Here are a few beautiful pictures from Jan Vandevyver:

José James and Jef Neve

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All pictures © Jan Vandevyver

Moodio.tv also has a video interview online from earlier this year, where you get some more background info on the record.

Four Tet - There Is Love In You

label: Domino
releasedate: January 25^th 2010
cat #: WIGCD254
style: house

Domino releases Four Tet much anticipated new album on January 25. “There Is Love In You” is Kieran Hebden’s fifth album and his first proper full-length in over four years offering nine new gems. Two pre-album singles, Love Cry and Love Cry Remixes are already out including Joy Orbison‘s fantastic retake of the equally great original version. Check FT’s new website for his latest Plastic People Mix and more on this release: www.fourtet.net

Four Tet – Love Cry – Joy Orbison Remix

José James - BLACKMAGIC

label: Brownswood Recordings
releasedate: 1st Feb 2010
cat #: ?
style: jazz

2010 will be the year of José James. After his much loved debut solo album “The Dreamer” released two years ago, he is ready to share his second one called “BLACKMAGIC” produced by the likes of Flying Lotus, Moodyman or Taylor McFerrin. Expect nothing but quality beats with the touch of José’s magical voice. Detroit Loveletter, Touch and Love Conversation are the main highlights. Gilles Peterson‘s website has the full monty on the album including background story plus audio previews. Since Verve Records signed JJ, there is also going to be a special album of jazz standards in duet with pianist Jef Neve called “For All We Know” on Impulse Records around May.

Jose James – Black Magic (Simbad Dub) UNRELEASED by simbad

Silhouette Brown - Two

label: 2000black
releasedate: 8 February, 2010
cat #: ?
style: soul

The first Silhouette Brown album became an instant classic when it came out in 2005. 5 years later Dego, Kaidi Tatham and the mighty Bembe Segue are back with “Two” maintaining the same top quality and soulful vibes now joined by extra US guests like Lady Alma or Sadat X. The Japenese Especial Records will put out the sampler Leave A Note and 2000black is releasing the album in early February. You can follow SB on twitter and 2000black.com is set to be relaunched very soon. Happy New Year to All!

Silhouette Brown – Leave A Note feat Lady Alma

Timo Lassy - Round Two

label: Ricky-Tick
releasedate: November 27th, 2009
cat #: RTCD014/RT033
style: Jazz

Finland’s central sax titan Timo Lassy is here with his second go solo, on the promptly titled ‘Round Two’ album. Interesting jazz albums from Finland have been in good supply over the recent years *duh, I hear you say*, and there is no sign of slowing down anytime soon.

Personally, Lassy’s fist album, “The Soul & Jazz of” had an enormous impact on me, and I don’t exaggerate by saying it’s my favourite of the whole, hyped Ricky-Tick catalogue, and thus perhaps the whole of Finnish jazz output in the past decade. So, it’s obvious that reaching those heights would be anything but easy.

The very core of what made “The Soul & Jazz of” great, is still in place. “Round Two” is again produced by Teppo “Teddy Rok” Mäkynen, this time in co-operation with Lassy himself. Lassy also takes a step towards self-efficacy on the material, as all of the tunes are composed by him. The proven-well band has remained the same, with the addition of Ari Jokelainen to the reeds section.

Some evolution in sound can be heard. The most evident of course is the addition of José James flying in from NY to feature on two vocal tracks (the whole lot was recorded 100% direct in a studio in Helsinki, over three days). The collaboration between the two began on the Nicola Conte album “Rituals” and became incarnate on the Nicola Conte Jazz Combo live setup later.

José James is every bit as solid as his reputation on the opener “The More I Look at You”, which was also released as a 7″, and then he lets even more loose on “Ya Dig”, which some of you might notice to be the instrumental tune of the flipside of that very same single.

Secondly, Timo Lassy steps out of the hard bop idiom to knock on the doors of older and lighter styles on pieces “Fooling Rosetta” and “Buzz Beater Stomp”. This variation is welcome to the overall sound, further proving that he has a voice that is well outside that of TFCQ’s. Even though it’s “swingy”, it still cooks. “Stomp” ends the album with a bang, quite literally.

