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We recorded some footage of Jamie Lidell and José James & Jeff Neve at the Gent Jazz festival last week, and made the two videos below. It’s not quite Beyondjazz TV, but a little experiment which we might do more in the future. Part two of our Gent Jazz review is posted here!

Freestyling in summer temperatures again. Some new Ricky-Tick action, some Swedish hip-soul-hop, some bruk breaks, some deep dubstep and some raw house cuts. There’s something for the whole family!

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Gary Bartz – Carnaval De l’Esprit – Capitol
Five Corners Quintet – The Murder – Ricky-Tick
Timo Lassy – The More I Look at You (ft. José James) – Ricky-Tick
Emanative – When On Earth – Futuristica
P’taah – Sun’s Departure – Street King
Dj Cam – Do For Love – Inflammable

Hygher Baby – Intergalactic Love – Circulations
Melo – What Have We Got To Lose – Raw Fusion
Scrimshire – Along Came The Devil One Night – Wah Wah 45s
Unforscene – Dangerous ft. Phil King (Part Time Heroes Remix) – Tru Thoughts
Sarah Linhares – Step Up – Public Transit Recordings
Flytronix – Lava – Far Out

Nicola Kramer – Music Of The Earth – Village Again
Cheek – Venus (Pépé Bradock’s Saucy Precog Remix) – BBE
Rondenion – Storm – Rush Hour
Pépé Bradock – Cu @ Minna & Lafayette – Atavisme
Martyn – For Lost Relatives – Aus Music

Silkie vs Mizz Beats – Purple Love – Deep Medi
Kalbata – Solution ft. Clapper Priest – Soul Jazz
Legends Of The Underground – Anarchite City – Kindred Spirits
Rainer Trüby – To Know You – none
Motor City Drum Ensemble – Raw Cuts # 5 – MCDE
Nicola Kramer – Up To Me – Village Again

PS: There will be now show next week, as it’s Gentse Feesten over here – which means 10 days of beer and avoiding anything productive.

After his great debut album, The Dreamer and various works with Jazzanova, Nicola Conte or Dj Mitsu, New York based vocalist José James has finished his second solo material which will be coming out on Brownswood Recordings in early 2010. The title track Black Magic is produced by the mighty Flying Lotus and other collabs on the new offering are by BiLo, Moodyman, DJ Mitsu the Beats or Taylor McFerrin.

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.

The Gent Jazz Festival in Beyondjazz hometown Gent (Belgium), is taking a few days off as we write this, with Richard Galliano rounding up the first part of the festival last Sunday. The festival formerly known as the Blue Note Festival has always been split into two parts, titled “All That Jazz!” and “All That Jazz?”. The first brings the classic jazz sound, while the second part stages artists that have a more cross-over sound. Trying to avoid genre definitions it boils down to this: the first part’s seated, the second’s not – ha!

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!

Two of my favorite alternative pop/nujazz/whatever bands have released new, free singles lately. First up is Zero 7 with Everything Up (Zizou), a marvelous composition featuring Zero 7’s own Henry Binns on vocals, and Eska on background vocals. It reminds me a lot of their terrific previous album The Garden, and you can download it on their official website. The track will be on the new album Yeah Ghost, to be released on September 7.

1. Count Me Out
2. Mr. McGee
3. Swing
4. Everything Up (Zizou)
5. Pop Art Blue
6. Medicine Man
7. Ghost sYMbOL
8. Sleeper
9. Solastalgia
10. The Road
11. All of Us

The second free tune comes from French synth pop band AIR, and is called Do The Joy. Their sixth (or is it seventh?) studio album Love 2 will come out on October 6. Get the tune for free on aircheology.com.

1. Do The Joy
2. Love
3. So Light Is Her Footfall
4. Be A Bee
5. Missing The Light Of The Day
6. Tropical Disease
7. Heaven’s Light
8. Night Hunter
9. Sing Sang Sung
10. Eat My Beat
11. You Can Tell It To Everybody
12. African Velvet

Three releases covering a broad spectrum of jazz – of which one free!

