Jazz / Soul / Funk

A series of pivotal music projects during the early 1980s led to an explosion of authentic South African sounds sweeping the Western world. Among those projects were collaborative albums such as Malcolm McLaren’s “Duck Rock” (1983), Lizzy Mercier Descloux’s “Zulu Rock” (1984) and Paul Simon’s “Graceland” (1986); and reissues and compilations of essential African recordings on the UK-based Earthworks Records label, headed up by white South African expatriates Jumbo Vanrenan and Trevor Herman. The common denominator linking these releases was the genre that Earthworks famously referred to as “The Indestructible Beat of Soweto” – mbaqanga music. It was therefore inevitable that the foremost exponents of that genre, Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens, would achieve international stardom before the decade ended. Their international ‘discovery’ was actually the latest chapter in a collective career that had already spanned some 30 years. In June 1988, Mahlathini and the Queens made their first visit to the United Kingdom. Hoping to ride the crest of a wave, concert promoters conceived a package show named after the seminal 1985 Earthworks compilation, “The Indestructible Beat of Soweto”. This would give British audiences a revealing insight into African music as never before – in addition to the headline performers were Philip Tabane and Malombo, Nothembi Mkhwebane and her backing chorus The Siblings, Sipho Mchunu, accordion player Mzwandile David and acrobatic dancer Lucas ‘Rubber Boy’ Kau. The rapturous reception led to an invitation back to the UK in November for further Indestructible Beat concerts. It was off the back of these shows that Mahlathini and the Queens – the undoubtable standouts of Indestructible Beat – undertook their first standalone tour of the UK in early 1989. Their stage act rarely dipped below excellent. Dressed in their original attire as young Zulu girls – but with red izicholo on their heads to signify they were now grown women – Nobesuthu Shawe, Hilda Tloubatla and Mildred Mangxola would fly onto the stage to the strains of “Awuthule Kancane” (Be a bit quieter), heralding the start of a very special evening of music and dance. The formidable Mahlathini, billed as “The Lion of Soweto”, emerged from the stage wings with both arms raised in the air for the start of the next number, “Re Ya Dumedisa” (We greet you all). The humble and soft-spoken performer always lived up to the expectations set by his billing – his roaring introduction to “Lilizela Mlilizeli” (Ululate/applaud) audible proof of the more extroverted alter ego he metamorphosed into on stage. Numbers like “Uyavutha Umlilo” (Music inferno), “Jive Makgona”, “Thokozile” (a girl’s name) and “Melodi Ya Lla” (There‘s a sound ringing out) were used primarily as vehicles for the Queens’ trademark mgqashiyo choreography, punctuated with whistles, hand claps and chants of “yebo!” (“yes!”) and “thatha!” (“take it!”). Mahlathini prowled around the stage imitating the ladies or simply stood aside, clapping and allowing them to take the spotlight. “Duduzile” (a girl’s name), however, was where the great groaner came alive, contorting, convulsing and leaping through an exaggerated Zulu dance routine. Then in “Nina Majuba” (Fly away, you doves) and “Sengikhala Ngiyabaleka” (I‘m crying and running away), the foursome competed in a magnificent display of showstopping, uninhibited jive, bringing the show to a close and the audience clamouring for an encore. The Indestructible Beat of Soweto shows have long since passed into gig legend. None of those landmark concerts were ever made commercially available. Now, some 30 years later, Umsakazo Records proudly presents Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens’ entire Indestructible Beat set of 16 songs, handpicked from a number of different UK venues and all remastered from newly discovered cassette recordings. These were made at the mixing desk by David Barton, a photographer and music fanatic who travelled with the performers as they descended on unsuspecting audiences across the UK. “Music Inferno: The Indestructible Beat Tour 1988-89” shines the spotlight once more on a truly joyous and frenetic concert experience, one that without question established Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens as forever one of South Africa’s greatest musical exports.

