Motherland 2022

London-based Jazztronica duo Blue Lab Beats make their full-length Blue Note Records debut with Motherland Journey, an album years in the making that is a celebration of pushing boundaries, taking risks, and overcoming adversity. Following their appearance on 2020’s acclaimed Blue Note Re:imagined project, and their 2021 EP We Will Rise, the new album is a star-studded affair featuring the duo—producer NK-OK and multi-instrumentalist Mr DM—joined by collaborators including Ghetto Boy, Kiefer, Kofi Stone, Tiana Major9, KillBeatz, Teni Tinks, Poppy Daniels, Emmavie, Jackson Mathod, Kaidi Akinnibi, Ego Ella May, Pip Millett, Dylan Jones, and Jerome Thomas.

The follow-up to Leroy Vinnegar's first Contemporary album, this CD reissue matches the excellent bassist (who is mostly content to back the other soloists) with trumpeter Freddy Hill, tenor saxophonist Teddy Edwards, Victor Feldman on piano and vibes and drummer Ron Jefferson for four of the seven selections; the other numbers also use Hill and Edwards along with pianist Mike Melvoin, vibraphonist Roy Ayers (at the beginning of his career) and drummer Milt Turner. The set (which has three originals by Vinnegar, Edwards' "Wheelin' and Dealin'," Don Nelson, Les McCann and Freddie Hubbard in addition to the one standard "I'll String Along with You") helps define the modern mainstream of the early '60s, when cool jazz was being replaced by hard bop.