Pirahnahead

Musician, DJ, producer, orchestral arranger/conductor – each of these words describes Pirahnahead. Real Talk. Not just modern day music business hype. From the age of two, it was clear to everyone that music would play a major role in his life. At that young age his mother taught him to play the piano, and shortly thereafter he began to learn guitar from copying Jimi Hendrix‟s legendary riffs, and learning from local guitar gurus. He often entertained his family by both playing instruments while singing and also by spinning records on the family record player. Rock and roll, blues, jazz, classical, and R & B heavily influenced Pirahnahead‟s life then and continue to influence his musical style now.

But why the weird name? Who is Pirahnahead? Pirahnahead is a DJ; In the 1970‟s As Soul and Disco grew in popularity, Pirahnahead developed a love for the upbeat and soulful music from being brought into the DJ booth in local skating rinks and clubs by his sisters so he could be tended to while they partied. Memories of watching DJs work in the booth resurfaced when Pirahnahead met legendary DJ Ken Collier. Weekends at Detroit‟s club Heaven and trips to New York‟s Paradise Garage and Club Shelter played a significant part in inspiring Pirahnahead as a DJ. After being mentored by Ken Collier, Pirahnahead went on to play at several parties and clubs in and around Detroit. During the summer of 2005 Pirahnahead showcased his DJ skills (During the Mahogani Music 2005 tour) worldwide at locations in Japan, London, Amsterdam, and several other cities. Since then even, He has been a mainstay in Europe and Japan.

Pirahnahead is a musician; If you listen to anything he has produced, it’s probably him on each instrument. He has played guitar and toured with groups like Enemy Squad, Dub Culture, Charm Farm, Malik Alston’s Painted Pictures, and other bands in the Detroit and Lansing area. While touring with various incarnations of the P-Funk All-Stars, he had the opportunity to work with well-established artists such as Morris Day and The Time, Bernie Worrell and the Woo-Warriors, HR of Bad Brains, Fishbone, Buddy Miles, and Amp Fiddler. He also performed Woodstock in 1998. Pirahnahead toured Europe, and Japan (with Moodymann) During the summer of 2005. He sang, played keys and guitar during this tour at mega festivals
such as the Montreux Jazz Festival, and the North Sea Jazz Festival. These were performances of his original material to promote the release of his CD “SOLID: A Moment in the Mind of Pirahnahead” (Mahogani Music) which was released as a japan exclusive in 2005, and in Europe and the US in 2006. He also was a featured act along with Diviniti at the Tokyo Crossover Jazz Festival of 2007 and 2008. Pirahnahead toured Italy with Gerald Mitchell as Los Hermanos in the winter of 2009.

Pirahnahead is an Arranger; He has studied at Wayne State University as a music major. His musical education has given him means to explore an exciting edge that he brings to his musical projects; classical orchestration. His love for string instruments and keen sense of string enhanced harmonies make him a sought after musical director and producer. He has written and conducted string parts for projects for DJ Spinna, DJ Genesis, on Shuya Okino’s ‘United Legends’ Project on the song „If It Is Love‟ featuring Clara Hill and his extended remix for the Dj Kawasaki & Diviniti collaboration ‘Shine’ (which Shuya compiled into an ep entitled ‘Pirahnahead Works’), Tom Glide & the Luv All-Stars (alongside the EWF/phoenix horns, Larry Dunn, and many other notable musicians), and on Quentin Harris’ ‘Give It 2 U’ from his latest album ‘Sacrifice’.

