The Epic Kamasi Washington

In 2016, California-based tenor saxophonist Idris Ackamoor relaunched his 1970s spiritual-jazz band, The Pyramids, and released a corking new album, We Be All Africans (Strut Records). In spring 2018, he has released another outstanding disc with another almost entirely new line-up. The only musician who is held over from We Be All Africans is violinist Sandra Poindexter, who has replaced Ackamoor's 1970s frontline foil, flautist Margo Simmons. Poindexter's gritty playing, which harks back to the pioneering work of Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians violinist Leroy Jenkins, makes for a perfect fit with Ackamoor's broken-notes and vocalisations.

The release of Kamasi Washington's The Epic last year marked a seismic shift in the jazz landscape and the game-changing arrival of the genre-blurring Los Angeles collective West Coast Get Down. That evolution continues with the release of Planetary Prince, the debut album by visionary pianist, keyboardist, composer and WCGD founding member Cameron Graves.

Today, the inimitable jazz vocalist, activist, and nominal godfather of the LA jazz scene, Dwight Trible, returns with the announcement of his new album “Ancient Future”. Out 17th March via London jazz aficionados and analog specialists Gearbox Records , the new record follows his critically acclaimed album “Mothership”, which was released in 2019 and saw him collaborate with the likes of Kamasi Washington, Mark de Clive-Lowe, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, and more.

A member of the Los Angeles-based jazz-funk collective West Coast Get Down (WCGD), bassist/singer Miles Mosley makes a dynamic impression on his fourth solo album and Verve debut, 2017's Uprising. Although Mosley has already released three independent albums, beginning with 2005's Sicaceremony, he remains relatively unknown to the mainstream - a fact that leaves him plenty of creative breathing room for his move to the storied Verve label.