The diminutive Peter Barclay was that guy in early ’90s Oakland, the eccentric with the most style, the most talent, the local magician. This self-taught musical wizard recorded at home and produced two barely-released albums, 1990’s dreamlike Acceptance and 1992’s synth pop What Kind Of World, winning over the few who heard them. But fame outside his small circle was not to be, and Barclay was lost in the late-’90s crest of the AIDS epidemic. Rediscovered for a new generation, this is queer music at its finest… Welcome to the world of Peter Barclay.

The highly anticipated debut LP from Say She She, the all female discodelic soul band that will transport you with their dreamy harmonies, catchy hooks and up tempo grooves! The band's sound is a hat tip to late 70’s girl groups with the three strong female lead voices of Piya Malik (featured in El Michels Affair, and backing singer for Chicano Batman), Nya Gazelle Brown, and Sabrina Cunningham - whose vocals soar through a set doused heavily with funky bass lines, rhythmic wah guitar, melodic synths and lilting bansuri flute lines, bursting into a seamless blend of dreamy harmonies and catchy hooks. A multicultural, multi-instrumental, collaborative melting pot, pulling sounds and styles from all corners of their record collections. The largely self-produced debut album Prism features contributions from Dap Kings Joey Crispiano and Victor Axelrod, Max Shrager (The Shacks), Bardo Martinez (Chicano Batman), Nikhil Yearwadekar (former Antibalas), Andy Bauer (Twin Shadow) and Matty McDermot (NYPMH). For Fans Of: Aasha Puthli, Grace Jones, Minnie Ripperton, The Supremes, Love Apple and Kendra Morris.

Where will you hide when the world around you is closing in? On their latest LP, GFO invites you to close your eyes and take a dive into your subconscious. Strings and horns float around from ear to ear while their three sirens explore themes of isolation, fear of the unknown, and the fabrication of self-image. It’s a soulful psychedelic journey that picks up sonically where “A Song For Paul” left off. The drums are heavier, the arrangements are more intricate, and the vocal harmonies soar over a bed of odd time signature grooves. This is an album that’s meant to be listened to in the dark. So won’t you join them? You’re not scared.....are you?

After branching off from The Royal Jesters in the mid-'60s, Dimas Garza attempted a solo career and reinvented himself as Dimas III. Dimas recorded three singles on the Jesters' own Clown label - all tracked at Abie Epstein's studio off General McMullen in San Antonio, TX. The first was "So Funny" b/w "I Won't Love You Again," which are almost impossible-to-find records. Garza never did manage to break beyond the Bexar County limits but left a rich legacy of recordings behind for lowrider enthusiasts and obsessed collectors alike.

Killer compilation of rare R&B 45-s featuring wild and crazy guitarists. First volume of this series.

A unique dialogue between the electronic textures of Saint Abdullah with the live drums of Jason Nazary (Anteloper).

Saint Abdullah consists of Tehran-born brothers Mohammad and Mehdi Mehrabani-Yeganeh, who have been exploring a diverse palette of sounds over their releases to date, including collaborations with Eomac on Nicolas Jaar’s Other People label, and Model Home on Purple Tape Pedigree, as well as their own duo album on Important Records.

Jason Nazary is a drummer and composer from Atlanta and based in Brooklyn. Fascinated by the intersection of acoustic and electronic music, Jason has been a force in New York's creative music scene for over a decade. As well as his own solo work he also co-leads a number of ensembles, among them the dystopian electro noise duo Clebs with singer Emilie Weibel, and until recently Anteloper (International Anthem), an improvising modular beat shredding duo with the much-missed Jaimie Branch.

Billie Holiday's 1956 Carnegie Hall performance, which has been called the best of Billie Holiday's later years, is reprinted on 180g heavyweight vinyl!
A live album containing the 1956 Carnegie Hall performance, which is often called the best of Billie Holiday's later years. The gig was held to promote Billy's autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, interspersed with readings by Gilbert Milstein. The original was released in 1961, about two years after Billy died on July 17, 1959 at the age of 44.

sound of the drizzle hitting the skylight, summer bonfire at la caillère, chimes in le bono’s cinerary garden, pat patrol’s phone beep beep, a jogger, a tap, patrick’s bees, the oven before cooking the pizza, a regional express train, a hst, a belt sander…

El primer LP publicado por el pianista limeño Alfredo Linares bajo su propio nombre rebosa hits de mediados de los 60 y busca poner al día a sus oyentes sobre el desarrollo de los sonidos tropicales en Estados Unidos a los que Linares añadía su propio toque de jazz. “El Pito” contiene guarachas, guaguancós, jazzy descargas y, obviamente, boogaloos irresistibles, incluyendo una versión sobresaliente del himno compuesto por J. Sabater que da título al disco. Primera reedición.

