Records)

14. Examples Of Twelves - Please Hold (Part 2) (Impossible Ark Records)

15. Kit Downes - Skip James (Basho Records)

New Jazzman Radio Show

Recorded 4 October and online at NTS Radio by clicking here

Orsi is with us as usual, and Dom Stone from Fat City drops by with some of his favourite tunes. Expect to hear modal jazz, female popcorn, modern soul, RnB bangers etc etc and another new tune from the forthcoming album from the Greg Foat Group!

The Greg Foat Group - Girl and Robot with Flowers

Here's some footage of 'Girl and Robot with Flowers Pt 1' being recorded in Sweden. Due for release as part of a 10" EP soon, with the full album out early December 2012.

The 10" will be ready soon, all with hand-printed and hand-numbered sleeves. Just 1000 are being made. Here's a pic of them hanging out to dry at the printing facility in Scotland:

Here's another track from the LP, this time the title track:

JUKEBOX MAMBO!

There'll be more fireworks than usual this year as Nov 5th sees the release of 'Jukebox Mambo', our new compilation of vintage Rumba Blues and Mambo R&B crossover from the 1950s. We're holding a big album launch party / warehouse fiesta on Sat. Nov 10th with 4 live acts, guest DJ's and all sorts..

To get you in the mood, here's a selection that taps into the sound of the LP and the night - Blues with a Rumba beat, Mambo tie-ins and even some straight Afro-Cuban sounds, along with a little Caribbean Calypso and Pachuco Bop!

 CLICK HERE

*included on the 'JUKEBOX MAMBO' CD/2LP/Special Ltd 6 x 10" Book Set
**Bonus track only on the ltd 6 x 10" Book Set

JUKEBOX MAMBO Lp Launch
Sat Nov. 10th
New Empowering Church
1A Westgate St, Hackney E8 3RL
9 til 3

Feat. LIVE:
NATTY CONGEROO & his FLAMES OF RHYTHM
BRASS VOLCANOES
TRIO FAROUCHE
LUNA ROSA

DJs: SOPHISTICATED SAVAGE, LIAM LARGE, JAZZMAN GERALD, SNAKESTER

Advance Tickets are £8.00 and can be bought HERE

Gilles Peterson BBC Radio 6

Gilles was very kind enough to invite me onto his show this Saturday just gone, we had a good chat about Jazzman etc, and played some music from the Spiritual Jazz 3 album, the forthcoming That's Why album and a few soul 45s. Be quick if you want to listen, expires on 15 Sept 2012!

CLICK HERE

Spiritual Jazz 3

Just taken delivery of the latest volume of this, due for release on 3 September. The theme is 'Esoteric, Modal and Spiritual European Jazz', just like it was on Vol 2, so if you like that then you'll love this!

Track list as follows, sound available here:

A1	Jef Gilson	Untitled
A2	Hermann Gehlen	Kyrie
A3	Palle Mikkelborg	Mongolia
A4	Michel Roques	Le Temps
A5	Babs Robert	Pro Forma I
B1	That's Why	Udoyeleg
B2	Binder Quintet	Vasvirág
B3	Crescendo Quintet	Variations on the Azerbajian Mugam ‘Chargiakh’
B4	Dusko Goykovic	Macedonian Fertility Dance
B5	Albert Mangelsdorff	Sakura Waltz
C1	Yoki Freund	Aisha
C2	Jan Allan	Odins Oga
C3	Dennis Wiley	Barrio Chino
C4	Full Moon Ensemble	Samba Miaou
D1	Louis Xavier	Suite
D2	Antithesis	Haze's Dance

Double LP and CD with 24-page booklet out on 3 September 2012.

Jazzman Missed Radio Show

The NTS Radio show didn't go up as scheduled last week, so here is a link in case you missed it. I was away so Orsi filled in, but I pre-recorded an hour's worth beforehand. Enjoy!