Pirahnahead is a producer; He has done remixes for Lex Empress, Tortured Soul, Delano Smith, Duce Martinez, and many others, but his sound is the reason. His productions have a distinct sound which cover all bases of his influence, from house to hip-hop, to Jazz to Rare Groove styles, and has collaborated with some of the best there are. In 2008 he co produced works for the next Les Nubians album, which he had the pleasure of working with Les Nubians godfather Manu Dubango. Though you may see his name alongside anyone from DJ Minx, of Women On Wax (as AnimalTrax) , Reggie Dokes (As NapiHedz), he is more known for the works he has created with and for Diviniti. These two musical powerhouses linked in 2003 and since the first day have created pure magic. Dancefloor jams such as “Find a Way” (which was edited by Danny Krivit and released on King Street Sounds, and also became a staple for DJs such as Louie Vega, Theo Parrish, Joe Claussell, Joey Negro and DJ Spinna, among many others), ‘Love Will Stay’, “Poem 4 A Lost One” (featured on his Moods & Grooves ep; Emotional Expression), the list will go on for decades.

Just after Mahogani Music released Pirahnahead‟s first full length album, “SOLID: A Moment in the Mind of Pirahnahead.” in 2005. In 2006, Pirahna launched his own imprint, Whasdat Music. The first release, “Sunshine”, by Carolyn Victorian, was released summer „06. After which pirahnahead gave a glimpse into his life with Whasdat Music’s sophomore release ‘Music’. However, the year 2010 came and so did the NGTVNRG ep, with it’s outspoken ‘Self: Con-Science’ track. With the album release on Mahogani Music and productions on Women on Wax, Sound Signature, and his own label, Whasdat Music, the best of Pirahna may be just on the horizon.

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Thelonious Monk

Among the most influential musicians, especially amongst pianists, of the twentieth century. Monk had a idiosyncratic improvisational style, both musically and visually, and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire. He is often regarded as one of the founders of bebop, though his playing later evolved away from that style.

Both his prolific compositions and improvisations are full of dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists, consistent with Monk’s unorthodox approach to the piano, combining a highly percussive attack with abrupt, usually very dramatic, usage of silences and hesitations.

He was also renowned for his distinctively sartorial style in suits, hats and his trademark sunglasses. He was also well known for his actions on stage during performances. While the other musicians in the group continued playing, he would sometimes stop, stand up from the piano, dance for a few moments, and then return to the piano and continue playing. Whether this was part of his act or because he was entranced in his art form has never been substantiated in the few interviews with him. One of his regular dances consisted of continuously turning counter-clockwise, which has drawn comparisons to ring-shout and Muslim Sufi whirling.

Monk is also one of only five jazz musicians to date to be featured on the cover of Time magazine (the other four being Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Wynton Marsalis, and Dave Brubeck).

Father of Thelonious Monk Jr. and Boo Boo Monk.

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Grace Jones

Jones secured a record deal with Island Records in 1977, which resulted in a string of dance-club hits. In the late 1970s, she adapted the emerging electronic music style and adopted a severe, androgynous look with square-cut hair and angular, padded clothes. In 1981, her “Pull Up to the Bumper” spent seven weeks at #2 on the U.S. Hot Dance Club Play chart, and became a Top 5 single on the U.S. R&B chart.

Jones’s musical output is popular in American clubs as many of the singles were hits on Billboard’s Hot Dance Club Play and Hot Dance Airplay charts. Jones was able to find mainstream success in Europe, particularly the United Kingdom, scoring a number of Top 40 entries on the UK Singles Chart.

Jones’s most notable albums are Warm Leatherette, Nightclubbing and Slave to the Rhythm, while her biggest hits (other than “Pull Up to the Bumper”) are “I’ve Seen That Face Before (Libertango)”, “Private Life”, “Slave to the Rhythm” and “I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Perfect for You)”.

During the 1970s, she also became a muse to Andy Warhol, who photographed her extensively. During this era she regularly went to the New York City nightclub Studio 54.

Jones is also an actress. Her acting occasionally overshadowed her musical output in America; but not in Europe, where her profile as a recording artist was much higher. She appeared in some low-budget films in the 1970s and early 1980s. Her work as an actress in mainstream film began in the 1984 fantasy-action film Conan the Destroyer alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the 1985 James Bond movie A View to a Kill. In 1986 she played a vampire in Vamp, and both acted in and contributed a song to the 1992 film Boomerang with Eddie Murphy. In 2001, she appeared in Wolf Girl alongside Tim Curry.

