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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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In: ALBUMS, Lotus, The New Mastersounds

2024 was a great one for recorded funk, jazz, soul and world music. This article covers the wide range of albums I enjoyed during the year from some perennial favorites like The New Mastersounds, Ghost-Note, Kamasi Washington, Lotus and The Greyboy Allstars to new and new-to-me artists like Diggin’ Dirt, Tatiana Eva-Marie and Kinga Glyk. These are the albums that I listened to the most – I wish I could include all the great albums that were shared with me during the course of the year — hopefully my coverage will increase in 2025. If you like what you read,Continue Reading

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Imola Vida-Veres is a new artist and she’s got an exquisite voice and compositional chops. She sings in both Hungarian and English, naturally with a slight, but charming accent reminiscent of the fabulous Polish songstress, Basia from the 1980s. Imola’s got an airiness to her vocals that can go from a gentle wind to full gusts pretty quickly showing both grace and power. The accompanying musicians are all locked in and include several Hungarian string players as well as GroundUP/Snarky Puppy stalwarts Bob Lanzetti, Keita Ogawa, Marcelo Woloski, Bobby Sparks and André Ferrari (Bokanté). Nic Hard, Snarky’s long term soundContinue Reading

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Every Greyboy Allstars album release is a time to celebrate and I’m loving listening to all the gifts in Grab Bag: 2007 – 2023. It’s an eclectic mix of songs that the band had played life but never recorded over the last several years. In that sense, and because of the warmth and style of the album, it feels gorgeously familiar. It’s a testament to the collective experience of the group as bandmates and as craftsmen with other artists. The five fit together seamlessly and they weave in and out of the tunes with adroitness.  This absolutely hits the sweetContinue Reading

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In: Album of the Week, ALBUMS, Amp Jam, BLOG POSTS, FESTIVALS

Electric Kif is one of the leading funk fusion foursomes of the early 21st century and, I believe, have the gravitas to be among those bands that are listened to for decades, as their predecessors, Weather Report and Return to Forever have been. That’s a lofty statement, for sure, but the textures and contours of their tunes merit such praise and ReThink is a marvelous addition to their portfolio as the sixth studio album.   Buy or Stream ReThink(click on image) The band has been around for nearly 15 years and in the current configuration for more than 10.  They’veContinue Reading

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New Cool Collective is one of my favorite bands of the last twenty years. Every single album is top notch starting with Soul Jazz Latin in 1997! Now, Everything is OK! is one of my top albums of 2024! NCC from Amsterdam, is one of today’s leaders in Afrobeat music and the name of that debut album set the stage for the evolution of their sound. In 2005, they collaborated with legend Tony Allen (cofounder of Afrobeat with Fela Kuti) on their album Trippin’ and they’ve never looked back. Today, if you consider an Afrobeat spectrum from happy to dark,Continue Reading