Lafayette Gilchrist’s “Move with Love” features his ensemble, The New Volcanoes, blending jazz, funk, and hip-hop in a live recording. Celebrated for its infectious rhythms and community focus, the album reflects resilience and joy during difficult times. Each track showcases individual talents, making it a standout release of 2025.Continue Reading
Garaj Majal is one of the most sophisticated funk-jazz-world-fusion bands of the past 25 years and a personal favorite. They’ve just released the terrific album “Rotifer,” an eclectic collection of nine tunes, each one sparkling in its own right. The band started as a quartet in the year 2000 with two of the founding members Fareed Haque (guitar) and Kai Eckhardt (bass) still active as the core of the band. In the early 2000s, the band was a major touring act and released four albums. When their first album, “Mondo Garaj,” was released in 2003, it was on repeat onContinue Reading
The Mighty Mocambos have been around since 2006 but only hit my radar a few years back. The band, out of Hamburg, Germany, has just put out a superfine album, “A Higher Frequency,” that cooks across a range of instrumental and vocal tunes with ingredients of soul, Afrobeat, jazz, and funk that make you feel good head to toe. This album showcases The Mighty Mocambos command of the funk lexicon with a terrific rhythm section, hard-hitting horn riffs and solos and soulful singing. I find it easy to connect their sound to styles from the past while still recognizing thatContinue Reading
Analog Son is a super funky band comprised of Josh Fairman (SunSquabi) on bass and Jordan Linit on guitar joined by complementary artists for recording. “Keep It Coming” is a shimmy-shaking, earth-quaking ride. It’s their first full release since Funky Mother in 2018 (Funky Mother Review), which was also a killer album. In addition to the two founders, veterans Joe Tatton (The New Mastersounds) on keyboards and Neal Evans (Dopapod) join the mix, as well as stellar guest musicians on each track including songstress Adryon de León, trumpeters Eric “Benny” Bloom (Lettuce) and Gabe Mervine (The Motet), and saxophonist NickContinue Reading
Organ trios have been a mainstay of the jazz-funk-fusion stable since the 60s. In recent years, there’s been a surge in popularity of the format, as the B3 can emulate a broad range of sounds and the small format enables each of the musicians to stretch out in a big way. Deitch, Teitel Fribush (DTF) is a powerhouse within that realm, and the newly released “Another Side of the Sound” brings fresh ideas while maintaining ligature to tradition. As described in the liner notes, the album was recorded directly to a Tascam 388 tape machine to give it that old-school feel.Continue Reading
Budos Band carved out a unique genre for themselves as masters of cinematic, occult, mystical, edgy, foreboding music. This album, VII (most of their albums are simply titled sequentially), is their latest offering of deep, dark metal funk, and it’s a frightfully fun listen. The band started about 20 years ago in Staten Island, NY, with their first three heavy on Afrobeat and Afro-soul in the mold of Fela Kuti and the JBs. That meant a great rhythm section, heavy on percussion and terrific horns. Even in that era, which included the albums I (2005), II (2007), III (2010), andContinue Reading
I’ve been a Galactic fan for more than 20 years, listened to every album they’ve put out, and seen them live about 20 times through several configurations. They’ve changed from emphasizing vocals to instrumentals and back and play a wide range of music, from heart-pumping funk to jazz and blues and gospel. And I like it all, but I’ve gotta say “Audience with the Queen” is a new favorite album. In the “Behind the Scenes,” videos, they tell Irma that she’s going to sound young on the record and much to her amazement, she does, and I can absolutely confirmContinue Reading
We’re just seven weeks away from the inaugural edition of GroundUP Music Festival Alberobello (GUMF-A), which is sure to be an incredibly memorable musical and cultural event. GUMF-A follows in the mode of the well-established, perennially exciting GroundUP Music Festival Miami Beach that has taken place nine times since the inaugural 2017 edition. “Each night, it will see a set from 5-time Grammy Award-winning Snarky Puppy with special guest appearances by some of Italy’s most innovative and expressive instrumentalists,” according to the festival website. This is a recasting of the preview article to now include the daily lineups! There willContinue Reading
The Psycodelics are one of my favorite new bands of the last several years and they just released their fantastic debut album, “Please Keep Off the Grass.” They bill themselves as modern Black American music and they’re all of that — funk, soul, R&B and jazz all rolled into one beautiful package. They have a sound all their own while also echoing the greats from the past like Sly and the Family Stone, Al Green, and Earth Wind and Fire. I first caught The Psycodelics live last year at a local venue and was immediately a fan. On Jam CruiseContinue Reading
Apple Cores from James Brandon Lewis is one of my favorite jazz saxophone albums of the last few years. It hits with a natural, primal feeling – at times fully relaxing and others full-throttle stimulation. The first and only time I’ve seen JBL live was at Newport Jazz Festival 2024 with The Messthetics and I found that set totally electrifying. So, when Apple Cores was released, I was keen to give a listen. The album definitely should be heard start-to-finish as it’s well organized and runs a course through a range of feelings. It’s a trio album with James onContinue Reading