The rest of “Round Two”, clocking at 42 minutes, is more in the vein of the compositions of the first album. There is the latin-tinged “Shifting Winds” that’s a highlight – “Deeper Into” is on the spiritual side, and then the lone ballad, “Some Love”. The solo spotlight is much locked on Lassy throughout, while the other horns settle to fill.

After listening to this album many times and letting it grow on me, I’m not sure if I recognise the instant hit potential of, say, “Timber Yard”, “Early Move”, or “Skinny Dipping” from TFCQ‘s “Hot Corner”. Only the club dance floors around the world will tell, eventually.

Over the continuing span of success of Ricky-Tick Records and everyone around the phenomenon, much has been discussed about the right of modern jazz’s accessibility rooted on tradition to excel, without always trying to push the limits or be somewhat enigmatic. Even the liner notes address the question. I don’t think we need to be asking this anymore. It’s like what I kept saying to the doubters back in 2005, these guys will hit big. Rosetta may get fooled, but nobody else. Lassy & co. at Ricky-Tick have now, at the latest, proven to the toughest of public that one’s nod to the past isn’t showing one’s rear end to the future. Boy was I glad to be right!

Timo Lassy – Round Two from Ricky-Tick Records on Vimeo.

• Tracklist: The More I Look At You (ft. José James) / Shifting Winds / Ya Dig (ft. José James) / Some Love / Deeper Into / Fooling Rosetta / Backyard Puma / Buzz Beater Stomp
• CD / LP (includes download) / download available through Nov 27th worldwide
• More info: http://www.timolassy.com/new-lp-round-two/

by -Janski- for beyondjazz.net

A big thank you to José James, Jef Neve, Michael Campagna, Neville Malcolm and Richard Spaven for a very special night and thanks to the AB crew for the ability to relive this moment.

Bruno Bollaert (cc)

The first time we saw José James perform was at the gig with Lefto, Marc Mac and Drumlesson in Depot (Leuven), soon after releasing his debut album ‘The Dreamer’ in 2008 that left everybody stunned. Later that month his performance at the Jazz Middelheim festival led to lots of exposure in the local press and was by many considered one of the highlights of that year’s festival season.
Jef Neve invited him to his radioshow Neve (Klara), and that guest performance was breeding ground for 3 more shows to happen. They were brought together on stage for the first time on a night in Brussels’ Ancienne Belgique. That concert got one of Belgiums quality newspapers De Morgen so excited, they gave it a rare five-star-rating.

Neve: “We played the standard Lushlife. Just for fun, no rehearsing. It’s a complex piece of music, but it went so easily. It felt like playing around.” Magic was happening, so they decided to get into the studio together.
Neve: “After that first concert, we recorded some songs in “The Galaxy Studio”, a little studio in Mol. We listened to the recording in the car back home and it was so fresh and sparkling; we both agreed it was the best thing we’ve ever put on tape. I hardly listen to myself, but that moment, I thoroughly enjoyed.”

The recording will be released as the album “For All We Know“. Each track from the album was recorded in one take, “only piano, voice and good acoustics” and features ballads and standards. They didn’t explicitly choose for an album full of jazz standards, though.
James: “The whole idea was a short process, and standards just felt right. And it didn’t actually become just a standard jazz album. Jef plays in his own way.”
Neve: “For me José is a story teller. He really impresses with his own way of sculpting the text and atmosphere of a standard. In fact, for most of the standards, I now only realize what the lyrics are all about.”
James: “Standards are universal. They allow you to tell more. I approach my own compositions in an abstract form, open for the listener to create his own story. A same kind of intimacy can be found in this collaboration.”
The album will be released in the spring of 2010 on Verve Recordings.

Last summer, Gent Jazz was smart enough to program the duo at the 2009 edition, and again they struck a chord. Around that time they confirmed more details about the Coltrane project “Facing East“. Two days from now, we’ll see José realising one of his dreams; scatting to the work of the legendary John Coltrane. Jose and Jef both cite Coltrane as one of their main influences.
James: “I’ve been writing lyrics to Coltrane’s compositions for the past 13 years. I can’t just sing anything, but with Trane’s music it just feels right.”