In 2000, Jones cut “The Perfect Crime”(to the show “Crime Perfeito”), an up-tempo song for Danish TV written by the composer duo Floppy M. aka Jacob Duus & Kåre Jacobsen. A year later, she appeared alongside Tim Curry in Wolf Girl (also known as Blood Moon), as a transvestite circus performer named Christoph/Christine. On 28 May 2002, she performed onstage in Modena, Italy with Italian opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti during his annual Pavarotti and Friends concert to support the UN refugee agency’s programs for Angolan refugees in Zambia. Together they performed the aria “Pourquoi me réveiller?” from Jules Massenet’s opera Werther. In November 2004, Jones sang her hit “Slave to the Rhythm” at a tribute concert for record producer Trevor Horn at London’s Wembley Arena. In April 2005 Jones raised a controversy, when she was accused of verbally abusing a Eurostar train manager in a quarrel over a ticket upgrade, and she either was escorted off the train or left of her own accord, later saying that she had been mistreated. In February 2006, Jones was the celebrity runway model for Diesel’s show in New York.
Grace Jones at Roskilde Festival 2009.

Producer Ivor Guest confirmed that he and Jones had completed recording her new album in 2007. Other participants on the album included the original Compass Point All Stars line-up, including Sly and Robbie, Mikey Chung and Wally Badarou, joined by Brian Eno, Bruce Woolley, Tricky and Tony Allen. The Hurricane album (initially to be titled Corporate Cannibal was released on 27 October 2008, on Wall of Sound/PIAS Records, meeting with positive reviews.”Corporate Cannibal” became the album’s lead single, with its music video directed by Nick Hooker. Jones embarked on a concert tour at the end of 08 and beginning of 09, and appeared at Secret Garden Party and Latitude Festival to promote the new album. The video for the second single, “Williams’ Blood”, used live footage from the Hurricane Tour. Grace Jones also collaborated with the avant-garde poet Brigitte Fontaine on a duet named ” Soufi” from Fontaine’s latest album ‘Prohibition’ released in the fall 2009, and produced by Ivor Guest.[citation needed] On 26 April 2010 Grace Jones performed at Royal Albert Hall, receiving rave reviews.A One Man Show was released on DVD, as Grace Jones – Live in Concert, in 2010 with 3 bonus videoclips (“Slave to the Rhythm”, “Love Is the Drug” and “Crush”). “Love You to Life”, the third single off Hurricane, was released on 2 May 2010.[citation needed] Grace Jones collaborated again with the French avant-garde poet Brigitte Fontaine on two tracks (Dancefloor and La Caravane) on Fontaine’s 2011 release entitled “L’un n’empêche pas l’autre”. (This album also produced by Ivor Guest). Jones performed at the opening ceremony of the 61st FIFA Congress.

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Art Blakey

Born in 1919, Art Blakey began his musical career, as did many jazz musicians, in the church. The foster son of a devout Seventh Day Adventist Family, Art learned the piano as he learned the Bible, mastering both at an early age.

But as Art himself told it so many times, his career on the piano ended at the wrong end of a pistol when the owner of the Democratic Club — the Pittsburgh nightclub where he was gigging — ordered him off the piano and onto the drums.

Art, then in his early teens and a budding pianist, was usurped by an equally young, Erroll Garner who, as it turned out, was as skilled at the piano as Blakey later was at the drums. The upset turned into

a blessing for Art, launching a career that spanned six decades and nurtured the careers of countless other jazz musicians.

As a young drummer, Art came under the tutelage of legendary drummer and bandleader Chick Webb, serving as his valet. In 1937, Art returned to Pittsburgh, forming his own band, teaming up with Pianist Mary Lou Williams, under whose name the band performed.

From his Pittsburgh gig, Art made his way through the Jazz world. In 1939, he began a three-year gig touring with Fletcher Henderson. After a year in Boston with a steady gig at the Tic Toc club, he joined the great Billy Eckstine, gigging with the likes of Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Sarah Vaughn.

