To open this oddball supergroup's debut, Paul Simonon hints at "Guns of Brixton," and when Tony Allen's flex rhythms come in, there's a shadow of Fela Kuti, too. Then Damon Albarn's slow grit of a voice enters–framed by Simon Tong's flecked guitar. And collectively, The Good, the Bad, & the Queen is quickly sui generis, adamantly different than anything you think you've heard. A band with this much power has at least two options: to cut loose raucously or to mute their overt power for a more covert, dub-inflected atmospheric potency. Smartly, Albarn and his crew opt for the half-light of elastic bass lines, the clouds between the parentheses of drums–the covert. It's not until "Kingdom of Doom," the erstwhile 'single' of the album, that motion expands beyond the languorous. And even then, Tony Allen largely sits out. You get the full flush of Simonon and Allen on "Three Changes" shuffling time even while holding the tempo to a dubbish gait. It's not Blur, the Clash, Fela, the Verve, or Gorillaz. It's more than just names on albums.
Celebration of the mid-60s Swinging London scene at its brash, colourful zenith. A cornucopia of club-friendly mod R&B/soul, era-defining pop hits and cult TV/film themes as England swung like a pendulum do.
"During the sixties Adelaide had a thriving music scene. Once used inner city basements and cellars became dark, hot, noisy and smoky clubs and discos. Venues like Alan Hale's Beat Basement, The Scene, Alex Innocenti's The Cellar and Jim Popoff's Big dadd's filled with teen-agers to hear discs spun by local DJs and local groups pounding out R&B and hits of the day. Bands like the Masters Apprentices, Blues Rags'n Hollers, Southern Gentlemen, Dust'n Ashes, Blues Syndicate, The Vikings/Why 4, The Others, Sounds Of Silence and many others made their presence felt. Some were lucky enough to release one or maybe two 45s at best, however the emergence of a number of independant recording facilities enables many more to record demos and tracks to mime to on local TV music shows like Action or In Time. This is what we have here, hidden away for over 40 years, the fruits of that youthful energy hopefully getting some recognition, not afforded them at the time.''
A soul survivor in every sense of the term, this alto saxophonist is one of the few remaining jazz artists who made a major impact on the jazz community via an extensive run with producer Alfred Lion and the Blue Note label (Horace Silver being another Blue Note legend that comes to mind). From his first recordings for the label with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, it was clear that Lou Donaldson put melody and sound at a premium, coming up with an amalgam that combined the creamy smoothness of Johnny Hodges with the quicksilver bop inflections of Charlie Parker.