Disco divas, Funky queens and Glam ladies in 70's and early 80's Taiwan! Due to its extremely complex history, Taiwan in the 70s saw the creation of some incredibly special music in which the sounds coming at the moment from the west collided with the special sensitivity of Taiwanese musicians, creating a delicious mixture you’ll need to hear to believe. "Taiwan Disco" shines a light on the music created by Taiwanese women during those years (70s and early 80s) to present a mind-blowing collection of songs with sounds ranging from wild Funk to apace Glam, exotic Disco or fuzzed out Soul. Here’s the ticket to some crazy Taiwan nights, get those dancing shoes ready, it’s time to shake it!

He has collaborated with such giants as Ry Cooder, Vampire Weekend and Moses Sumney. Sam Gendel is one of the biggest talents in the current L.A. independent scene and has become a very popular saxophonist, who has also sketched his own unique sound in his jazz trio Inga. Sam Gendel is one of the biggest talents in the current LA independent scene, and is now a very popular saxophonist, blending keywords such as fourth world, hip-hop, jazz, psychedelic, ambient, and meditative, and cultivating a new world in the free air of LA. The album was recorded in his hometown in California with two guest musicians, Gabe Noel and Philippe Melanson. The album features jazz standards such as Miles Davis' "Freddie Freeloader" and Charles Mingus' "Goodbye Porkpie Hat," arranged in a psychedelic, outsider's world. It's an unorthodox sound that would be out of place in New Jazz, which is probably one of the most interesting forms of music today.

It's an outlandish arrangement of Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road", a worldwide hit with over 500 million views... A series of sounds so imaginary that even people 10 centuries in the future will surely have too many question marks, mutant psychedelic music that is a step or two ahead of the imagination! This is mutant psychedelic music that goes one or two steps ahead of the imagination! Using vintage drum machines, synthesizers, and his own voice, he tinkers with materials developed over 16 hours of sessions with Philippe Melanson, an electronic percussionist known for his work with Joseph Shabason and Ryan Driver. This is a work that was created by tinkering around with the material. Hip-hop, experimental music, jazz, neo-R&B, and even Jon Hassell's unknown fourth world view blend together in the free air of LA, creating a different world and an enigmatic view of the world. This is a sound that only he can make. 

Though best known for producing seminal albums for some of the world’s most exciting artists (Vince Staples, IDLES, Rico Nasty), on LOUIE Kenny subverts expectations with an almost entirely instrumental artist record that acts as a deeply personal tribute to the artist’s ailing father. Over 17 songs, LOUIE is a hypnotic odyssey of wounded, teardrop soul; a side of Kenny that has not been seen by the world before.

We are finally set to reissue Blowout Comb, the 1994 second album by cult, Brooklyn-based hip hop trio Digable Planets.

The album is named for the combs used to maintain an Afro hairstyle, and that’s significant. The group’s Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler said it summed up what they wanted to do with it: "It means the utilization of the natural, a natural style,” he has said.

Like with 1993’s debut Reachin’ (A New Refutation of Time and Space), ‘utilizing the natural’ meant creating hip hop that blended jazz with the formidable rap skills of the aforementioned Butterfly, Craig ‘Doodlebug’ Irving and Mary Ann ‘Ladybug Mecca’ Vieira. Unlike that debut, it meant broadening to include guests such as Gang Starr’s Guru, Jeru the Damaja, and Jazzy Joyce.

Following the gold-selling commercial success of their debut, they here set out to prove their artistic prowess. This is intelligent, alternative hip hop that sounded like party music. Its lyrics are dense with wit, social commentary and politics – and its original inner sleeve was modeled on the newspaper of the Black Panther movement.

