Manchester jazz-funkers Secret Night Gang bring their bold self-titled debut album to Brownswood Recordings. Led by the soulful vocals of Kemani Anderson and featuring saxophonist Callum Connell’s pin-sharp orchestrations, Secret Night Gang is a joyful slice of summer-soul goodness that nods to the vibrant history of jazz-inflected soul, while reflecting today’s genre blending sensibilities in a heady mix of gospel, R&B, souljazz and more.
Secret Alliance was founded by guitarist Gianluca Galli (Silver Horses & Mantra) initially as his solo project, but found he was wanting to create music with some extra complexity involved. He recruited the incredible Ricardo Confessori (ex-Angra) and fantastic hard rock bassist Tony Franklin to round out the constant members in every song. There are many guest musicians on this futuristic/sci-fi inspired album including Frank Gambale (Chick Corea Band) and Alex Masi. These great musicians create a incredible futuristic world in sound.
Truly tremendous work from saxophonist Kamasi Washington – a set that may well even blow away his groundbreaking Epic album – given the scope of soul and spirit in the music! As with the previous project, this one's double-length, but maybe feels even more fitted to the mode – as Washington leads this incredible ensemble that unifies a jazz group, orchestra, and choir – all at a level that might even top some of Alice Coltrane's early 70s albums for Impulse! There's a richness in vision here right from the start – music that knows what it is, where it's going, and what it can accomplish – very personal, but also very welcoming too – just the right sort of spirit to help get the nation back on track! Washington blows tenor throughout – and gets great help from Cameron Graves on piano, Brandon Coleman on organ and keyboards, and Miles Mosley on bass – whose work alone really seems to drive the proceedings!
Listeners have come to expect a lot from Secret Chiefs 3. For Book of Souls, second in the band’s mega-trilogy (first being Book of Horizons, 2004), they demand nothing less than a vertigo-inducing follow-up. True to expectation, Book of Souls: Folio A is a full-length album densely packed with musical skyscrapers. Over a decade in the making, it’s Secret Chiefs 3’s most elaborate work yet. Following the seven-band schemata laid out in Book of Horizons, Book of Souls thoroughly establishes the depth of Secret Chiefs 3’s journey into lost musical possibilities. With productions based in studios in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, the UK and France over the last eleven years, the band’s leader Trey Spruance enlisted a small army of musicians - or actually not so small, since the orchestral tasks demanded by the music seem to be so unlimited…
Manifold Records presents The Secret Garden of Chillout Vol. 1 - A Magical Sound Carpet to Relax. 30 excellent Chillout tracks from Frank Borell, Cafe Americaine, DJ Maretimo, Vladi Strecker, Pascal Dubois, Bay Area and others.