Jazzman Radio Show on Mixcloud

The Other Side - with Jazzman Gerald

July 21 at the Bedroom Bar, Shoreditch, London

Heavy Sugar - Friday 29 June with Jazzman Gerald

A date for your diary - Friday June 1 is the launch of our Fat City Website with a sleek all-new design for the webshop. Similar design to follow for Jazzman, give us a few more weeks to test the beta and we'll be there!

In the meantime get yourself down to Floripa on 1 June for a night of cool music and fun with myself, Chris Read, Hint Orsii and TomE.

New Jazzman Monthly Online Radio Show

Our new regular monthly radio show WHAT IS WRONG WITH GROOVIN' started on 19 April and will be broadcast live at 4pm UK time on NTS at various dates to be announced....!

Listen online now!


Orsi and I will be playing all kinds of stuff including up-coming releases on our labels; also modal jazz, ethnic jazz, latin jazz, popcorn, funk, tittyshakers, moldie oldies, RnB, cumbia, ska, northern soul, oddities and obscurities from the '50s to the '90s that are interesting and fun! Here's a tracklist from Show #1:


Intro – Unknown

Vijay Iyer Trio - Mystic Brew Trixation Version

Bobby Jackson - Desiree Song

Andrew Wartts - Rich Man Poor Man

Ola V Harper - I Wanna Keep

Barbara Lynne - Movin on a Groove

Barbara King - What I Did in the Street

Hilton Felton - Bee Bop Boogie

Owen Marshall - Evolove

Unknown - unknown

Frank Foster - Samba Blues

Faye Adams - The Hammer

Diane Maxwell - Love Charms

George Barnes - Spooky

Yvonne Baker - Eyes

Joanie Sumers - Why Don't You Do Right

Jeanette Washington - Medicine Man

Michael Garrick - First Born

Michael Garrick - Ursula

Carsten Meinert - Naima

Full Moon Ensemble - Samba Miaou

Azanyah - The One

Salah Ragab - Latino en Cairo

Jewel King - 3x7=21

Hubert Robinson - High Class Woman

Fleamarket Funk

The boys at Fleamarket Funk gave me the Big Ups treatment recently, all has been revealed on their website which you can find here

An interview with Jazzman Gerald

Here's a short interview we did in Lausanne, Switzerland, sometime in December 2011. A nice little chat about Jazzman and what we're all about:

New Record Shelves Build at Jazzman HQ

Like everyone else I try to curb my record buying habits mostly due to space and money but also because it's hard to find the time to listen to them all. I'm ashamed to say I've bought records over a year ago and not got round to listening to them yet. What makes it even harder to appreciate new records as well as the collection is when everything's getting to be a bit of a mess! Up until recently everything's been OK, separate sections for latin, soundtracks and library and everything else lumped in A-Z. But I've become lazy recently due to time and space constraints and not filing things properly, and stuff has accumulated, stuff that I want/don't want/need to file/need to listen to/need to upgrade all getting piled up together. Some records have been stashed in such a way that I can't get to stuff that I want access to.

So having had this on my mind for some time, last weekend I finally got something sorted that I have wanted for many, many years... record shelving like the ones you get in a record shop!

Here's the set up before we got started. These were custom built shelves made out of 18mm plywood a few years back. As you can see, records and CDs littering the floor prevent access to the lower shelves:

And random piles were starting to accumulate:

It wasn't THAT badly organised, but you can see it did need a revamp. This was a great opportunity to build some new shelves like in a record shop where I could flick through records and actually see the covers. It also means no more "sideways crooked neck soreness" and no more records and plastic sleeves sticking out which I personally can't stand!

