Jazz / Soul / Funk
1936 products
First vinyl reissue of the 1979 holy grail private press debut by Californian vibes and marimba player Rickey Kelly, leading a classy ensemble from Latinate, subtropical jazz to Afro-rooted spiritual styles and blissed cool. ""Rickey, I know these are your friends, the guys you went to school with, but if you wanna record an album, you record with musicians who have been playing their whole life; whatever you write, they'll put their whole life into it. You play with your friends; they may not even play in tune." These are the words of Slave guitarist Kevin Johnson, and they were to change the course of young Rickey Kelly's life. It was 1978, and music student Kelly had approached Johnson with a tape of rough demos of some songs he'd written. A San Francisco native, Kelly had recently moved the short distance south to study music at LA City College in East Hollywood. He was a member of E.W. Wainwright Jr.'s African Roots of Jazz, and was spending up to 10 hours a day in practice on both vibes and marimba. He also played with Horace Tapscott, and had his own band made up of fellow students, but it was his ambition to make an album that led to the conversation with Johnson. It was a turning point in his education, and a decision was looming. The next thing Johnson said was "You call the best jazz musicians. How'd you like to play with Billy Higgins?", a line that would seal it for anyone; for a youngster like Rickey just starting out in the business, you just don't turn down the opportunity to play with the likes of highly accomplished musicians, especially those of the calibre of legendary jazz drummer Billy Higgins. Some calls were made and the date was set to record at Studio Masters on Beverly Blvd, a studio set up just a few years previous in 1973, owned and operated by Dot Records founder Randy Wood with his son John. Some of the other music professionals set to record with Kelley that day were flautist Adele Sebastian, bass player Tony Dumas, saxophonist Charles Owens and vocalist Diane Reeves, none of whom had previously played with Kelly before. Kelly was impressed with the studio, with the gold records displayed on the walls and the famous musicians hanging out. 'It took a lot of humility for me to record with them, I mean I was nobody, nothing, and for not a lot of money either' remembers Rickey in a later interview with Calvin Lincoln, 'It taught me a lot, to practice hard, and study for the rest of your life, to give your all, and there's a lot of all to give'. As the recording session took place, John Wood was listening in. He was impressed. Kelly didn't have the funds to manufacture and release the album himself, so Wood suggested it was pressed up on his in-house studio label, Los Angeles Phonograph Records, and thus the LP 'My Kind of Music' was released early in 1979. The album also saw a subsequent pressing soon afterwards on Dennis Sullivan's New Note label. Kelly remains humble and proud of his debut album to this day. 'I was still a beginner' he says, 'These masters walked in, smiling, and gave me something worth gold'."
First vinyl reissue of the 1979 holy grail private press debut by Californian vibes and marimba player Rickey Kelly, leading a classy ensemble from Latinate, subtropical jazz to Afro-rooted spiritual styles and blissed cool. ""Rickey, I know these are your friends, the guys you went to school with, but if you wanna record an album, you record with musicians who have been playing their whole life; whatever you write, they'll put their whole life into it. You play with your friends; they may not even play in tune." These are the words of Slave guitarist Kevin Johnson, and they were to change the course of young Rickey Kelly's life. It was 1978, and music student Kelly had approached Johnson with a tape of rough demos of some songs he'd written. A San Francisco native, Kelly had recently moved the short distance south to study music at LA City College in East Hollywood. He was a member of E.W. Wainwright Jr.'s African Roots of Jazz, and was spending up to 10 hours a day in practice on both vibes and marimba. He also played with Horace Tapscott, and had his own band made up of fellow students, but it was his ambition to make an album that led to the conversation with Johnson. It was a turning point in his education, and a decision was looming. The next thing Johnson said was "You call the best jazz musicians. How'd you like to play with Billy Higgins?", a line that would seal it for anyone; for a youngster like Rickey just starting out in the business, you just don't turn down the opportunity to play with the likes of highly accomplished musicians, especially those of the calibre of legendary jazz drummer Billy Higgins. Some calls were made and the date was set to record at Studio Masters on Beverly Blvd, a studio set up just a few years previous in 1973, owned and operated by Dot Records founder Randy Wood with his son John. Some of the other music professionals set to record with Kelley that day were flautist Adele Sebastian, bass player Tony Dumas, saxophonist Charles Owens and vocalist Diane Reeves, none of whom had previously played with Kelly before. Kelly was impressed with the studio, with the gold records displayed on the walls and the famous musicians hanging out. 'It took a lot of humility for me to record with them, I mean I was nobody, nothing, and for not a lot of money either' remembers Rickey in a later interview with Calvin Lincoln, 'It taught me a lot, to practice hard, and study for the rest of your life, to give your all, and there's a lot of all to give'. As the recording session took place, John Wood was listening in. He was impressed. Kelly didn't have the funds to manufacture and release the album himself, so Wood suggested it was pressed up on his in-house studio label, Los Angeles Phonograph Records, and thus the LP 'My Kind of Music' was released early in 1979. The album also saw a subsequent pressing soon afterwards on Dennis Sullivan's New Note label. Kelly remains humble and proud of his debut album to this day. 'I was still a beginner' he says, 'These masters walked in, smiling, and gave me something worth gold'."