From an interview with De Morgen more then a year back we knew José James had some plans in this direction.
James: [Answering a question about who his influences were] “Coltrane rewrote the alphabet of jazz, so that’s an example in itself. I’ve even written lyrics for his compositions, but the people who manage his legacy apparently found that sacrilege. A huge disappointment, as my version of ‘Equinox’ was to primarily serve as the basis around which the rest of the record would be constructed. I see it especially as a missed opportunity to introduce a new, younger audience to his music.” But now it is happening!
James: “I’m very thankful for being invited to bring this to the public. I’m doing my very best to make this something very personal and unique.”
Neve: “You see he’s grown up with Coltrane’s music. It’s in his blood. It’s not just about copying Trane’s music, we’re adding our own arrangements. It’s a challenge for both of us.”

The first concert of this series will be on Coltrane’s birthday, 23rd of september. James and Neve will play with a quartet, including the relatively unknown tenor saxophone player Michael Cabana.

Also on the solo front, the coming months will be exciting for the two. Jef Neve has written the score to Belgium’s contender for the oscars De Helaasheid Der Dingen, which will be screening soon. The film recently won the “Prix Art et Essai” at this year’s International Film Festival of Cannes. And José James will release his second solo lp in October. About that album Jose says: “I see my debut lp ‘The Dreamer’ as my love letter to John Coltrane and Billie Holiday. “Blackmagic“, the new one, focuses on todays music, and is an ode to Marvin Gaye. Eclectic, with touches of soul and hiphop.’

Update: (22 sep) On his MySpace blog Jose James shares some more info on tomorrows concert and the upcoming Blackmagic LP.

The show at Ancienne Belgique will be recorded live and some snippets from those recordings might appear on his MySpace soon after. The full line up for the concert is: Michael Campagna on tenor saxophone, Jef Neve on piano, “Level” Neville Malcolm on bass, Richard Spaven on drums and José James on vocals.

Due to additional production needs Blackmagic will be released only in 2010 on Brownswood, and not next month as stated above. The new release date will probably be mid January.

Update (23 sep): Looks like ABconcerts.be will be streaming the concert live. From 8.30PM tonight.

More:

• Facing East at Ancienne Belgique, Brussels (NL)
• Love Is Supreme, at Paradiso, Amsterdam (NL)
• More about Jame’s upcoming album Blackmagic
• MySpace José James

Sources: Jazz Magazine, De Morgen, De Standaard.

The Belgian band Briskey had the honour of opening the second weekend of the Gent Jazz festival, focused on cross-over/fusion acts. But we only got there just when Leela James started. Her job was to get the crowd warmed up with her spicy melange of soul and funk: catchy, but not really remarkable. Her show was a mix of highs and lows, while she tried a little too hard to get everyone involved. The audience loved it though, and the tent was buzzing when the headliner came on stage…

Jamie Lidell came, saw and conquered. In just a handful of years he has managed to evolve from an obscure electronica-wizard to a top-notch mainstream performer. Not that he wasn’t good back then, but he sure gets a lot more attention now – the crowd was huge! Not that surprising considering he has four or five ‘hits’ by now, which the spectators could easily sing along.

He skillfully grasped everyone’s attention and didn’t let go until he left the stage. That alone was an amazing accomplishment, given that the band was incessantly experimenting, with live recorded loops, sampling the audience’s ringtones, freaky voice effects, a customized digital saxophone/vocoder, et cetera. Sonically they went all over the place: pop, funk, hard rock, psychedelica, techno, jazz, you name it. As a true chameleon Jamie perfectly fit in. He clearly enjoyed it himself, and we did even more! Check our video of some footage of the concert.