Its instrumentation includes sax, vibraphone and flute. Its samples – gathered from global cratedigging trips while touring the first album around the world – included Grant Green, Eddie Harris, Shuggie Otis and jazz-funk pioneer Roy Ayers (whose “We Live in Brooklyn, Baby” became “Borough Check” here). And yet at the same time its beats are infectious and its spirit undeniable.

This is an album firmly rooted in Brooklyn. “Growing up hearing and cherishing this album, it created a textured soundscape of a mythical world of rhymes, jazz, breakbeats, culture, art and urban ambiance,” says DJ and fan Mick Boogie in the liner notes. “When I moved to Brooklyn years later, I found that the world I imagined while listening to this classic LP actually really existed…”

Though Digable Planets have reunited on occasion since – and though their influence endures in every top-shelf rap act with a jazzy sensibility – the trio parted ways after Blowout Comb, citing that old favorite "creative differences”. Sometimes, the most volatile combinations create the best art.

It’s hard to tell on first listen, but the L.A.-based Gendel made every sound on his new album using his alto saxophone. “Pass If Music” is hardly a solo jazz album, though. Rather, the musician harnesses his horn in service of ambient tones and experimental works that reside outside genre distinctions. “East L.A. Haze Dream” floats like an amorphous cloud of vapor as Gendel layers gently blown notes with the occasional brief sax run. “Trudge” is a darkened mantra featuring lower-register hums and a minimal rhythm that marches with determination. In notes, the artist writes that it and the other eight pieces were inspired by the motion picture “The Labyrinth & the Long Road,” [directed by Daniel Oh] for which Gendel contributed the score, and that makes sense. It’s an atmospheric work that evokes its own brand of drama.” –Randall Roberts for the Los Angeles Times

