In the latest “Late Night Tales” episode, one of my favorite soul singers and songwriters and musicians, Jordan Rakei, is in charge of compiling a bluer than blue set of 17 songs on double-vinyl. Jordan has assembled some tracks from friends and label mates, like Alfa Mist, Snowpoet, Fink, Joe Armon-Jones, or Bill Laurance. And…
Incognito mastermind Jean-Paul “Bluey” Maunick and influential DJ and Brownswood label head Gilles Peterson got together for this Brit Funk project Str4ta, recalling the early 80s when bands like Freeez, Touchdown (remember “Ease Your Mind” from 1981?: delicious!), Hi Tension, Light Of The World, or Atmosfear made maves not only in the UK, but overseas…
About the song “Here It Comes” from the new album “Music” by Benny Sings (Tim van Berkestijn), the Dutch artist says: “The lyrics are about me as a young boy, living on the streets in Dordrecht with my skate crew, and feeling life presenting itself, and feeling excited about it. A time full of hope…
This is going back to the good old days when a new LP was always a major attraction, especially in the case of Gatefold LPs. Credits and lyrics printed on two pages, instantly making it a premium product. And the content correlates. UK-based singer Myles Sanko, who was born in Ghana before moving to Cambridge,…
During a period when The Guardian asks if you should get rid of your CDs and a phenomenal resurgence in sales of vinyl nobody expected, I have come across dozens of reasons in the past month why CDs are dead. Three of those reasons for not hanging on to my CD collection: Number One: the…
If you need your vocal jazz pure and hip, look no further than “Old Friends”, the new album by singer Mark Winkler and longtime friend, pianist David Benoit. Having known each other for 37 years now, you might think that they are using some sort of safety net for their joint collaboration (they have worked…
I remember the final days of 2020 when we all thought that things can only get better in 2021. So far, we’ve lost my mother-in-law at the very beginning of this year. Also, Mary Wilson left us recently and now it was time for Chick Corea to pass on. My earliest memory of hearing the…
During my studies of American History and Journalism in the mid 90s at Berlin’s Freie Universität, I was also working as a bartender at one of Kreuzberg’s Mexican restaurants until a friend of mine one day told me about a new, small, commercial radio station playing Jazz 24/7 and if that’s something I wanted to…
Gina enjoys the snow. She is burying her little ball in the snow only to dig it up again as fast as she can. She especially seems to enjoy those snow spots where nobody has walked before. There is also no danger at all that she’s getting lost during the current winter weather. At home,…
So everyone is talking about the debut of London-born singer Arlo Parks these days. I have to admit that I didn’t really become interested in her at first because the press release states that Billie Eilish is a fan. So what? Seriously, why is there such a hype about Billie Eilish? I just don’t get…