Jamie Lidell (more pictures below) (© Bruno Bollaert)

July 17 – José James & Jef Neve, Rodrigo Y Gabriela

The second Friday opened with the fourth Belgian concert of José James. The vocalist and composer from NYC is slowly but surely building up a heavy reputation in our country, especially after teaming up with Belgian pianist Jef Neve. The two jazz cats seem to get along quite well, and the organisers were smart enough to program them as a duo again. José and his band, including London’s finest Richard Spaven on drums and Glenn Gaddum on bass, played a couple of songs from the debut album (a.o. Park Bench People) and a cover of Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers’ Moaning. We heard some previews of new work too, presumably from the upcoming album on Brownswood Black Magic. Particularly the rendition of a tune called Stay With Me was excellent, with Jef Neve’s piano solo being among the best things I’ve ever heard live. It was a delight to see how much pleasure José and Jef had on stage. So much chemistry, in fact, that Mr. Spaven and Mr. Gaddum were almost background personas for most of the gig. (Also noting that Spaven’s drum solo wasn’t his best yet, in an otherwise great performance.)

José took the time to really elongate the tracks and freely scat all over the place. (Too much? I thought not.) We found this gig definitely a step up from the previous one we saw at Jazz Middelheim, seeing José perform his songs in an even deeper and more thorough way. Check our video of some footage of the concert.

Later that night the sensational Mexican guitar duo Rodrigo Y Gabriela were the top of the bill. Wielding a lightning fast and marvelous technique the two virtuosos made more than a few jaws drop. Strumming, picking, banging and knocking on the strings and the wood around it, the two forged a sort of flamenco-rock-house sound wall that must be heard to be believed. While there may not have been a lot of progress and variation in their set, it was yet another memorable closing act.

José James (more pictures below) (© Bruno Bollaert)

July 19 – Jamie Cullum

The final day of Gent Jazz was all about the British piano wonder boy Jamie Cullum, but not before some local talent gave it a shot. The HoGent Jazz Orchestra is an occasional formation, consisting of graduates from the HoGent music academy, now active in some well-known local bands. They did a very nice job, playing tunes from Moiano, Earth, Wind And Fire, Jim Cole and other soul and funk classics.

Next up was Lady Linn & Her Magnificent Seven, a Belgian band that has made steady progress over the past years, earning the reputation of solid crowd-gathering festival material. They play swing and big band jazz wrapped in a poppy package – the type that gets your hips shaking and your feet tapping in no time – topped with Linn’s sweet vocal cords. I was pleasantly surprised by their performance!

But as said, the true hero of the night was to be Jamie Cullum, and he did not disappoint. He brought a carefully balanced set with both catchy hits, steamy grooves and unpretentious ballads. There was something for everyone – young and old, connoisseur and newb – and thus he managed to bring jazz to a broader public. Not an easy task.

It was the kind of concert where the band is laughing, making fun and enjoying themselves while actually making damn good music. Which subsequently lead to the audience participating heavily. His sometimes long talks between songs were great and didn’t even pull the tension out of the gig.

Jamie Cullum

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All pictures © Bruno Bollaert

Final notes…

While watching Jamie I realized the Gent Jazz crew had successfully tried to bring not only great musicians on stage, but at the same time great performers and entertainers. The Nina Simone Tribute singers, Jamie Cullum, José James & Jeff Neve, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Jamie Lidell, … they all masterfully entertained the huge audience, which in turn gave a lot of love back.

I’ve never seen so much people at the Gent Jazz festival (it was a record edition), and I truly hope they keep this thing going strong!

You can already listen to some of the new songs BlackMagic, Lay it Down, Beauty or Save Your Love for Me (a cover of Nancy Wilson & Cannonball Adderly version) on his myspace page or alternatively on Beyondjazz radioshow here. The Black Magic got the remix treatments from Simbad and an up & coming UK talent Joy Orbinson. The latter is heavily played by mr Gilles Peterson.

Saxophonist Timo Lassy out of Finland has also teamed up with Jose for his forthcoming single The More I Look At You, check the lovely preview at  www.myspace.com/rickytickrecords His seven-inch will be out in July.

