The second track to be taken from Zara McFarlane’s showstopping third album Arise, “Pride” is a tightly tuned, rhythmic waltz, matching killer jazz chops with pitch-perfect, standout vocals. Building up to a blowout crescendo, it sees Moses Boyd on drums sparring with Binker Golding’s tenor sax. This new record sees Zara’s most open-armed embrace of her British-Jamaican heritage, with this track – including a turn on the bass clarinet from Shabaka Hutchings – being part of a broader exploration into the connections between jazz and reggae.
He’s out !! The last Kamasi Washington album, Harmony of Difference, is out !!!
“Harmony of Difference was originally part of a multimedia work that illustrated how forces that seem to be working in opposition could come together as a composite of complex beauty. This was illustrated in the original exhibit by a series of projected paintings (created by artist and Washington’s sister Amani Washington) that were gradually overlaid to form an abstract image of a face. Musically, Washington explores the theme by writing a series of five short pieces that are also folded together into a lengthy, recombinant suite.
That extended piece, called “Truth,” was released earlier this year as part of a short film by director A.G. Rojas (which was also part of the Whitney exhibit). The structure lends a sense of déjà vu, as motifs and riffs and melodies are introduced and then reappear later. Where musical counterpoint was the driving idea for the compositions Harmony also feels like a meditation on memory, association, and vantage point. Hearing it in one sitting is like looking at a sculpture from multiple angles and suddenly the three-dimensional form clicks in your mind and you apprehend the whole.”
Get your copy RIGHT NOW !! And take a few minutes to listen to the track “Perspective” … a fabulous Jazz Funk tune back in the best of the 70’s …
Andra Day covers the iconic song “Strange Fruit.” Originally performed by Billie Holiday in 1939, the song protests lynching, a form of racial terror which took more than 4,000 African American lives and reinforced white supremacy. Most states have no memorials commemorating lynching sites, some of which are featured in this video. Andra, in partnership with the Equal Justice Initiative, sheds light on this difficult history and the ways that racial injustice continues. In order to move forward, we must confront our past.
“Sycamore” tells a lyrical, folk-flavoured tale of complicated love, the lilting voice of singer and songwriter Maralisa Simmons-Cook melding with heavily effected guitars and synths alongside live and digital beats and brass flourishes.
“The story is based on a tumultuous love triangle my dad was thrown into post-college”, she explains; “He told me this story one summer, behind a bar in Brooklyn called Sycamore. It’s a tale of love and betrayal, about trying to win back a lover, and the issues that arose between three best friends”.
“Sycamore” brings an eagerly awaited taste of new music from Space Captain and an upfront glimpse of their first full ‘All Flowers In Time’ album dropping October 27th.
69 Musicology 