In 1948, Art told reporters he had visited Africa, where he learned polyrhythmic drumming and was introduced to Islam, taking the name Abdullah Ibn Buhaina. It was in the late ’40s that Art formed his first Jazz Messengers band, a 17-piece big band.

After a brief gig with Buddy DeFranco, in 1954 Art met up with pianist Horace Silver, altoist Lou Donaldson, trumpeter Clifford Brown, and bassist Curly Russell and recorded “live” at Birdland for Blue Note Records. The following year, Art and Horace Silver co-founded the quintet that became the Jazz Messengers. In 1956, Horace Silver left the band to form his own group leaving the name, the Jazz Messengers, to Art Blakey.

Art’s driving rhythms and his incessant two and four beat on the high hat cymbals were readily identifiable from the outset and remained a constant throughout 35 years of Jazz Messengers bands. What changed constantly was a seeming unending supply of talented sidemen, many of whom went on to become band leaders in their own right.

In the early years luminaries like Clifford Brown, Hank Mobley and Jackie McLean rounded out the band. In 1959, tenor saxophonist Benny Golson joined the quintet and — at Art’s behest — began working on the songbook and recruiting what became one of the timeless Messenger bands — tenor saxman Wayne Shorter, trumpeter Lee Morgan, pianist Bobby Timmons and bassist Jymmie Merritt.

The songs produced from ’59 through the early ’60s became trademarks for the Messengers — including Timmon’s Moanin’, Golson’s Along Came Betty and Blues March and Shorter’s Ping Pong.

By this time, the Messengers had become a mainstay on the jazz club circuit and began recording on Blue Note Records. They began touring Europe, with forays into North Africa. In 1960, the Messengers became the first American Jazz band to play in Japan for Japanese audiences. That first Japanese tour was a high point for the band. At the Tokyo airport, the band was greeted by hundreds of fans as Blues March played over their airport intercom and their visit was televised nationally.

In 1961, trombonist Curtis Fuller transformed the Messengers into a proper sextet, giving the band the opportunity to incorporate a big band sound into their hard bop repertoire. Throughout the ’60s, the Messengers remained a mainstay on the jazz scene with jazz greats including Cedar Walton, Chuck Mangione, Keith Jarrett, Reggie Workman, Lucky Thompson and John Hicks. In the jazz drought of the ’70s, the Messengers remained a strong force, with fewer recordings, but no less energy. At a time when many jazz musicians were experimenting with electronics and fusing their music with pop, the Messengers were a mainstay of straight-ahead jazz.

Art’s steadfast belief in jazz music left him well positioned to take advantage of the music’s resurgence in the early ’80s. Art had been working with musicians including trumpeter Valery Ponomarev, tenor Billy Pierce, alto saxman Bobby Watson and pianist James Williams. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis’ 1980 entrance into the band coincided — and played no small part in — the resurgence of the music in the ’80s.

Throughout the ’80 and until his death in 1990, Art maintained the integrity of the message, incubating the careers of musicians including trumpeters Wallace Rooney and Terence Blanchard, pianists Mulgrew Miller and Donald Brown, bassists Peter Washington and Lonnie Plaxico and many others.

Art died at the age of 71 after a career that spanned six of the best decades of jazz music. The messenger has moved on, but his message lives on in the music of the scores of sidemen whose careers he nurtured, the many other drummers he mentored and countless fans who have been blessed to hear the Messengers’ music.

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Records

Art Blakey Quartet – Just Knock On My Door, Jasmine

Art Blakey with The Original Jazz Messengers – the End of a Love Affair, Columbia

Jimmy McGriff

may have studied formally at Juilliard and at Philadelphia’s Combe College of Music, but there’s nothing fancy about his music. It’s basic to the bone, always swinging and steeped in blues and gospel. McGriff’s brand of jazz is about feeling. “That’s the most important thing,” he says.