Dalindèo - Vintage Voyage EP

label: Ricky-Tick
releasedate: June 2009
cat #: RT031

First release from the Finnish formation Dalindèo after their excellent Open Scenes album. They have been touring in 2008, and are now ready to drop their second full length in the fall, on Ricky-Tick of course. This EP is a taster of things to come…

It opens with Willpower (preview on MySpace) featuring the beloved songstress Bajka on vocal duties. It’s a powerful percussive track with great flute and brass arrangements that perfectly underscores her spoken word lyrics. The two other tracks on the EP are classic examples of the typical scandinavian nujazz/bossa for which Ricky-Tick is known: uptempo tunes with lots of variation, strong focus on rhythm, great unisono brass melodies, and all that in perfect bite-size portions. I can’t get enough of it, and I look forward to that new album!

We'll Make It Right - In A Cabin With

label: In A Cabin With
releasedate: June 2009
style: popjazz

In the first week of this year, a bunch of Dutch musicians came together in The Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam and recorded an album. No hassle, just having fun on instruments while leaving the recording running. Probably the most famous of these musicians is Benny Sings, so it comes as no surprise that the whole album sounds a lot like his personal works. It’s less polished though, after all the production wasn’t big budget. It still is a very enjoyable little album though, 9 tracks full of jolly little pop melodies and sweet vocals. And you know the best part of it? It’s a free album. You can go download it now on their website! It’s a no-brainer.

Some Freak, Andreya Triana & Ritornell - The Light EP

label: Wald Entertainment
releasedate: June 2009
cat #: WALD 001

The Light is the result of a jam session by three 2006 Red Bull Music Academy graduates. It’s finally been polished and prepped for release on the new Wald Entertainment label, accompanied by a handful of remixes.

The original is a very eerie and bare piece, with only some percussion, piano and flutes to support Andreya’s whispering lyrics. Dorian Concept adds some slow breaks and a bucket of sound effects, but retains the atmosphere of the original. The last two remixers take a more drastic approach: Patrick Pulsinger pulls the electro card while Orakel do what they do best. You might know Orakel better as Oracle, the Austrian guys from the Comeonfeet! collective who opened our third Beyondjazz compilation in 2006. Now they’re back, about to release their debut album, and they warped the original tune into a wild acoustic broken beat extravaganza. Check it out!

Sacha Williamson (from Toronto, Canada) hasn’t got a whole lot of releases bearing her name so far, but she does have a sweet set of vocal cords. We tracked three tunes to convince you. Next, we also have brand new tunes from Pépé Bradock, AiR, Domu & Atjazz, Zed Bias, Floating Points, Youg David and new albums from Deborah Jordan, SA-RA, Karizma, Soundspecies … Plus, how good are those classics from 2002 by Quintet Plays and Everyday People?!

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AiR – Do The Joy – none
Deborah Jordan – You Could Be Here – Futuristica
Jose James – Lay You Down – none
SA-RA Creative Partners – The Bone Song – Ubiquity
Dj Mitsu The Beats – Ex Lovers ft. Dynamic Duo – Planet Groove
Soundspecies – Moog Jam – Burnt Progress
Young David – Over Again – demo

*** Sacha Williamson triplet
Sacha Williamson – A Better View – DNH
Basic Soul Unit – Breathe ft. Sacha Williamson – Still Music
BitterSuite ft. Sacha Williamson – Sorry – Deepsystems
***
Karizma – Kaytrolude – R2
Pépé Bradock – Path Of Most Resistance – Atavisme
Lizzy Parks – Raise The Roof (Madnuss & Scogil Remix) – Tru Thoughts

Michael Jackson – Thriller (OOFT Music Phazed Edit) – none
Domu ft. Yannah Valdevit – City Madness – Development
Atjazz ft. Yannah Valdevit – Info People (A&D’s Bruk Mush Mix) – Development
Bopstar feat. Zara McFarlane – Desire (Jose Carretas Remix) – Soul Heaven
Everyday People – Simmer Down (House Vox Mix) – Papa

Zed Bias ft McRumpus and Nicky Prince – Neighbourhood 09 – Sidestepper
Quintet Plays – The Chase – Earth
Floating Points – J&W Beat – Planet Mu
Guynamite – Space Elevator – Mukatsuku

Shortcuts will be a regular type of post on Beyondjazz, featuring two or more recent or upcoming releases, kind of like mini-reviews. We kick off with two big names teaming up, and one upcoming name in the scene.

