A deadly fleet of Studio One sevens, and one almighty ten-inch, swooping in from the Far East.

The vibes maestro leading a sextet including Sunny Murray and Byard Lancaster.
The jazz-dancer The Known Unknown was the boom tune back in the day, but this is excellent throughout, as unjustly neglected as the SteepleChase albums which came next.

A miraculous bouquet of gagaku, shakuhachi, shamisen, storytelling, folksong and more, including the first commercial recordings in Asia.

Rawly ethereal, other-worldly singing by members of hill tribes in China, Vietnam, and Laos.

Munificent survey of Errol Brown’s late-seventies, early-eighties 12” remixes — and Sly & Robbie do-overs — of the glories of the Treasure Isle label, with Sonia Pottinger now at the helm.

Bedazzled nipper with red Honest Jons ball.

Bedazzled nipper with orange Honest Jons ball.

The story goes that Giant Steps is indebted to the harmonic ideas of Hasaan, with whom Coltrane practised intensively in the early fifties; also Trane’s so-called ‘sheets of sound’. Certainly the pianist was already hallowed on the Philadelphia jazz scene by the time of the 1964 Atlantic LP entitled The Max Roach Featuring The Legendary Hasaan.
The recordings presented here are from the follow-up session, the next year, with Odean Pope, Art Davis and Kalil Madi. Atlantic shelved them when Hasaan was jailed for narcotics possession straight afterwards; and till recently they were thought lost, despite the keen interest of Rahsaan Roland Kirk, amongst others.
Hasaan plays with a quietly raging restlessness, deeply passionate and rawly personal, climbing the walls of the influences of Monk and Elmo Hope, and churning over the full range of swing and bop traditions, with sharp turns in all directions. You can hear him breaking through the ‘modern sounds’, as Benny Golson put it, ‘into something very esoteric. I guess you could say his brakes didn’t work. He was quite a character.’ ‘Almost avant-garde,’ for Philly Joe Jones, ‘but correct’.
Saxophonist Odean Pope played for two decades with Max Roach. He was a member of Catalyst; he started his own Saxophone Choir. At 26, on his recording debut, he’s magnificent here. Art Davis is the bass player on stone classics like Africa/Brass and Olé, Ready For Freddie and Inception, Max Roach’s Deeds, Not Words and Pharoah Sanders’ Rejoice. In the previous decade in New York, Kalil Madi had drummed for the likes of Billie Holiday, Jackie Paris and Mongo Santamaria; later he worked with Gene Harris’ Three Sounds and Charles Gayle.
Elegantly presented, expertly restored, this is wonderful music, a genuine jazz holy grail.
It’s a must, hotly recommended.

From seventies Guinea-Bissau, a captivating, poignant blend of anti-colonial militancy and the knot of homesickness, regret, loss and melancholy at the heart of saudade. Sung in Guinean Kriol, and reviving traditional musical genres like Gumbé, lavished with jazz, Latin, funk and general dancefloor nous, José & Cobiana Djazz went down a storm nationally, hugely influencing local bands like Super Mama Djombo, and hailed by giants like Orchestra Baobab, Letta Mbulu and Miriam Makeba (with whom Zé Carlos recorded his only solo album).
Lua Ki Di Nos, The Moon Is Ours, is a mixture of thumping, blistering high-life, with burning horns and mesmerising guitar lines, for dancing, and sublime, swaying, moodily contemplative body-rockers. The mournful Na Kolonia, for example, is knockout. Locked up for his politics on Ilha das Galinhas, a few miles off the coast of Bissau, the singer wonders what has become of his friends. ‘Where is Sara? Back at the colony. Where is Saidu? Back at the colony. Uncle Malam, tell them not to cry, not to suffer. One day we’ll be back in Bissau, a day that is slow to arrive. Our brothers from Bissau, don’t forget about us. If you think that we’re dead, we haven’t died, we’re waiting here.’
Ace.