Blues has been the backbone of most of the major jazz organists, including Jimmy Smith and Jack McDuff, but throughout his 42-year recording career, McGriff has stuck closer to the blues than any of them. “People are always classifying me as a jazz organist, but I’m more of a blues organ player,” he insists. “That’s really what I feel.”

McGriff’s recordings of “I’ve Got a Woman” and “All About My Girl” were r&b and jukebox staples during the Sixties. With McGriff Avenue, his fourteenth album for Milestone (counting the five he’s cut as co-leader with Hank Crawford), the Hammond organ grinder remains true to the blues grounding for which he’s famous. The way things turned out, McGriff Avenue was not just another record date for the organist and his sidemen, as producer Bob Porter recounts in the CD notes. Porter had booked a noon session at Rudy Van Gelder’s New Jersey studio for September 11th, 2001, but that morning he quickly realized–especially since bridge and tunnel access to and from Manhattan was cut off soon after the World Trade Center towers were hit–that the session was not going to take place as scheduled.

When the record date was rescheduled for six weeks later, some personnel adjustments were necessary. Although Bill Easley, Ronnie Cuber, and bassist Wilbur Bascomb were able to make both days of recording, Purdie was replaced on the second day by Don Williams. Guitarist Rodney Jones couldn’t make the first session, but he contributed the funky title track (and was ably replaced by Melvin Sparks-Hassan).

Saxophonist Gordon Beadle, a veteran of Duke Robillard’s band, is new to the McGriff orbit, but the other players have extensive histories with the organist. The great drummer Bernard Purdie has appeared on most of McGriff’s Milestone discs, and Don Williams has been a member of McGriff’s touring band for years. Likewise Rodney Jones, Ronnie Cuber, Melvin Sparks-Hassan, Wilbur Bascomb, and Bill Easley are all McGriff familiars who deliver the “gospel/blues-kinda flavor” the leader finds much to his liking. The performances on the McGriff shuffle “All About My Girl,” Jimmy Forrest’s “Soul Street,” and the sanctified “America, The Beautiful” make that absolutely clear.

James Harrell McGriff was born on April 3, 1936 in Philadelphia, long the capital of the jazz organ world. Such seminal jazz organists as Milt Buckner and Wild Bill Davis frequently passed through town, and it was there that Jimmy Smith laid the groundwork for modern jazz organ. Other outstanding organists associated with the City of Brotherly Love include Doc Bagley, Shirley Scott, Richard “Groove” Holmes, Joey DeFrancesco, and Charles Earland. In fact, Earland, who had played saxophone on McGriff’s very first recording, a 1959 single on the White Marsh label titled “Foxy Due,” learned the organ from McGriff.

Although both his mother and father were pianists, McGriff started out on bass and saxophone, later picking up drums, vibes, and piano. He served as an MP during the Korean War and spent two and a half years as a Philadelphia policeman. While on the force, he moonlighted as a bassist at Pep’s Showboat, playing behind blues singer Big Maybelle and other stars of the Fifties. The lessons he learned as a bass player would later turn up in his signature organ style, which is marked by strong, swinging bass patterns.

