Tony Rihan

Billie Holiday. The first popular jazz singer to move audiences with the intense, personal feeling of classic blues, Billie Holiday changed the art of American pop vocals forever. More than a half-century after her death, it's difficult to believe that prior to her emergence, jazz and pop singers were tied to the Tin Pan Alley tradition and rarely personalized their songs; only blues singers like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey actually gave the impression they had lived through what they were singing. Billie Holiday's highly stylized reading of this blues tradition revolutionized traditional pop, ripping the decades-long tradition of song plugging in two by refusing to compromise her artistry for either the song or the band…

The Afrobeat legend Tony Allen died in the spring of 2020 at the age of 79. The year prior, the iconic drummer wrote and produced all of the beats for a newly announced album: There Is No End is out on April 30, the anniversary of Allen’s death, via Blue Note. There Is No End was produced by Allen, Vincent Taeger, and Vincent Taurelle. The 14-track LP features guest vocals from Danny Brown, Sampa the Great, Lava La Rue, and more. Today, Blue Note has released lead single “Cosmosis” (featuring Skepta and Ben Okiri), which is co-produced by Allen, Damon Albarn, and Remi Kabaka.

After 18 months of 12" releases that completely blew our minds, Honest Jons finally compile their amazing lineup of Tony Allen remixes for this one mighty package. Reworkings from Basic Channel's Mark Ernestus and Mauritz Von Oswald head the lineup, with Mauritz delivering a Ten and a half minute basic channel classic, a mighty Steppers version that unfolds in textbook Rhythm & Sound style, using the deepest tools imaginable within that impossibly spacious, fuzzed-out environment that only Basic Channel ever seem to produce so effortlessly. Carl Craig, meanwhile, utilises all the dancefloor savvy and careful vocal manipulations marked out on his finest and most sought after remixes of the last few years, delivering a fierce drum edit as good as his classic remix for The Congos a few years back. We have a mighty soft spot for the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble reworking that's also featured here, we've been spinning it more or less endlessly since it was first released and everyone we play it to begs us for a copy.

The dean of American pop vocalists took a different and exciting fork in the road for his third Duets album, recruiting the best Latin vocalists in the world, and rejuvenating classic material like "The Best Is Yet to Come" (featuring Chayanne), "For Once in My Life" (featuring Marc Anthony), "Who Can I Turn To (When Nobody Needs Me)" (featuring Gloria Estefan), "The Way You Look Tonight" (featuring Thalía), and "Return to Me" (featuring ranchera legend Vicente Fernández). Most of the charts are big band – one of the exceptions being the highlight, his duet with Fernández – but crossover fans will note that Bennett's English gives way to his duet partners' Spanish, an intriguing and successful choice.