The Friends We Love project shares a special live video here with JJ showcasing his previous and forthcoming stuff:

José James is currently on tour and will be performing live at Gent Jazz Festival tomorrow.

Gent Jazz’s strategy has always been to attract an audience with a couple of big and popular names, and meanwhile introducing some of the lesser known talents. The festival has brought us George Clinton, Soil & Pimp Sessions, Erykah Badu, The Cinematic Orchestra, … so we’d call ourselves regular visitors. In this first festival weekend, we picked the second day with the Brussels Jazz Orchestra, the Fred Hirsh Trio + 2, and the Nina Simone Tribute concert.

The Brussels Jazz Orchestra is a 16+ piece jazz band with excellent musicians, playing the kind of jazz you expect to hear at a standard jazz festival. The concert showcased 4 compositions that made it into the finals of their International Composition Contest. Later that evening a clearly surprised Sakiko Masuda went home with the audience’s as well as the jury’s award.

After a half hour break that our friend, regular Beyondjazz guest and the evening’s dj Christopher filled with a lovely MJ cover track and lots of other of our favorite jazz anthems, the Fred Hirsh Trio + 2 got on stage. (“+ 2” meaning added trumpet and saxophone.) Impressive music by excellent musicians bringing a powerful concert, which is half a miracle considering Fred Hirsh has spent half of 2008 in a coma. (Fred Hirsh has been HIV positive for more then 20 years now.) Where half of the tunes of the band definitely were too technical for me, the other half (coincidentally being the uneven tunes – heh?) did somehow captivate me. Other reviews have indicated this concert as one of the definite highlights so far this year.

Highlight of the night was the Nina Simone tribute concert. Nina’s band leader for 41 years, Al Shackman, started the “Sing The Truth” concept the year Nina died of breast cancer at the age of 71, now 6 years back. The musicians from the original band invited spectacular vocalists like Lizz Wright, Dianne Reeves, Angelique Kidjo and Nina’s daughter Simone Simone to bring us a selection of fantastic songs from Nina Simone’s repertoire.
Mr. Shackman took the time to share stories about how it was to play, tour and live with Nina, and he sure had lots of experiences to tell us about. Maybe a bit too much talk? That, and the fact that every 2 tracks the singer switched, took away some of the flow of the concert. But, luckily, that didn’t prevent magic from happening. Lizz Wright was truly spectacular, and also Dianne Reeves left us stunned with versions of truly classic songs by the high priestess. Inspired versions of “I Put A Spell On You”, “My Baby Just Cares For Me” and “I Loves You Porgy” gave us goosebumps. A tribute night is never the real deal, but with 4 amazing singers like these, this was about as close as you can get to paying honors to the amazing singer Nina Simone was and through her records still is.

Nina Simone tribute: Lizz Wright

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Dutch speaking readers are recommended to check the local news blog Gentblogt, that has a write-up of every single day so far. Author of those is Bruno Bollaert, who’s also sharing a whole bunch of his great photos of the festival – and most other jazz concerts in and around Gent, for that matter.

For the second part, these acts are on the roster on Thursday; Briskey, Leela James and the ever-awesome Jamie Lidell on that first day. For the closing day we hope Jamie Cullum will get us convinced. And on Friday we’re looking forward to the collaboration between Jef Neve and José James.

Jef Neve is a very talented Belgian jazz pianist and composer. With his weekly radio programme on national radio Klara (classical and jazz), he’s also an important taste-maker for the jazz crowd in Belgium, so we’re glad he picked up Beyondjazz favourite José James.
On the tour that Jose James did to promote his debut album, Jef Neve’s show was one of the stops. Those who were there for the live recording, will agree there was an awesome chemistry, when the two young jazz cats played together. Ever since, they kept in touch and decided to share the stage whenever their agendas match. Jef Neve already guested in Jose’s performance at the Ancienne Belgique (Brussels, BE) earlier this year, but we missed that one, so we’re eager to know what they’ll be up to now. On www.jefneve.be we read there’ll be a Coltrane project from the two this autumn. We can only expect the best. Great music on the best sound system we’ve heard ever at a festival. Bring it on!