A review round-up of jazz and beyond featuring Scrimshire, David Ornette Cherry, Theon Cross, John Coltrane, Ben LaMar Gay and more

This is not a list of legacy records carefully chosen to keep me company during theoretical time spent on a desert island. These are instead vital new releases that are setting fire to Concrete Islands HQ.

Welcome to the freshest sounds right now!

Scrimshire – Nothing Feels Like Everything (Albert’s Favourites)

Sometimes a record instantly appeals, you’re really digging it, and yet… it doesn’t reveal its true majesty until an undefined number of listens later. Then, as if waking up in the room at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, realisation rushes in and you find that you’ve already been pulled into its orbit, are lost in its world. Scrimshire’s Nothing Feels Like Everything is one such record and it’s an exhilarating experience for 2021.

A series of excursions in new jazz, soul and downtempo beats, producer and songwriter Adam Scrimshire’s latest is accomplished without being polite and structurally sound while feeling completely organic. Guests are embedded in the tracks’ DNA rather than appearing as looks-good-on-paper afterthoughts. Thus, Cleveland Watkiss digs deep on “The Pile” and delivers a Terry Callier-like rallying soul epic fired-up by Scrimshire’s killer jazz breaks, while Ill Considered clarinettist Idris Rahman brings a sweeping intimacy to the latter-day Yusef Lateef vibes of “In Circles”. Elsewhere, “Boldly” boasts an incredible spoken word performance from Ursula Rucker, before ascending into song sprung out of nature. “Signing in languages I didn’t even know I could speak”, she states as the rest of reality falls away. Rucker and Scrimshire here contend with the past, take stock of the present and offer a path into the future (“Keep moving forward / Take new ways forward”), much like the album taken in its entirety. Nothing Feels Like Everything has the beats, poetry and vision to make it stand out in the crowd and continue to impress.

David Ornette Cherry – Organic Nation Listening Club (The Continual) (Spiritmuse)

Don Cherry was an artist whose vision of jazz was a music without boundaries. His son David Ornette Cherry continues in the family non-tradition with an album that delights in navigating poetry, upside-down hip-hop, refined avant-garde and outernational rhythms in the service of spiritually nourishing jazz. Organic Nation Listening Club doesn’t travel obvious paths and can feel at a slight remove upon initial listens as a result, but an easy flow gradually emerges, with the experience ultimately akin to being wrapped up in a blanket of gentle experimentation.

The Pop Group – Y in Dub (Mute)

Strap in and prepare to get uncomfortably comfortable with Dennis Bovell’s mighty dub version of The Pop Group’s post-punk classic Y. Bovell of course produced the LP the first time around, but here he unlocks the doors of perception and pulls everything into further spaced-out realms. Y in Dub is the sound of falling asleep and wakening up as society crumbles. Climb into the echo chamber to get out of your echo chamber.

Various Artists – Cuba: Music and Revolution Vol. 2 (Soul Jazz)

The second volume of 1970s and 1980s Cuban sounds curated by Gilles Peterson and Stuart Baker to accompany their lavish coffee table book is another wide-ranging musical box of delights. Once again, Peterson and Baker have unearthed a range of styles track to track, although it must be noted that this time around disco and funk emerge as the fuel for much of the proceedings. Take Leo Brouwer’s “Tema de El Rancheador De La Naturaleza” for example. It’s surely the most epic under-two-minutes track imaginable, with massive coke-fuelled Morricone hooks delivered with abandon and aimed at absurdly hedonistic discotheques.

Various Artists – Essiebons Special 1973-1984 // Ghana Music Powerhouse (Analog Africa)

It almost seems fantastical that old music for new ears keeps being dug up, but labels such as Analog Africa continue to make this particular form of magic a reality. Here they turn their focus on Ghanaian highlife label Essiebons, with a collection of previously unreleased cuts discovered while digitising master tapes. There’s so much life in these tracks that it would’ve gone against nature for them to remain buried. Perhaps they sound even fresher for having to bide their time, for these Afrobeat organ rollers, leftfield funk workouts and fired-up percussive jams are never less than infectious and often utterly thrilling.

Theon Cross – Intra-I (New Soil)

Theon Cross pushes the tuba to the next level with his righteous LP of forward-thinking jazz, taking in Afrofuturism, grime and even dub along the way. Intra-I is a sonic landscape uniquely his, with shades of mood and socially conscious party bangers aplenty. The collaborations are on point, from Remi Graves’ spoken word “Intro” that reckons with the state of things (“The world is in a spin / World off its axis it spins and spins / With us within it”, she declares like some higher being looking down upon us) to Afronaut Zu and Ahnansé tearing it up on Cross’s into-the-future Afrobeat hip-hop joint “The Spiral” – surely an anthem in the making. The album never stands still stylistically, with the dubbed-out tuba skank of “Forward Progression” proving to be a particularly effective excursion, but there’s a cohesion of vision carried throughout and it’s clear that Theon Cross owns the room.

Vels Trio – Celestial Greens (Rhythm Section)

Celestrial Greens is new jazz by way of Herbie Hancock playing Detroit techno in a Frank Herbert story at the end of the universe. A cosmic experience that never forgets the funk, Vels Trio’s sound is fusion steeped in proggy science fiction psychedelia.

Ill Considered – Liminal Space (New Soil)

Ferocious jazz improvisers that never lose sight of the groove, Ill Considered’s expansive, layered explorations are the sort that grab you, shake you up and won’t let go. Liminal Space is so fiery and free that listening to it is like being invited along to the revolution.

John Coltrane – A Love Supreme Live in Seattle (Impulse!)

A recently unearthed complete recording of one of the rare live outings for John Coltrane’s spiritual jazz urtext A Love Supreme was always going to be, at the very least, of some historical importance. Although emptying the vaults can often become an exercise in diminishing returns, that isn’t the case here. Drummer Elvin Jones is quoted in the liner notes as saying that “A Love Supreme is always a spiritual experience, wherever you hear it” and Live in Seattle certainly doesn’t contradict that sentiment (also, the stripped-back-to-the-drums “Interlude 2” is a wonder to behold in its own right). Our vantage point is distant from this live moment of 1965, so further home immersion is required to identify layers and grasp nuances, which is surely not a bad way to spend your time.

Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers – First Flight to Tokyo: The Lost 1961 Recordings (Blue Note)

First Flight to Tokyo is the mighty sound of Art Blakey’s drums from the depths of time, beamed into today’s living rooms courtesy of Blue Note. A previously unreleased live outing from The Jazz Messengers’ first tour of Japan, with Blakey’s small-group format at this point including heavy hitters Wayne Shorter and Lee Morgan, this is a free spirited, joyful and most endearing set. Here’s the real good stuff.

Ben LaMar Gay – Open Arms to Open Us (International Anthem / Nonesuch)

International Anthem joyously continue to defy categorisation with the latest from Ben LaMar Gay. Rooted in jazz movements, outernational sounds and hip-hop rhythms, Open Arms to Open Us channels lo-fi soul, topsy turvy future-retro electronics and lopsided beat-head jams to craft new forms of American folk music. Something like Money Mark imbibing the strongest Chicago vibes or else Sun Ra quantum leaping into Beck. Expect the unexpected.

Stewart Gardiner
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