Latest News: Jazz, Impulse! Records (label)
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Recording of the Week,
Irreversible Entanglements - Protect Your Light 8th September 2023Embarking on this, their fourth impressive studio release - and first on a major label - the American free jazz collective deliver a rousing mixture of socially-charged spoken word and non-stop musical heat.
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Classic Recordings,
John Coltrane, 'Africa/Brass' 24th August 2023Whilst underappreciated upon its release, Trane's bombastic first album for Impulse! from 1961 would seal his fate as one of the label's most iconoclastic artists and performers.
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Recording of the Week,
John Coltrane with Eric Dolphy - Evenings At The Village Gate 14th July 2023Our Recording of the Week is a formidable new release that captures an exciting and transitional phase in both artists' careers, in a live quintet recording from 1961.
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Recording of the Week,
Brandee Younger - Brand New Life 14th April 2023On her gorgeous new album Brand New Life Brandee Younger moves the jazz harp into lush new territory, embracing hip-hop-inspired beats and R&B moods in her hypnotic sound world.
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Recording of the Week,
The Comet Is Coming, 'Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam' 7th October 2022One of London's most unique instrumental trios return for their third full-length record, with deeper explorations in electronic music, psychedelia and jazz.
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Featured Label,
1960's Impulse: Essential Mainstream Jazz 5th July 2022We take a look back at some of our favourite mainstream jazz releases from the early Impulse! Records catalogue - from Shirley Scott, to Duke Ellington and Gil Evans.
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Featured Label,
The New Wave of Jazz: Free and Avant-Garde Sounds of 1960's Impulse! Records 27th June 2022We take a look back at the first decade of Impulse! Records' influential output, and recommend some of our favourites from groundbreaking artists exploring free, avant-garde and spiritual jazz sounds.
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Recommended New Release,
Shabaka, 'Afrikan Culture' 31st May 2022The London multireedist of Sons of Kemet and The Comet Is Coming fame releases his first full solo project, a short album of meditative woodwind music.
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Classic Recordings,
The Blues and the Abstract Truth 28th June 2021One of the unsung trailblazers of 60s jazz, Oliver Nelson's The Blues and the Abstract Truth is some of his most widely-remembered work, and just so happens to feature a killer line-up including Eric Dolphy and Freddie Hubbard. We take a look back at Nelson's unique, contemporary interpretation of the blues.
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Recording of the Week,
Sons of Kemet - Black to the Future 14th May 2021The London quartet's follow-up to 2018's stellar Your Queen Is a Reptile is a fearless evolution for the band both musically and thematically; exploring contemporary social struggles with a variety of guest vocal features and expanding their sound with dense arrangements.
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Recording of the Week,
Thelonious Monk Quartet at Palo Alto 25th September 2020A unique window into a moment in time; the Thelonious Monk Quartet live a school hall in 1968, at a gig arranged by a 15-year-old, and recorded by the janitor! The results more than live up to the backstory.
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Classic Recordings,
Charles Mingus - The Black Saint & The Sinner Lady 24th April 2020This week Josh pirouettes to Mingus's celebrated jazz-ballet The Black Saint and The Sinner Lady for the latest Classic Album choice.
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Classic Recordings,
Archie Shepp on Impulse! 7th August 2019One of the great saxophonists of the sixties, Archie Shepp made some of the most exciting and politicised recordings of the era, in a series of albums that documented the civil rights struggle.
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Recording of the Week,
The Comet Is Coming - Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery 15th March 2019Interstellar Messages (via London) from this brilliant trio.