It Thundercat

Thundercat is set to release his new album “It Is What It Is” on Brainfeeder Records on April 3, 2020. The album, produced by Flying Lotus and Thundercat, features musical contributions from Ty Dolla $ign, Childish Gambino, Lil B, Kamasi Washington, Steve Lacy, Steve Arrington, BADBADNOTGOOD, Louis Cole and Zack Fox.

NOT TiGHT is the long-awaited debut album from virtuosic Gen Z duo, DOMi and JD Beck, released on Anderson .Paak’s new label Apeshit in partnership with the legendary jazz label Blue Note Records. It features the likes of Thundercat, whose deadpan funk is their closest antecedent, Herbie Hancock, Snoop Dogg, Busta Rhymes, Mac DeMarco, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and .Paak himself. Their music finds both humour and greatness in harmonic complexity and rhythmic shiftiness, abruptly adopting and ditching tempos, toying with time signatures, and sneaking extra beats into bridges. They offer winking breaks and gleeful pivots, but the album is more composed than anything they’ve done before, toying with pop structures and pretty restraint. That befits their origin story. The duo first played together in a room full of blaring demos at a trade show, but they bonded over gauche keyboard FX and mom jokes. Over the next year and a half, they wrote and recorded much of the album at JD’s house in Dallas on drums and a 49-key MIDI board with just a few mics. Along the way, DOMi and JD Beck have sat in with Herbie Hancock and backed Thundercat, Ariana Grande, Eric André, and more; they also co-wrote “Skate” on .Paak’s Grammy-winning album with Bruno Mars as Silk Sonic.

On March 3, 2017, Grammy Award winning composer, producer, singer and drummer Ronald Bruner Jr. will present the megalithic debut album Triumph. Eleven cuts of deep fusion, soul, R&B, jazz and pop, Triumph was put together with Ronald’s brothers Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner and Jameel Bruner of The Internet. It was captured during the infamous KSL Sessions that produced Kamasi Washington’s The Epic and many other West Coast Get Down recordings.

Wide Open marks Michael McDonald’s first set of original material in 17 years. McDonald wrote Wide Open over several years and recorded the tracks at his Nashville studio with drummer Shannon Forrest (Faith Hill, Blake Shelton, Tim McGraw, Toto) and a crew of the city's session players and features collaborations with guitarist-singer Warren Haynes (Allman Brothers Band, Gov't Mule), guitarist Robben Ford, bassist Marcus Miller and saxophonist Branford Marsalis.

Kamasi Washington - Harmony of Difference (2017) {Young Turks YTCD171} (Complete Artwork)
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 216 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 77 Mb
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© 2017 Young Turks | YTCD171
Jazz / Contemporary Jazz / Soul Jazz / Jazz Funk / Orchestral Jazz / Saxophone

t's tempting to hear Kamasi Washington's six-track Harmony of Difference suite as a follow-up to his sprawling, justifiably acclaimed three-hour debut The Epic. But this EP, at just over half-an-hour, is, in many ways, a standalone work. It was performed in New York at The Whitney Biennial as part of a show that included a film by director A.G. Rojas and paintings by Washington's sister Amani. According to the artist, it was composed to explore "the philosophical possibilities of the musical technique known as 'counterpoint.'" Washington defines it as "the art of balancing similarity and difference to create harmony between separate melodies." That description is, at least in this setting, akin to metaphor in the current socio-political-cultural era where flash point battles over issues of race, gender, sexual orientation, and cultural appropriation are being waged afresh.

The Epic is saxophonist Kamasi Washington's aptly titled, triple-length, 172-minute debut album for Brainfeeder. He is a veteran of L.A.'s music scene and has played with Gerald Wilson, Harvey Mason, Flying Lotus, and Kendrick Lamar (his horn is prominently featured on To Pimp a Butterfly), to name but a few. Most of his bandmates have played together since high school, and it shows. There are two drummers (including Ronald Bruner), two bassists (including Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner on electric), two keyboardists, trumpet, trombone, and vocals (Patrice Quinn). In various settings, they are supported by a string orchestra and full choir conducted by Miguel Atwood-Ferguson. Washington composed 13 of these 17 tunes; he also meticulously arranged and produced them. At just over six to nearly 15 minutes, the jams leave room for engaged improvisation. The Epic is based on a concept, though it's unnecessary to grasp in order to enjoy. The music reflects many inspirations – John Coltrane, Horace Tapscott's Pan-African People's Arkestra, Azar Lawrence's Prestige period, Donald Byrd's and Eddie Gale's jazz and choir explorations, Pharoah Sanders' pan global experiments, Afro-Latin jazz, spiritual soul, and DJ culture.