I hope that everyone who listens to this album will be able to feel a little happiness.
The above sentence was written by Nujabes himself as an introduction to the album "modal soul" on tribe at the time of its release. He did not dare to mention the contents of the songs on the album, but rather expressed his own wishes in his comments on the album, hoping that people would actually listen to the album and empathize with the songs.
Nujabes has been expressing various thoughts and feelings through the world of sound, and their second album is finally released on 2LP.
This is a solo percussion work recorded in 1980 and released in 1981 by Masahiko Togashi, one of Japan’s foremost percussionists and drummers. After the accident that left him partially paralyzed, Togashi developed his own techniques and performance methods, using drums, bells, gongs, and a wide range of percussion instruments to capture the unique sound world he envisioned. This album documents that deeply personal sonic exploration.
Widely known as a support member of Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), keyboardist, composer, and vocalist Ichiko Hashimoto also gained international acclaim through Colored Music, her pioneering dance-pop unit with Atsuo Fujimoto that became a favorite on the global club music scene. This is her second solo album, originally released in 1985.
Masayuki Takayanagi, having absorbed free jazz, offers a response that brings the tumultuous 1970s to a close. His return to his roots—a tribute to Lennie Tristano and Lee Konitz—serves as a rite of passage to reach new heights in the coming era.
This is the debut album as bandleader by Ryo Kawasaki, a jazz and fusion guitarist whose talent was recognized by Gil Evans and who has made a name for himself internationally. The album showcases a cool, cosmic sound, featuring tracks such as “Agana,” which features breathtaking guitar playing set against a backdrop of fast-paced percussion, and “Phil,” a dazzling jazz-funk number.
Over the past decade, Chaos In The CBD, the brotherly production duo of Louis and Ben Helliker-Hales, have captivated global audiences with their spectral, jazz-inflected deep house sound. With over 100 million streams worldwide, the New Zealand-born, London-based artists are set to release their highly anticipated debut album, A Deeper Life on May 9, 2025 via the label head’s very own In Dust We Trust imprint.
To celebrate the announcement, Chaos In The CBD have shared the atmospheric lead single ‘Love Language’, featuring fellow New Zealander Nathan Haines on Saxophone. It’s an undeniable standout moment on the album—moody, ethereal, and naturally soothing. Speaking on the track, Chaos In The CBD explains: “‘Love Language’ is a track that suits almost any setting, evoking the laid-back, easygoing rhythm of life in New Zealand. Perfect for a road trip to the beach or those magical moments at an after party when the sun reappears. Love Language feels like a reflection of the journey that brought it to life and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do.”
The 14 track LP marks a significant evolution in Chaos In The CBD’s artistic journey. Known for their signature sound epitomised by their breakout EP Midnight In Peckham on Rhythm Section, the duo’s debut album unites live instrumentation and vocal collaborations for the first time, fusing together key musical influences such as Ambient, Soulful house, R&B, Jazz & Balearic into a melting pot of an epic journey that will surely become a future classic. If Midnight In Peckham was the duo’s coming of age; then their debut album is Chaos In The CBD coming full circle. It features contributions from legendary figures such as Josh Milan of Blaze, Lee Pearson Jr., Stephanie Cooke and UK grime MC Novelist, among others.
Though they’ve been based in London for over a decade, Louis and Ben (aka Beans) have never stopped feeling at one with their homeland. A Deeper Life is nostalgic for their nature-filled youth, exploring the magical coastline and lush rainforest of New Zealand. “The title refers to our childhood, which was idyllic,” says Ben. “It was just the sun, the sand, the sea, waterfalls, birds and fish...” The result is an international dance sound that feels unmistakably like Chaos and ebbs and flows from the beach party to the club to the afterhours. “It’s laid-back but still driving at the same time; it’s club ready, but still deep,” Ben explains. It’s also distinctly Balearic: The brothers found a particular affinity with 90s Ibiza chillout music, being from such a “chill place” themselves. “In its own way, New Zealand is incredibly Balearic, but without the party side” says Ben.