So the first thing we had to do was remove all the records:

The bottom part of the shelving was going to be retained because front facing shelving takes up so much space. The idea was to put as many records as I can in the front facing record bins, and everything else underneath, filed sideways as before. So the top two shelves got sawn off (that's my mate Alan helping out, I'm useless at woodwork and no way could have done this on my own):

So here we are with the top shelves removed:

We also took some of the lower shelves apart so we could have some space for the floorstanding speakers to fit and to make it all work a bit better:

The lower shelves were moved forward into the room. Then a horizontal rail was placed along the wall and fixed into place with screws and glue, and onto this a new sheet of plywood was placed:

The horizontal sheets went flush from the wall at one end right to the other so it was like a continuous table top. Then it was time to start making the bins which were made out of 9mm plywood with the edges curved off:

Nearly done now, 16 bins in total, each holding about 200 LPs:

Here you can see the spaces we made to put the two floorstanding speakers:

We also built a shelf above to put my collection of 45s boxes, and under that a rail on which to display some LPs:

And here we are, pretty much done, ready for sanding, finishing, and painting:

I didn't bother painting the lower shelves again as we were working at the weekend, running out of time, and I needed it all finished so we could work on the Monday. So just the record bins got done, with an ebony woodstain. I don't mind the shabby chic look on the shelves anyway. Here we are with the speakers installed:

And after having cleaned up a bit, ready for the records to go on!

Finished, and records on at last! No more mess! I can flick through the records just like in a record shop and enjoy the cover art and it's brought a whole new lease of life to the collection. It took a couple of days but if anyone has the space and desire to do this what are you waiting for?!

Gigi Campi

As far as I'm concerned the best jazz group that ever graced this planet was the Clarke-Boland Sextet. Comprised of both European and American musicians, their heyday was in the '60s and their recorded output amounted to no more than a few LPs and 45s. Unlike many of their contemporaries, whose music could often sound dull and like hard work, their small group jazz was always done in impeccable taste, with rhythm and swing, and a sense of togetherness and fun.


The man behind this band was Gigi Campi. He was the guy who put the band together and arranged their live and studio dates. He was the organiser, the motivator, the driving force. In the face of all kinds of logistical and financial hurdles, his passion for music was the sole reason behind his superhuman efforts to get the music out there.


Gigi Campi passed away on 6 January 2010, so on this anniversary I've made a mix of some of his productions. Not all the songs are from the Clarke-Boland Sextet, some are from related records too, namely some of those by individuals like Sahib Shihab, Fats Sadi and Johnny Griffin; and of course the Clarke-Boland Big Band. Anyway, the mix is on the link below, as well as an excellent article from Lander Lenaerts.

A Tribute To Gigi Campi 1928 - 2010 by Laid Back on Mixcloud

Jazzman Gerald DJ Set

Here's part of a DJ set that I did in Lausanne, Switzerland in Dec 2011. Usually these things go unrecorded and we're just left with drunken memories of what went on, but Phil and the guys did a good job and recorded about an hour's worth of what was a 2 hour set of rockin' RnB, popcorn, titty, RnR, funk, jazz and there's even a bit of latin soul in there to an enthusiastic and packed house!


Here's the link, tracklist is below:


An hour of fun

Buddy Rich - The Beat Goes On

Merced Blue Notes - Rufus Jr

Ruth Brown – As Long as I’m Moving

Ken Jones – Chicken Pot Pie

Big Danny Oliver - Sapphire

Royal Jesters - You Tickle Me Baby

Cyclones – Bullwhip Rock

Betty James – A Little Mixed Up

Shakespears - Summertime

Dave Phillips - Tainted Love

Ella Fitzgerald – These Boots Are Made for Walking

Ric Gary - Pimples & Braces

Joe Swift – Bell Bottoms

Ron Andrea – If It’s Lovin’ You Want

Towanda Barnes - If I’m Guilty

Zuzu Blues Band – Zu Zu Man

Isonics - Sugar

Ronnie Love - Chills & Fever

Jerry Lee Lewis - Hit the Road Jack

Marie Knight - I Thought I Told You Not To Tell Him

Jo Ann Henderson - Baby Please Don’t Go

Earl Grant - Fever

The Champs – Clubhouse

Chuck Rio - Margherita

Little Johhnny Taylor - Somewhere Down the Line