Atjazz, Domu & Yannah Valdevit - City Madness / Info People 12”

label: Development
cat #: DEV002
style: broken beats, house

Development music is the label of the Manchester based party night with the same name, and last year they brought you that funky Zed Bias & Jenna G 12″ with Sound Of Love & Let Me Change Your Mind. This time they’re back with two big shot producers teaming up, and inviting the Croatian vocal chords of Yannah Valdevit – of Eddy meets Yannah.

Domu kicks off with a beautiful broken beat summer anthem, which will go down very well on numerous festival floors. Reminds me a bit of that brand new track by Eddy Meets Yannah, Nostalgic – full on production, strings, horn stabs, catchy melody. Domu is then joined by Atjazz for a 4/4 remix that sounds exactly like how you would expect a Domu-Atjazz liason to sound like.
Atjazz delivers his personal sound on Info People, with the trademark deep bass sounds and synth lines. On the floor dub version he even sprinkles some old school house flavors on top. And finally the two dons team up again for their Bruk Mush mix, a more experimental approach but very enjoyable. All in all a top notch package!

I’m not sure this is the final tracklist, but here goes:

1. Domu ft. Yannah Valdevit – City Madness
2. Domu ft. Yannah Valdevit – City Madness (A&D’s 4 The Summer Remix)
3. Domu ft. Yannah Valdevit – City Madness (Acapella)
4. Domu ft. Yannah Valdevit – City Madness (Instrumental)
5. Atjazz ft. Yannah Valdevit – Info People
6. Atjazz ft. Yannah Valdevit – Info People (A&D’s Bruk Mush Mix)
7. Atjazz ft. Yannah Valdevit – Info People (Atjazz Floor Dub)

Andy Ash - Astro Travellin' EP

label: Universal Vibes
releasedate: August 15 2009
cat #: UV016
style: midtempo, minimal house

Andy Ash, an aspiring house producer from Liverpool, drops his first full release for the Universal Vibes label. You may have heard him before, on labels like Stilove4music and Five20East (check his full discography). This EP opens with Astro Travellin’, the very dope slow burner that was featured on the Universal Vibes compilation This Is What The Universe Sounds Like. I still love it, and it’s the best tune on this release.

Going Down has a nice tribal African flavor to it, with percussion and thumb piano, but has a hard time to retain my attention for seven and a half minutes. Paracosm is a lot faster, an experimental foray into glitchy tech house. Raindance finally suffers from the same flaw: great ideas, but a little flat and a bit too long. You can definitely hear the talent here, but the diamond may still be a bit rough. Let’s keep an eye on Andy!

Michael Jackson really couldn’t help it, but his music will live on for a long time. We selected some edits and remixes from the Beyondjazz vaults. Other than that the temperatures are soaring here, so we built a little summer party with a lot of brand new beats. Start sweating!

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Michael Jackson – I Can’t Help It (Tangoterje) – G.A.M.M.
Michael Jackson – Billie Jean (Opolopo remix) – demo
The Jackson 5 – Get It Together (4 Hero Remix) – Polydor
Funkineven – You! – Eglo
Fyza – Take Me Away – MN2S
Part Time Heroes – Realise (Landslide Remix) – Wah Wah 45s

Sunburst Band – Far Beyond (Recloose Remix) – Z Records
Greymatter – Believe In Something (Fanatix Remix) – NYSoul
Andy Ash – Paracosm – Universal Vibes
F – Epilogue – 7even
Jimpster – Sleeper – Freerange

Fat Freddy’s Drop – Shiverman – Inertia
We’ll Make It Right – Some Say – Dox
Jamie Cullum – Frontin’ – Ether
Dj Mitsu The Beats – Playing Again ft. Ivana Shantilli – Planet Groove
Atjazz – Underlined (Mr Beatnick Italic Dub) – Atjazz

Shur-I-Kan – A Love Thang – Ballpark
Jazz Liberatorz – Back Packers – Kif
Soundspecies – Purple Halo Remix (With Ninkisun) – Burnt Progress
Zero 7 – Everything Up (Zizou) ft. Eska – none
Tortoise – Gigantes – Thrill Jockey
Martyn – Electric Purring – Aus Music