The brothers hope that their debut evidences their deep appreciation of 90s house music, from David Morales’s Red Zone mixes and Kerri Chandler to DJ Sprinkles, Larry Heard and beyond. “We didn’t go to the school of hard knocks, we went to the school of Carl Cox,” they wrote in one of their typically hilarious posts on Instagram. But while they’ve built a meme-driven online personality for their social media accounts, their album shows a deeper side to them too. “We joke around but we want this album to be taken seriously,” says Louis. “It’s music from all around the globe, and there’s a deep meaning to how it flows and sticks together”.
For Chaos In The CBD, A Deeper Life is more than an album—it’s a celebration of their roots, their community, and their enduring bond as brothers. “This is a love letter to home and the feeling of being within nature,” says Louis. “It’s also an ode to a slower pace of life.” The album is an invitation to journey through their world: from the beaches of New Zealand to the heart of London’s dancefloors, and everywhere in between. A Deeper Life is set to be both a club-ready triumph and a reflective escape for listeners worldwide.
Deluxe edition, housed in a reverse board printed sleeve with printed inner sleeve. Three LPs came out on Jihad, the label Amiri Baraka ran out of his own house in Newark. Two of them - Sonny's Time Now and A Black Mass - entered the canon of the New Thing decades ago. The third stayed a rumour: a title traded between collectors, a track a radio DJ might drop once a year, a record far more people had heard about than heard. Original copies surface rarely and sell for three figures. Black and Beautiful... Soul and Madness is back, on vinyl for the first time since 1968. Baraka - still signing as LeRoi Jones - had returned to Newark after the Harlem Black Arts Repertory Theatre/School collapsed, and built Spirit House on Stirling Street with his wife Amina: part theatre, part meeting hall, part studio. This is where the album was cut, months after the city had burned in the summer of 1967. Jihad existed to put that work on record. The people making it thought of themselves, in Baraka's phrase, as cultural workers. The music is warmer and odder than the reputation suggests. The Jihad Singers - Freddie Johnson out front, Yusef Iman holding the bottom, Aireen Eternal, Leonard Cathcart and Gilbert Monk filling the middle - sing street-corner harmony that owes everything to Motown and to the doo-wop groups of a decade earlier. Beautiful Black Women was built on the frame of Smokey Robinson's Ooo Baby Baby. Underneath, congas and Russell Lyle's alto and flute keep the arrangements loose, closer to a rehearsal room than a session date. And over it, through it, sometimes against it, Baraka declaims - flat, insistent, pushing ahead of the beat in a cadence that would not be named for another fifteen years. That is the thing worth holding onto. This came out two years before the first Last Poets album, two before the Watts Prophets, two before Gil Scott-Heron walked into a studio. The form barely existed and here it is, fully assembled, on a record pressed by a poet for a Newark community centre. The politics are unbrokered and the rhetoric is of 1968, not of now - Baraka himself spent the rest of his life arguing with the man who made it. It remains a document with the temperature of the moment still in it. Reissued by Moved By Sound, a label that leaves copyright and publishing with artists and their families and takes only its share of the vinyl. That principle is why this took as long as it did: after a protracted rights situation the record is finally in production. Worth the wait. Recommended. "Calling all black people calling all black people, man woman child Wherever you are, calling you, urgent, come in Black people, come in, wherever you are, urgent, calling you, calling all black people calling all black people, come in, black people, come on in." - Amiri Baraka
大人気シリーズの第19弾として、20世紀後半の米西海岸におけるアンダーグラウンド・ジャズの真像に迫る2部作の完結編『Spiritual Jazz 19 - West Coast USA Part 2: 70s & 80s』。公民権運動後の黒人政治思想やニューエイジ的な精神的探求が最高潮に達した時代を背景に、〈Arhoolie〉や〈Theresa〉〈Nimbus〉といった自主レーベル群に残された密度の高い音源を凝縮。深遠なアフロ・ベースの地鳴りや開放的なモーダル旋律、エレクトリックな質感も交えた多角的なアンサンブルが熱い祈りのように響き渡り、圧倒的な表現の自由を感じさせる。50年代の「クール・ジャズ」というステレオタイプを完全に塗り替えた前作に続き、70〜80年代のカリフォルニアでさらなる深化を遂げたスピリチュアル・ジャズの黄金期を解き明かす充実のコンピレーション。
Spiritual Jazz 19 - West Coast USA Part 1: 50s & 60s examines the influence and expression of the underground jazz that evolved in California and surrounding states during the latter part of the 20th century. "The West Coast of the USA has long been associated with the ‘cool jazz’ popular explosion of the 1950s, though wherever jazz was played, modal, Afro-centric and spiritualised streams flowed and flourished too - the West Coast was no exception. In the post-war years, Los Angeles’ Central Avenue was second only to Manhattan as America’s greatest jazz district. Yet while Manhattan might have been the de facto centre of the jazz universe during these years, it was California that came to exert the greater pull on culture at large, drawing people from across America toward its burgeoning 1960s counter-culture. Here we explore the effects of that counter-culture on jazz. We examine the influence of the most significant force in post-civil rights Black politics – the Black Panthers, and we delve into the novel spiritual practices and religions of the coming ‘New Age’. A variety of idiosyncratic indies such as Arhoolie, Theresa and Nimbus were located in California as well as many more private enterprises, and we showcase the results of their efforts to express their musical freedom. All of these factors can be seen to have an influence on the way that jazz and jazz musicians developed and thrived on the West Coast - and the evolution of spiritual jazz here is examined in detail."