ortland, Oregon-based musician Graham Jonson started early: playing piano as a toddler, finding the music of J Dilla in fifth grade, and self-releasing singles by age 16. First appearing under the name quickly, quickly in 2017, his project’s profile has since grown fervently with fans in the beats-oriented corners of SoundCloud, YouTube, and Reddit. Some of his early tracks tally north of 10 million plays on Spotify. The figure isn’t meant to flex as much as it is to point out that Jonson’s work has resonated without the traditional industry levers; he is a wunderkind DIY internet success story, but, by his own assessment at the present age of 20, he’s only now getting serious. With The Long And Short Of It, his Ghostly International debut, Jonson reinvents his project as a full-fledged songwriter, vocalist, and arranger, playing nearly everything from drums to keys and guitar. The resulting sound straddles jazz, hip hop, R&B, and psych-pop while suggesting a wholly genre-less path forward. Recorded during and after a short-lived move to Los Angeles, songs find Jonson cool and comfortable, navigating the planes between anxiety and apathy, distance and desire with lyrical vulnerability and introspection. A student of the Stones Throw catalog (his favorite is Madlib’s Quasimoto), Jonson remains rhythm-driven at heart, trusting his instincts in this new palette of organic instrumentation and verse-chorus structure. Tracks glide and bump with tasteful care to tempo as his scene-building and storytelling knack comes into focus. Jonson’s past material often suited passive listenership, the kind of bedroom-produced beat music that offers secondary utility and function as a companion to primary activities. The Long and Short of It showcases an evolutionary step into a style that uses chops cultivated in that niche that demand a more active listenership. That attention is rewarded with earworms, dazzling production flare, and earnest, genre-spanning songwriting. Opener “Phases” launches on the radical wisdom of the album’s sole vocal feature, courtesy of renowned poet and activist, Sharrif Simmons, who contributes a psychedelic poem spanning cosmic existentialism — something he wrote off the cuff during a session. As the fiery spoken word unfolds, a frenzy of drum grooves from Micah Hummel and strings from Elliot Cleverdon rise higher into the mix, all setting the stage for Jonson’s debut at the mic and keys. The back half of “Phases” shifts into a hypnotic instrumental, the drums interlocking on guitar lines, pausing for a spacious break before reassembling twice as potent, riding into a blissful, cathartic saxophone solo by Haily Naiswanger. The next track, “Come Visit Me,” was penned for Jonson’s girlfriend, a simple, sweet homesick plea for her company in Los Angeles, where he was secretly struggling to adjust. Ultimately he would move back to Portland after 11 months and scrap much of the music he wrote in LA, unhappy with the material’s reliance on sampled drum breaks and synths. He held onto a few bits though, including this tender dispatch, building it out into a bass-grooving slow jam, adding a verse from his perspective two years later. “Shee” was written on his girlfriend’s guitar and every line glows with uncomplicated adoration. He is captivated in this daydream, which drifts off into a haze of strums and hums. We wake to the looping drums of “Leave It.” Above the pattern, layering piano and guitar, Jonson pokes holes in himself — his “cognitive dissonance,” being “too jaded” to see what’s right in front of him – the notions blurring back into that haze on an outro of sublime ambient psych-jazz. Jonson returns to the piano for “I Am Close To The River,” the place he goes to break a creative rut, as he was the morning this bittersweet melody entered his mind. He says the song is loosely based on a psychonautic experience he had along the Willamette River. Once home, he put the song to paper, over time arranging a bucolic mix of shimmering chimes, saturated percussion, and orchestral strings from Elliot Cleverdon. A highlight on the record’s b-side, “Everything is Different (To Me)” features all the traits of the new quickly, quickly in one ambitious suite: a catchy guitar loop, a classic hip-hop drum break, a swell of strings, and sly chord progression changes, all in clever contrast to Jonson’s lyrics detailing bouts with lethargy. The album ends on a series of questions in the poignant “Wy,” a delightful resignation. Jonson, lonely in LA, spins the hypochondriac wheel and checks off concerns that seem to plague internet dwellers; his neck hurts, his hands are shaky, his stomach feels off. He dismisses his need to self-diagnose and opts to lean into the moment through music. A billowing outro builds on airy synths, his contemplative guitar strums, and a soothing water droplet sound. The comedown is “Otto’s Dance,” a brief instrumental reverie nodding to one of his favorite Brazilian albums, Milton Nascimento and Lô Borges’ Clube Da Esquina. That’s The Long And Short Of It, a summary of transition, self-validation, and a great leap forward in a young artist’s life.

Languid yacht-soul from the mind of LA native AJ Greene and his Greenflow collective. Originally issued as a QCA-custom job in 1977, the group’s lone album appeared after years of performing their brand of Sausalito-friendly, seafood AOR up and down the West Coast. The LP’s standout track is ‘I Got’Cha’, with Greene’s sister Eleanor providing innocent “doodoo-doo-doo-doo”s around funky keys, muted trombone, and come-hither whispers.

Limited double vinyl LP pressing. Digitally remastered and expanded edition. Celebrating 40 years since its first release, Johnny Hammond's Gears is given the deluxe treatment with the addition of six previously unreleased tracks and a brand new transfer from the original masters. Recognized as one of the finest jazz funk albums of all time, Gears was produced by the Mizell brothers and stands alongside their work with Donald Byrd at the pinnacle of their careers. Tracks such as 'Shifting Gears' and 'Los Conquistadores Chocolates' have been club classics almost since the album was released. Hip hop and house producers have regularly used it as a source for samples. The bonus cuts shine a light on the Mizell's production process and show the strength of the material from which the released masters were culled.

Iceblink is a homespun, intimate project conjured by Lynn Avery in Minneapolis. As a trans woman, everything she creates is about her experience and Lynn describes "Carpet Cocoon" as her comfort album, music to retreat to in the winter. Informed by her passion for mixtapes, oddities and crate digging blogs, the album is eclectic yet cohesively spun around the aesthetic of a bedroom new age album. Sonically, it has a fuzzy and rounded vibe incorporating nylon string guitars through vocoders, textural Prophet synthesizers, flutes and filtered saxophone. The effect of "Carpet Cocoon" is stunning and personal, melancholic yet idyllic, a spiritual ritual of baths for lying on your bedroom floor.

