I hope you like the inspiring debut album Suns Of Cosmic Consciousness by the jazz combo Solar as much as I do. And here you find some more info about Solar in my interview with target=”_blank”.

Q: Please tell me how did you, Eli Yamin and Andy Demos come together and how Solar was founded.

Adam Bernstein: We met in 1986 at Rutgers University in New Jersey. We were all studying jazz and found we had likeminded ideas about the power of the music, politics, living in the moment and the pursuit of a spirtual path.

Q: Which musicians has influenced the sound of Solar and where do you see the Solar’s place in today’s jazz market?

Adam Bernstein: We’re influnced by 30’s swing, the free improvisational music of the 60’s, indian devotional music, Monk, Mingus, Bill Evans, Duke, Sun Ra, Charlie Haden, Jelly Roll Morton, John Coltrane, the list could go on and on.

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What label executives say:

“I’m very excited about Verve Remixed 3,” says co-producer and Verve Music Group A&R Director Dahlia Ambach Caplin. “The opportunity to make another record working with the Verve vocal catalogue, which continually yields gems that inspire the artists and producers to create such special collaborations, combined with all the things we learned from working on the previous albums, allowed us to make a record we’re very proud of.”

“Verve Remixed 3 is a testament to the talents we worked with” says co-producer Todd Roberts. “They each transcended the idea of a remix by digging deep into the spirit of the original songs.”

And what they really mean:

“I’m very excited about Verve Remixed 3,” says co-producer and Verve Music Group A&R Director Dahlia C. “We’ve totally run out of ideas and we’re too stingily to develop and nurture new artist who doesn’t provide us with a hit record with their debut. So we’ve decided to rip the Verve vocal catalogue and give some songs to untalented remixers who doesn’t give a damn about the original artist or the song’s message. The result is a crappy piece of plastic, but it didn’t cost us anything and that’s something we’re proud of.”

“Verve Remixed 3 is a testament to the bunch of untalented blokes we worked with” says co-producer Todd R. “They each had no idea what they did but, hey, they can put a stupid dancebeat under a song and alter vocals with their equipment.”

Come on Verve…what’s the use of this project? Verve Remixed 1 and 2 had at least some A-class remixers instead of the B and C-class we get here. And some of the remixes on #1 and #2 were quite good as well. Why flog an idea to death? The unmixed album release is much better, although this lacks an overall theme that would make the songs coherent. So in the end, this is just another loveless compilation of good vocal jazz songs.
I know you can do better, Verve. After all you gave us Lizz Wright, some funky stuff from Roy Hargrove and some leftfield-jazz grooves from Me’shell Ndegeocello. And you’re still my favourite major jazz label. Although the competition isn’t really one with Blue Note and Warner Jazz being the only competitors that spring to my mind. (Does Sony/BMG have a jazz sublabel now that they have merged?). Warner hasn’t by far such an extensive back catalogue like Verve/Universal and Blue Note/EMI has lost me since they release their CDs with copy protection in Germany. I’ll never buy a CD that is copy-proctected because I want to play my music on every possible CD-player and not the ones EMI wants me to play the CDs. (I even did not buy the last Dianne Reeves and Cassandra Wilson releases although I call them both favourite artists of mine)
There is a good reason why the Red Book standard for CDs has been developed. And I like to rip my CDs to play them as ogg (vorbis)-files on my DAP (digital audio player) and to record self-made compilation CDs. That may be also possible if they are copy-protected but it’s not legal anymore in Germany to use software to rip copy-protected CDs.
As far as I know Verve/Universal hasn’t released copy-protected CDs in Germany. So they are still a label one can buy a release from every now and then. But I really see no greater vision behind Verve Remixed 3 than cashing in on the success of Verve Remixed 1 and 2. Oh yes, I’m still annoyed about the Curtis Mayfield Mayfield Remixed and the Motown Remixed Projects and Verve Remixed 3 doesn’t make things better for me and my (slight) antipathy towards major labels.

Tracklisting of Verve Remixed 3: 1./ Nina Simone “Little Girl Blue” - Postal Service Remix/ 2. Billie Holiday “Speak Low” - Bent Remix/ 3. Anita O’Day “Sing, Sing, Sing” - RSL Remix/ 4. Sarah Vaughan “Fever” - Adam Freeland Remix/ 5. Shirley Horn “Come Dance With Me” - Sugardaddy Remix/ 6. Blossom Dearie “Just One of Those Things” - Brazilian Girls Remix/ 7. Astrud Gilberto “The Gentle Rain”- RJD2 Remix/ 8. Sarah Vaughan “Peter Gunn” - Max Sedgley Remix/ 9. Jimmy Smith “Stay Loose” - Lyrics Born Remix/ 10. Hugh Masekela “The Boy’s Doin’ It” - Carl Craig Remix/ 11. Nina Simone “Lilac Wine” - The Album Leaf Remix/ 12. Billie Holiday “Yesterdays” - Junior Boys Remix/ 13. Dinah Washington “Baby, Did You Hear?” - Danger Mouse Remix | released 2005 by Verve Records

