Soundtrackloops Universal Club Leads

Considered by many in the jazz world as the natural heir to the throne of the late great Jaco Pastorius, Cameroon-born bassist and vocalist Richard Bona is so well-known for his incredible work as a studio sideman (Joe Zawinal, Regina Carter, Bob James, etc) and two-year stint as musical director for Harry Belafonte that it's easy to overlook his prodigious solo output since the late '90s. Rather than release a safe greatest hits type collection, Decca had the capital idea to follow his Grammy nominated disc Tiki with a high energy, hour-plus live album that captures a batch of his most compelling, rhythmically overjoyed tracks in the habitat where they best come to life. The unique twist is that while Bona loves being on-stage, he's not a fan of making live recordings. So his deal was telling his board guy not to inform him of which performance he was recording to use for the album.

These recordings came about because the directors of Club Francais du Livre decided to go into the record business. Their plan was to record the top French musicians of the time, each session having an American visiting guest star. One suspects that the documentation of each session was sketchy, for instance there is an unlisted Bass player on the Buck Clayton set and there are other similar anomalies. This in no way detracts from the music, the Buck Clayton session is a classic of the great and often underrated Mainstream Trumpet Man. Michelle de Villiers acquits himself very well on both Tenor and Baritone and the rhythm section is clean and swinging. Andre Persiany is a class act on keyboards and it sounds like a session where everyone was enjoying themselves…

Sushidelic (1999). The Sushi Club is heidelberg born and raised half japanese musician Tomio Tremmel who's debut album Sushidelic surprises in quality of production as well as in depth and musical range. The Sushi Club creates a floating and promising atmosphere that leads the listener into a space night like sphere and will be remembered as another masterpiece of electronic music. The Sushi Club - Sakura (2003). After the incredible success of the two previous longplayers, Neo Nashimi and Sushidelic, The Sushi Club continues on its extra-ordinary evolution. Sakura is the kind of album that shows true artistic maturity and greatness in every single second of its playing time…

As interesting and fun as the Daevid Allen period was, the name Gong became more meaningful in the context of the music as percussionist Pierre Moerlen assumed the role of bandleader. An emphasis on percussives of all sorts became clear on Gazeuse!, the band's first completely instrumental album, and the music became much jazzier, though never considered jazz. Expresso II finds Pierre Moerlen's Gong at their peak…