This customarily smooth set from 1981 is perhaps most famous for featuring three unforgettable tracks made with Marcos Valle. Rio's pop-soul wunderkind was exploring soul textures at the same time as Leon was absorbing the rich flavour of Brazilian harmonics. Together, they crafted rhythmically sophisticated and melodically adventurous soul.

The Voices of Creation are a community-based choir led by vocalist, songwriter, arranger, producer and mainstay of the Los Angeles scene Jimetta Rose. Made up of a multigenerational group of mainly non-professional singers backed by some of the city’s finest musicians, their music marries hip strains of gospel with layers of jazz, soul and funk. While aspects of their music might recall Kamasi Washington, The Staple Singers or Sly Stone, Jimetta’s unique vision has resulted in new spiritually-charged forms of music whose whole-hearted embrace of love, joy and peace act as sonic healing balms for the soul. For Jimetta - whose resume includes collaborations with Miguel Atwood Ferguson, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Sa-Ra Creative Partners, Angel Bat Dawid, Shafiq Husayn, MED and Blu - the very act of creation was part of a healing process: “I was very low at the time and I wrote most of the songs going through hardship. But I found comfort in the songs and a way to adjust my mindset to where things got better. So I thought ‘if this music works for me, maybe it will work for other people’ I believe that every person has their own voice and their own note and that we can use our voices to heal ourselves. That’s the intention behind creating the project.” After putting out a call on social media for people interested in joining her choir she was met with a sea of replies. Members were chosen in less-than conventional fashion: “I recruited people based on their interest in healing themselves and others, not necessarily on their musical experience or being seasoned performers” she says. Among those accepted into the ever-evolving collective, which was begun initially as a community choir, were the likes of Sly Stone’s daughter Novena Carmel, better known as a radio DJ for KCRW’s flagship breakfast show. Jimetta’s upbringing in the Pentecostal church, where she was a youth choir director, fed into her otherwise intuitive teachings of her songs and arrangements to the inexperienced members with help from the group’s seasoned organ player/co-musical director Jack Maeby. Produced by Mario Caldato Jr. (Beastie Boys, Seu Jorge) and his wife Samantha Caldato the results show the incredible sense of togetherness and communal spirit that the group had built up over time in the rehearsal sessions. The six tracks of their debut album, a mixture of originals and rearranged covers, are performed in a wide-eyed mix of styles that reflect Jimetta’s vision for borderless music: “It’s new black classical music,” she explains. “It’s all the hodgepodge of being an African American but also with creativity and vision for the future. It has a taste of what is to come and what we can do. What we have gone through and who we are now.” The group’s propensity for warm and buoyant sonics finds representation on album opener Let The Sunshine In, a sparkling rework of the Sons and Daughters of Lite’s deep jazz classic. Their version finds the group’s dynamic group harmonies offset with Allakoi Peete’s nimble afro-percussive touches and plenty of soul-drenched keys courtesy of pianist Quran Shaheed and organ player Jack Maeby. A similarly uplifting take on Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s choral jazz classic Spirits Up Above follows, with Maeby’s groove-laden organ lines inspiring some gorgeous group harmonies as well as prime solo turns from the likes of Kellye Hawkins, Zavier Wise, Tamara Blue, and Khalila Gardner. Another Sons and Daughters of Lite cover follows as Jimetta leads the choir in the groove-drenched ode to self-affirmation Operation Feed Yourself. Written as a series of mantras for everyday living, the Jimetta-penned composition How Good It Is harnesses the full transformative power of music to generate a stirring and joyful ode to positivity - it’s chanted declarations bringing out some of the group’s most deeply-felt and affecting vocal performances over some superlative piano and organ accompaniment with a surprise feature vocal from Novena Carmel. Jimetta’s talent for re-imagining songs in her own light is highlighted in Answer The Call, her vivid re-telling of Funkadelic’s Cosmic Slop: “When I listened to the original song, the Mom in the story was really going through it. I thought of how I could turn this into a song that can encompass the glorification of all mothers and I thought of the Egyptian cosmic goddess Nut. To that mother we’re all the seeds planted in the garden. Answering the call in your life is literally that. Finding out exactly what you’re here for through your heart.” The album finishes with the standout original gospel number Ain’t Life Grand. Over swaying organs and clapped percussion Jimetta’s lyrical mantras serve to emphasise the good feelings that come to those with a grateful heart. Good feeling is an apt descriptor for the mood of the album as a whole. Its shining positivity provides a welcome ray of light in an increasingly dark world. “It’s a shortcut if you will to the better feelings” Jimetta says. “The hope that we need to keep pressing forward. We are saturated and inundated with images of chaos and destruction, death and hatred. There’s so much we can witness. So, I want to make sure that there is a representation sonically of the other parts that are still there to witness so that we can continue to build those things. So that the systems we support actually reflect what we want to experience. So it’s like: “Don’t give up and Let The Sunshine Into You” and then find out what your purpose is and answer the call.”