After leaving law enforcement, McGriff turned his focus to organ and studied locally at Combe and in New York City at Juilliard, as well as privately with Jimmy Smith, “Groove” Holmes, Milt Buckner, and classical organist Sonny Gatewood. Of greater importance to McGriff’s musical development, however, were his experiences as a young man at Philadelphia’s Eastern Star Baptist Church. “They talk about who taught me this and who taught me that, but the basic idea of what I’m doing on the organ came from the church,” he says. “That’s how I got it, and I just never dropped it.” In 1962, while McGriff was performing in Trenton, New Jersey, a scout from a tiny record label called Jell was struck with the organist’s arrangement of “I’ve Got a Woman” and offered him a contract. As McGriff’s single was taking off, Sue Records in New York purchased the master and it became a smash, peaking at No. 5 on Billboard’s r&b chart and at No. 20 on the pop list. With that and such subsequent Sue singles as “All About My Girl,” “M.G. Blues,” and “Bump De Bump,” the organist staked out a musical turf all his own, somewhere between the jazz of Jimmy Smith and the r&b of Booker T. & the MGs. After leaving Sue, McGriff recorded prolifically for such labels as Solid State, Blue Note, Capitol, United Artists, Groove Merchant, and JAM. He also cut two albums with the great blues singer Junior Parker. Renewed interest in the Hammond organ over the past several years has substantially increased the demand for McGriff’s music. “People that didn’t listen to organ things before listen now,” he says. “I’m playing jobs that ordinarily I wouldn’t play.” McGriff had used a Hammond B-3 organ at the onset of his career but in recent years has been playing a modified model known as a Hammond XB-3. “The one I got is special ’cause it’s built for me,” he says. “I can separate the top manual against the bottom manual. I get strings on it, and I get a different kind of bass.” With McGriff Avenue, Jimmy McGriff serves up another satisfying set of the type of blues, swing, funk, and gospel-derived sounds for which he’s known and loved. It’s music from the soul that, as always, feels mighty good.

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Jimmy Mc Griff – I Cover the Waterfront, Blue Note

Jungle Brothers

Although they predated the jazz-rap innovations of De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and Digable Planets, the Jungle Brothers were never able to score with either rap fans or mainstream audiences, perhaps due to their embrace of a range of styles — including house music, Afrocentric philosophy, a James Brown fixation, and of course, the use of jazz samples — each of which has been the sole basis for the start-up of a rap act. Signed to a major label for 1989’s Done by the Forces of Nature, the JB’s failed to connect on that album — hailed by some as an ignored classic — or the follow-up, J Beez Wit the Remedy.

Mike Gee (born Michael Small; Harlem, NY), DJ Sammy B (born Sammy Burwell; Harlem, NY), and Baby Bam (born Nathaniel Hall; Brooklyn, NY) came together as the Jungle Brothers in the mid-’80s and began their recording career at the dance label Idler. The result of the sessions, Straight Out the Jungle, was released in early 1988. The album’s Afrocentric slant gained the Jungle Brothers entry into the Native Tongue Posse, a loose collective formed by hip-hop legend Afrikaa Bambaataa, including Queen Latifah (and, later, De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest). The album’s most far-out cut was “I’ll House You,” a collaboration with house producer Todd Terry and an early experiment in what later became known as hip-house.

Though Straight Out the Jungle had not sold in large quantities, Warner Bros. signed the trio in 1989 and released a second album, Done By the Forces of Nature, that same year. Though it was issued around the time of De La Soul’s groundbreaking 3 Feet High and Rising LP and gained just as many positive reviews, the album was overlooked by most listeners. The Jungle Brothers’ chances of mainstream acceptance weren’t helped at all by a four-year absence after the release of Done By the Forces of Nature, inspired mostly by Warner Bros.’ marketing strategies. Finally, in the summer of 1993, J Beez Wit the Remedy appeared, complete with a sizeable push from Warner Bros.; unfortunately, the large amount of promotion failed to carry the album. Obviously not learning from their earlier mistakes, Warner Bros. also delayed the release of the group’s fourth album, Raw Deluxe, until mid-1997. V.I.P. followed in early 2000, and All That We Do was released in 2002.

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Jungle Brothers – What U Waitin 4? (promo no 2) Warner Bros

Aloe Blacc

Born to Panamanian parents in Los Angeles in 1979, E. Nathaniel Dawkins (aka Aloe Blacc) first began playing trumpet in elementary school, and continued with the instrument throughout high school. There he also independently released Imaginary Friends, produced by DJ Exile, with whom he would go on to form the hip-hop group Emanon. While at college at USC, though his artistic endeavors were placed behind his scholastic goals, Aloe still managed to learn how to play the guitar and the piano, and after graduating and spending some time in the corporate world, he decided to return to his first love, music. In 2005 Emanon’s full-length debut, The Waiting Room, came out on Shaman Works, and the next year his first solo album, Shine Through, a combination of neo-soul and Latin music, was released on Stones Throw. He partnered with the Truth & Soul Productions crew for 2010’s more organic effort Good Things. The album featured the hit single “I Need a Dollar” along with a cover version of the Velvet Underground’s “Femme Fatale.