Spiritual Jazz 19 - West Coast USA Part 1: 50s & 60s examines the influence and expression of the underground jazz that evolved in California and surrounding states during the latter part of the 20th century. "The West Coast of the USA has long been associated with the ‘cool jazz’ popular explosion of the 1950s, though wherever jazz was played, modal, Afro-centric and spiritualised streams flowed and flourished too - the West Coast was no exception. In the post-war years, Los Angeles’ Central Avenue was second only to Manhattan as America’s greatest jazz district. Yet while Manhattan might have been the de facto centre of the jazz universe during these years, it was California that came to exert the greater pull on culture at large, drawing people from across America toward its burgeoning 1960s counter-culture. Here we explore the effects of that counter-culture on jazz. We examine the influence of the most significant force in post-civil rights Black politics – the Black Panthers, and we delve into the novel spiritual practices and religions of the coming ‘New Age’. A variety of idiosyncratic indies such as Arhoolie, Theresa and Nimbus were located in California as well as many more private enterprises, and we showcase the results of their efforts to express their musical freedom. All of these factors can be seen to have an influence on the way that jazz and jazz musicians developed and thrived on the West Coast - and the evolution of spiritual jazz here is examined in detail."
Lost Soul Super Rarity “Here I Am Baby” by Lady Jane reissued by Athens of the North Rare 1980 Detroit funk-soul LP finally surfaces after 45 years, revealing a powerful story of survival and artistic resilience Edinburgh based label Athens of the North is pleased to announce the reissue of Here I Am Baby, the only studio album by soul and funk vocalist Lady Jane (Jane Brice), originally recorded at Studio A, in Dearborn Heights and privately released in 1980. Lady Jane recorded these sessions during a turbulent period in Detroit in the late 1970s, working with respected engineer Eric Morgeson and a studio band on material largely written by her then-husband. The album remained virtually unknown for decades, with copies destroyed in a flood and masters held by her ex-husband. A chance discovery by Friends of Sound Records founder David Haffner in 2022 set the reissue in motion. Remarkably, before his death, Jane’s ex-husband returned the original master tapes to her—yielding not only the complete multitracks for Here I Am Baby, but an entire album’s worth of unreleased material, also coming soon on AOTN. Here I Am Baby showcases Jane’s extraordinary voice across a compelling blend of soul, funk, and disco, from the opening ballad through heavy funk excursions like “Never Lived In The Ghetto” and “Space Flight.” The album’s final track, “She’s A Star” - the only song Janewrote herself - carries profound personal significance. Recorded without her husband’s knowledge, the song directly addresses her survival of childhood sexual abuse and stands as a moving testament to resilience and self-belief. Now an ordained minister, Jane Brice has spent decades away from the spotlight. But her voice—at once forceful, delicate, and vulnerable—deserves to be heard. Newly mastered from the recovered tapes, Here I Am Baby and the forthcoming Miss Disco present not merely a rare funk-soul artifact, but a powerful document of a woman’s courage in reclaiming her own story.
Telemakus' "Eight Ring Revival" via Good Problem Studios. "The upcoming album from Telemakus, featuring an all-star supporting cast of musicians: Flying Lotus, Karriem Riggins, Mndsgn, Liv.e, Sparklmami, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Swarvy, Chino Corvalán, Nicole McCabe and more. Pressed via Good Neighbor on a Cosmic Black record made from eco-conscious, 100% recyclable PET plastic. All songs written, performed, engineered & arranged by Telemakus, except where noted “Five Hands Pt. 1” written and co-produced by Swarvy, “Revival” co-produced by Mndsgn, Karriem Riggins “By Any Feet Necessary” co-produced by Karriem Riggins “2054” co-produced by Karriem Riggins"