Fusion

Masabumi Kikuchi - Susto +2 (1981) {2016 Japan Crossover & Fusion Collection 1000 Series SICJ 169}
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© 1981, 2016 Columbia / Sony Music Japan | SICJ 169
Jazz / Fusion / Jazz Funk / Keyboards

Reissue with the latest DSD remastering. Comes with liner notes. A great album of funky Japanese fusion – one of the few sets from the Japanese scene of the late 70s that got any sort of wider release in the US – and a treasure that we've loved for years! The set's got a really great sound – soulful and funky, but sharp too – in a lineup that features a variety of keyboards from Masabumi Kikuchi, plus work by Terumasa Hino on trumpet, Steve Grossman and Dave Liebman on saxes, and James Mason on guitar! The best cuts have a funky feel that's in the CTI/Kudu mode – perhaps mixed with a bit of Herbie Hancock keyboard jamming – and the album's a surprisingly lost funky gem in the Columbia catalog of the early 80s, with a much harder edge than some of the other work on the label at the time!

Various Artists - Ghana Soundz 2: Afro Beat, Funk And Fusion In 70's Ghana (1970-1978) {Soundway SNDWCD003 rel 2004}
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© 1970-78, 2004 Soundway Records | SNDWCD003
Afro-Beat / Funk / Fusion / African Traditions / Highlife / West African

Afro-music continues to inspire a whole host of musicians, producers and DJs but even now the full picture of Afro-music in the 1960s and 70s is still far from being properly represented. Ghana Soundz Volume 2 goes some way to readdressing the balance.

Various Artists - Ghana Soundz 1: Afro Beat, Funk And Fusion In 70's Ghana (1966-1977) {Soundway SNDWCD001 rel 2002}
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© 1966-77, 2002 Soundway | SNDWCD001
Afro-Beat / Funk / Fusion / African Traditions / Highlife / West African

Ghana was one of the centers of the music called highlife, but the Afro-beat and funk that came out of the country in the 1970s, in the wake of Fela Kuti's musical success in Nigeria, has largely gone undocumented – until now. Compiled from obscure 45s and albums, Ghana Soundz is the first of a three-volume series that will most definitely put Ghanaian funk on the map. Some of it is truly fabulous, like tracks by the Sweet Talks, the Ogyatanaa Show Band, and the Apagya Show Band, all of which do funk in the Afro-beat mold of interlocking parts over an infectious rhythm, giving room for improvisation. Others, like Oscar Sulley & the Uhuru Dance Band, take more of a jazz tack.

TERANGA BEAT proudly presents Vol.2 of Kyriakos Sfetsas' 1976 "Greek Fusion Orchestra" project. Sfetsas' vision behind the formation of GFO, was to create a piece of work that would expand the boundaries of Greek traditional music. The result was a Progressive-Jazz Fusion masterpiece comprising complex and intriguing compositions, performed by Athens' best musicians of the day.

Masabumi Kikuchi - One Way Traveller (1982) {2016 Japan Crossover & Fusion Collection 1000 Series SICJ 170}
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© 1982, 2016 Columbia / Sony Music Japan | SICJ 170
Jazz / Fusion / Electric Jazz / Jazz Funk / Keyboards

Reissue with the latest DSD remastering. Comes with liner notes. A gem of a record from Japanese keyboardist Masabumi Kikuchi – one of those massive Japanese fusion classics that was partly recorded overseas, partly here in the US – with a sound that brings together all the best soulful aspects of both scenes! Kikuchi can create some really weird, wonderful sounds when he wants – but can also slide into a groove with the best of them – and, given the vintage of the record, may well be more inventive than Herbie Hancock ever was at this point in his career! The lineup's filled with great talents – trumpeter Terumasa Hino, reedman Steve Grossman, and guitarist James Mason – coming together wonderfully on titles that include "Sky Talk", "Madjap Express", "Alacalder", and "Sum Dum Fun".

Polish violinist Michal Urbaniak’s recording Fusion was aptly named. Riding a wave of jazz-rock music, Urbaniak produced this enigmatic recording at once lyrical and noisy. Fusion is made up of seven originals, six of Urbaniak’s and one of keyboard player Wojciech Karolak. This music is percussion intensive and keyboard heavy. All compositions are very Rock oriented. Urbaniak’s violin is played with a variety of electronic modifications including phase shift and wah-wah. Urbaniak’s compositions contain Eastern European influences. The effect of these Eastern European tonalities results in an influence similar to Katchaturian scales in John Coltrane’s “sheets of sound”. This disc would be of interest to the generation following Urbaniak’s, listeners who are listening backwards to see where today’s music originally came from.

Keyboardist/composer/producer Jeff Lorber, heralded as one of the founding fathers of fusion (Keyboard), returns with his GRAMMY®-nominated power trio the Jeff Lorber Fusion, featuring bassist/co-producer Jimmy Haslip and saxophonist Eric Marienthal. Since the late 1970s, this contemporary jazz collective has blended elements of jazz, funk, rock, R&B and world music into a distinctive sound that has connected with audiences from a variety of continents, cultures and generations. In more recent years, the group's studio efforts such as their 2010 release, Now Is the Time (2010) and Galaxy (2012), influenced by extensive touring throughout Europe and Asia, have been colored with vibrant shades of dance and house music.

Charles Earland - Coming To You Live (1980) {2016 Japan Crossover & Fusion Collection 1000 Series SICJ 141}
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© 1980, 2016 Columbia / Sony Music Japan | SICJ 141
Jazz / Jazz Funk / Soul Jazz / Groove / Organ

Reissue with the latest 2016 remastering. Comes with liner notes. One of Charles Earland's sweet albums from his years at Columbia Records – done in a mode that's much more R&B than his earliest work, but in a style that's still A-OK with us! The groove here is greatly helped out by arrangements from Tom Washington, Weldon Irvine, and Marcus Miller – all great talents for mixing soul into Earland's jazzier keyboards – yet in a way that still keeps all of the best elements intact! Many of the tracks feature vocals, but in a gently soulful way that glides in nicely alongside the keys – and speaking of keys, Charles plays Fender Rhodes and Arp here in addition to his usual organ.

TERANGA BEAT proudly presents composer Kyriakos Sfetsas and his Greek Fusion Orchestra, an artist with a truly multifaceted body of work. Sfetsas formed GFO in 1976, in order to accomplish an ambition dating back to his 1960's Avant Garde period in Paris: to create a piece of work that would expand the boundaries of Greek traditional music. The result is a Progressive-Jazz Fusion masterpiece comprising complex and intriguing compositions, and performed by Athens' best musicians of the day.

For Immediate Release – Jeff Lorber Fusion, whose previous release Hacienda was praised for its “impeccable musicianship and deep grooves” by JazzTimes and its “funky, rollicking jams” by All About Jazz, returns on September 25, 2015, with Step It Up on Heads Up, a division of Concord Music Group. The fourth consecutive collaboration between GRAMMY®-nominated keyboardist/composer/producer Jeff Lorber and GRAMMY®-winning bassist/composer/ producer Jimmy Haslip since the two virtuosos reactivated Jeff Lorber Fusion five years ago, Step It Up features 11 new Lorber compositions, several co-written with Haslip. The longtime colleagues also co-produced the recording.