A compilation album of early best recordings released in 1978 by The Blackbyrds, a jazz-funk band consisting of students of Donald Byrd. A standard album containing sound sources sampled in numerous albums, and the same long mix as the 12-inch.

For most though, this Detroit Soul Jazz veteran will likely be unknown, and unfortunately so because not only was Sanders a great saxophonist with his own warm and lyrical post-bop sound, he was an important fixture of historical significance in the Detroit jazz . "Prior to forming Visions, Sanders and trumpeter Marcus Belgrave fronted a band with pianist Harold McKinney called the Creative Profile. Belgrave and Sanders would continue to perform together, often with Sanders' big band, the Pioneer Sanders also served as an instructor at both Oakland University and the Detroit Metro Arts complex as well as helping create the Detroit Jazz Center. Although most of the sessions with Sanders from the 60s or 70s are either nowhere to be found or still unreleased, 'The Gift of Love' - perhaps the only release of Sanders as a leader during his lifetime and privately pressed on his own label That African Lady - offers a document of this Detroit great's music with his band Visions. Fellow Strata musician Kenny Cox, even sits in on keys on a few tracks. Unfortunately, Sanders passed away in 2000, but hopefully, the small amount of recordings we do have of him do justice to his musicianship, Visions and the Detroit jazz scene. Sam Sanders, a truly unique saxophonist whose approach to music made him a legend in Detroit Jazz. While sometimes likened to John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, or Joe Henderson, Sanders had an unmistakably unique style. His group, Sam Sanders and Visions - for many years with bassist Ed Pickens and drummer Jimmy Allen, was known for extremely aggressive post bebop jazz bordering on the Avant Garde. Sanders was also active as an educator, and concert producer. He was an instructor at the Detroit Metro Arts complex and at Oakland University. He was instrumental in creating the Detroit Jazz Center - an open jazz school and concert venue presenting artists such as Jackie MacLean, Donald Byrd and Woody Shaw, with local artists Kenny Cox, Marcus Belgrave, Roy Brooks, Charles Boles, and Danny Spencer among many others. Sanders composed hundreds of compositions which his group would rehearse religiously on a daily basis. Because of their unusual regularity, combined with Sander's prowess and notoriously difficult music, the rehearsals attracted visiting artists and emerging talent who would often come away drenched in sweat and severely humbled. Sanders began playing while attending Northeastern High School in the 50s with fellow classmates Alice Coltrane, Kenny Cox and Bennie Maupin. He later attended the Teal school of music then studied privately with Detroit Jazz Legend: Yusef Lateef. During his career, Sanders performed with a variety of international artists including: Milt Jackson, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Stevie Wonder, Smokey Robinson, The Four Tops, James Blood Ulmer, Sonny Stitt, Pharoah Sanders. Prior to forming Visions, Sanders and trumpeter Marcus Belgrave fronted a band with pianist Harold McKinney called the Creative Profile. Belgrave and Sanders would continue to perform together, often with Sander's big band, the Pioneer Orchestra. During the last decades of his life, Sanders traveled often to Senegal and eventually settled there with his wife, Viola Vaughn.