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Black Coffee

Black Coffee Genre: Dance/Club Similar Artists: Louis Vega, Masters At Work,Dennis Ferrer, Soul II Soul,Manoo, Rocco, DJ Christos, Oskido Curiously, South Africa, as the Spanish island Ibiza or England’s ‘90s Madchester scene around club the Hacienda or Michigan’s Detroit scene, presents one of the few places in the world where genuine house music has taken root. One of its leading proponents is the reserved, studiously academic Black Coffee, whose inventive, imaginative and a boldly educated re-interpretation of classic South African music is radically at odds with the many flash-in-the-pan hit-chasers that populate the dance music genre. Black Coffee, who is one-part member of the unfashionable urban soul trio Shana, is one of three or four turntablist in the country who genuinely understands the precise function of a music deejay: he does not simply re-mix songs; he re-interprets their previously unimagined musical possibilities and therefore quietly reclaims the composition as his own. When he debuted with his interpretation of Hugh Masekela’s rambunctious jazz hit Stimela (2005 original South African release; 2008 UK release), subsequently to be the lead single off the self-titled 12-track debut album, by re-featuring the old musician to guest vocal anew Black Coffee simply demonstrated how it was possible to re-work the South African canon music vault into club music, acceptable to both the youth and the adults, a feat not easily achievable in the instant festive hit-obsessed market that is South Africa: it requires a decidedly original-inclined, singular mind such as that of Black Coffee to be able to pursue an original music trajectory. In the self-titled debut the emphasis was unmistakeably on the soul element of the dance music, re-emphasising the connections of dance music with its founding genre soul music. “To me, the music has to have soul; it has to move me. I quite like Baba Victor’s music [] for it’s such music, otherwise I’m not interested in the music,” he says, during the course of press interview. The song in question is a re-interpretation of jazz bassist and producer Victor Ntoni, one of South Africa’s respected jazz musicians whose meagre output, both as an artists and a producer, is predicated on an almost puritan ethic of uncompromising quality. Like Masekela in the debut album, Ntoni honoured the young man Black Coffee with his presence in the re-interpreted Wathula Nje song off the latest album Have Another One, an obvious pun on a cup of coffee offered by a respectful waiter and the sophomore album by the artist, cue the album sleeve. The sophomore album Have Another One has quietly gone gold (20 000 plus units sold) in South Africa after four months of release in the current difficult business environment that has tightened around both consumers and the music industry quiet severely. Have Another One has sold not least because it receives minimal, almost non-existent, airplay in South African airwaves obsessed with American R&B minor hits. The lead single off Have Another One was sizzling hit Nomhlaba featuring one of the newest female artists Siphokazi. Both Black Coffee ands Ntoni recently shot the music video for Wathula Nje in Soweto, Johannesburg. Through sheer hard work Black Coffee’s talent has not gone unnoticed. Recently he was in Miami’s Winter Music Conference where he was surprised by a number of established music deejays in US who were familiar with his music and the audiences responded with genuine excitement. His song Izizwe was receiving dance floor appreciation all round. It had been uploaded by appreciating New York City fans onto the social utility media You Tube® when the song had been playing at club Shelter, NYC, US. In addition, the France-based label Real Tone has a world-wide release deal with Black Coffee of 12-inch singles outside of UK and SA. In UK he has signed an album-deal with Kronologik Music (www.kronologik.com) where his self-titled debut album Black Coffee was recently released in April 2008. When he returned in April 2008 from playing three UK gigs (Stratford, Birmingham & London) he was the only South African musician to be invited by the Red Bull Music Academy (www.redbullmusicacademy.co.za) to feature in their first-ever studio album concept of putting world-wide musicians for a Cape Town-based three-week period of improvisation, a project that may see the light of day later in the year. Despite that Black Coffee is now well-travelled, he still has a certain affection and respect for the South African audience. “I attended a few label gigs [at the Winter Music Conference, Miami, Flr]. I also found my songs at record shops over there. But I don’t want get too big for my shoes, though I just don’t want to be a local deejay. I want to be able to play in Soweto and then hop to overseas. It’s fine to honour overseas gigs, but one finds that one is playing to just 200 people when I could be playing to more audiences here [SA],” reckons Black Coffee. This ability to criss-cross locale and international metropolitans is directly mirrored in Black Coffee’s educated taste which itself owes something to his academically qualified music training. He has a striking appearance with its decidedly studious look maybe owing to this academic background. He brings a worldly sophistication into his music that is, scandalously, embarrassingly missing in virtually all South African music which generally bears an unmistakeable stamp of parochialism. His music, though unashamedly dance, is not primarily aimed at the dancefloor, but more to the mental feet for those lonesome evenings that visit city swingers as they dash through city streets in their fabulously flashy but lonely four-wheels or simply enjoying home-bound fetes.