[If you want to discuss the music on this compilation, you can leave your comment below and also use the forum]

Simply awesome, incredible and irresistible! If you want the dance grooves of remixes by Osunlade, Joe Claussell, Ron Trent or Masters At Work combined with fierce percussion we haven’t heard since Candido and the spirituality of Alice Coltrane’s records plus the hipness of a Spiritual Life record all thrown together in an album that takes you on a real musical journey through jazz and world music’s intersection then look no further than Speak In Tones and their double album Subaro.
Subaro means “evening conversation” in the West-African Bambara dialect of Mali. And the band’s name derive from the saying “speak in tones baby!” when a new comer arrives on the band wagon. Speak In Tones was also the name of a concert and jam session series Mike Ellis founded with Daniel Moreno (you may know him from various Spiritual Life releases or from his collaboration with Roy Hargrove for the RH Factor on Hard Groove and the Strength EP) at 56 Walker in Tribeca/Manhattan/NYC.
With 21 musicians (you can find more infos about some of them by clicking on the links listed below) contributing to this splendid double album and the use of such diverse instruments as tamburas, tablas, whistles, udus, pandeiros, marimbaus, flutes, saxes, djembes, guitars, trumpets etc Speak In Tones represents a modern big band. The concept of Speak In Tones is to have no concept but to let the creative juices flow and go back to what jazz music is really about: improvisation and having fun with your fellow musicians.
The result transcends musical borders and fuses jazz, free jazz, brazilian music, world music, afro or whatever you may call it into a unique sound. And it’s this improvisation factor that gives Speak In Tones a hypnotic sound. Imagine a voodoo session in your home without sacrificed animals and a repetitive yet fascinating groove that not only pleases the orishas but your very own body, mind and soul and that lets you fall into a trance. The epic Bahia By Night, Subaro Part II or Trilogia Nordestina are good examples of this kind of groove.
While the first disc is more on the uptempo side the second disc start things a little bit slower and offers a relaxing, chilling sound (similiar to what Bah Samba did with their 4 album). Ayahuasca (btw the name of a strong Amazonian hallucinogen) finds Daniel Moreno on the udu (meaning “clay pot” in the Ibo language) in great interaction with Antoine Roney on tenor sax.
Interesting is the story behind Lamento, meaning Lament, which is inspired by not based on the John Coltrane composition Lonnie’s Lament, which Antoine Roney and Daniel Moreno were discussing prior to this recording. Lamento features an impressive sax solo by Antoine with only sparse percussion by Daniel.
With 21 songs on offer and nearly two and a half hour of music with not one bad track, it’s hard to recommend a particular song, but you may have guessed it from the review so far, that Subaro works best being played from start to finish.
Subaro is already one of my favourite albums of the year and with its timeless quality will certainly stay a favourite for a long time.

Tracklisting of Subaro:
Disc 1: 1. Douson Foly/ 2. Bahia by Night/ 3. Subaro Part 1/ 4. Subaro Part 2/ 5. Umkathi/ 6. Los Indios/ 7. Trilogia Nordestina part 1/ 8. Trilogia Nordestina part 2/ 9. Trilogia Nordestina part 3/ 10. Ilha do Tarturuga/ 11. Elements
Disc 2: 1. Deusa do Ebona/ 2. Ayahuasca/ 3. Douson Foly take 2/ 4. Mali Overdrive/ 5. Oracao/ 6. Samba Low Rider/ 7. Jacare/ 8. Speak in Tones/ 9. Lamento/ 10. Boca do Rio
released 2005 by Alpha Pocket Records

For more infos visit speakintones.com, alphapocket.com, danielmoreno.com, mikeellismusic.com, cheick-tidiane-seck.com, m-base.com/g_haynes.html, bourelly.com, dreamboxmedia.com, free.freespeech.org/birareis, metarecords.com/adam.html, and cdbaby.com.

[If you want to discuss Speak In Tones’ music, you can leave your comment below and also use the forum]

Just in case you’ve missed a few posts last month, here are some highlights that were featured last month on jazz-not-jazz:

 

Soulstrut.com is a nice site for all fans of vintage soul/funk/jazz. Just have a look at the site’s review list with rare albums from the 70s like Shirley Caesar’s Get Up My Brother or Della Reese’s Black Is Beautiful. If only the covershots would be larger…