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Black Coffee – Superman, Not on Label

Anthony Nicholson

Anthony Nicholson aka Miquifaye is deeply rooted in the movement of taking music and art forward in the city we call Chi-town, across the globe and around the world . Anthony has a discography that has been one of the most respected and sought after collections in dance music. Circular Motion and Infinite Audio are two chicago based record labels formed by Anthony. These imprints focus on the expansion of the mind of music and it’s possibilities. Mr. Nicholson held down a residency at Chicagos’ Sonotheque for4 &1/2 years as a dj/programmer. During those years Anthony dilligently programmed music with a message to a diverse audience, never compromising his beliefs nor the integrity of the messengers who came before him.

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Anthony Nicholson – Hot Sauce & Drama, Circular Motion Recordings

Lou Donaldson

Lou Donaldson has long been an excellent bop altoist influenced by Charlie Parker, but with a more blues-based style of his own. His distinctive tone has been heard in a variety of small-group settings, and he has recorded dozens of worthy and spirited (if somewhat predictable) sets throughout the years.

Donaldson started playing clarinet when he was 15, soon switching to the alto. He attended college and performed in a Navy band while in the military. Donaldson first gained attention when he moved to New York and in 1952 started recording for Blue Note as a leader. At the age of 25, his style was fully formed, and although it would continue growing in depth through the years, Donaldson had already found his sound. In 1954, he participated in a notable gig with Art Blakey, Clifford Brown, Horace Silver, and Tommy Potter that was extensively documented by Blue Note and that directly predated the Jazz Messengers. However, Donaldson was never a member of the Messengers, and although he recorded as a sideman in the ’50s and occasionally afterwards with Thelonious Monk, Milt Jackson, and Jimmy Smith, among others, he has been a bandleader from the mid-’50s up until the present.

Donaldson’s early Blue Note recordings were pure bop. In 1958, he began often utilizing a conga player, and starting in 1961, his bands often had an organist rather than a pianist. His bluesy style was easily transferable to soul-jazz, and he sounded most original in that context. His association with Blue Note (1952-1963) was succeeded by some excellent (if now-scarce) sets for Cadet and Argo (1963-1966). The altoist returned to Blue Note in 1967 and soon became caught up in the increasingly commercial leanings of the label. For a time, he utilized an electronic Varitone sax, which completely watered down his sound. The success of “Alligator Boogaloo” in 1967 led to a series of less interesting funk recordings that were instantly dated and not worthy of his talent.

However, after a few years off records, Lou Donaldson’s artistic return in 1981 and subsequent soul-jazz and hard bop dates for Muse, Timeless, and Milestone have found the altoist back in prime form, interacting with organists and pianists alike and showing that his style is quite timeless.

Website

Records:

Lou Donaldson – Donkey Walk, Blue Note