Jazzhole, who impressed me some years ago with their Circle Of The Sun album, have just released their new album Poet’s Walk via Soulbrother Records in the UK. A US release will follow on July 11th. This time Marlon Saunders, who has since the release of Circle Of The Sun released two albums on his own (Enter My Mind and A Groove So Deep The Live Sessions) is reported to be lead vocalist on almost every track.
Expect a review of Poet’s Walk soon on jazz-not-jazz.

Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings are currently touring in Europe and coincidentally Sharon celebrated her 50th birthday on Thursday live on stage in Berlin.
There are a few gigs left she’ll do in Europe next week:
09/05 Hannover at “Palo-Palo”
10/05 Köln at “Gloria Theater”
11/05 Helsinski at”Tavastia”
12/05 Goteborg
13/05 Stockholm at “Berns

For more info visit thejazzshack.de. And also have a look at marioaldente.de where you can see three videos of Sharon doing The Way It Is (my favourite!), How Long and This Land live in performance.

Marcus Strickland whose music I discovered only a few months ago has just released a new album called Twi-Life.
There’s also a record release party on May 19th at the Jazz Gallery (290 Hudson St., New York, NY 10013 Tel:212.242.1063 or info@jazzgallery.org). And like Marcus says “Bring your smiles, your ears, & your energy for a great night of music” (and actually 15 bucks). So don’t miss it when you’re in NYC.
Meanwhile you can listen to samples of Twi-Life on cdbaby.com. And for more uptodate info visit Marcus Strickland’s own website.

After many years of being a independent artist Ledisi has now leaped into a new phase of her career and has signed to a major label.

So that’s the reason why the once announced Ledisi album on Expansion record never ever saw the light of day?
According to Ledisi’s myspace site she’s now with Verve/Universal. Well, let’s hope she still can record the music the way she likes and not the way Universal’s A&R people like.

The Family Stand will be back in autumn 2006. Jeffrey Smith and Peter Lord have eventually reunited with Sandra St. Victor after they’ve engaged Jacci McGhee for their Connected album in 1998. Peter Lord and Jeffrey Smith also worked with Yewande on the awesome Rufus.
Fans of the Family Stand will certainly remember that they were Evon Geffries & The Stand first and the lucky ones still have a copy of the Chapters - A Novel By Evon Geffries & The Stand album.
And make sure to tune into my radiopellenera show next week, when I will play Where Does Mommy Live from the Moon In Scorpio album.
On the Family Stand’s myspace site you can listen to a few minutes of their new song In The Name Of What.
Meanwhile there are no news about Sandra St. Victor’s @myspheres album that should’ve been released ages ago :-(

Soon it’s Southport Weekender time again. So if you’re in the UK on May 5/6/7 2006 you should really consider going there. The list of live acts and DJs looks really impressive:

Live Acts

The Sounds of Blackness - Live in Concert
Alexander O’Neal
Dawn Robinson - (formerly En Vogue, Lucy Pearl)
The Rebirth - Live in Concert
Byron Stingily
Monique Bingham
Una
Fun*Demental03
J Davey
The Muthafunkas

The Powerhouse

Kerri Chandler, DJ Spen, Quentin Harris, Frankie Feliciano, Terry Hunter, Dennis Ferrer, Louis Benedetti, Pope & Oji, Norman Jay, Aaron Ross, Jonathan, Steve Butler, Billy Davison

The Barcadi B Live Room

Kenny Dope, Mr Scruff, Jazztronik, Rainer Trüby, Carl Craig, LTJ Bukem, I G Culture, Mad Mats, Snowboy, Kev Beadle, Dr Bob Jones, Simon Mansell, Collin Patterson

The Connoisseurs’ Corner

Richard Searling, Norman Jay, Terry Jones, Andy Davies, Mike Stevens, Dr Bob Jones, Pete Haigh, Bob Jeffries, Gary Dennis, Jonathan

The Funkbase

Trevor Nelson, Steve Sutherland, Ronnie Herel, Shortee Blitz, DJ Diggz, Bigger, DJ Swerve, Steve Wren, JP, Simon Schoolboy Philips, Max Rees

I’m just a sucker for your love Teena Marie. Although I wasn’t overall happy with her La Dona album I look forward to her new album Sapphire, which according to amazon should be released on May 9, 2006 via Cash Money Records. And as always, when an artist signs with a major label (Universal in this case) or its subsidiaries, there’s no information on Lady T’s official website yet, which wasn’t updated for ages. I really wonder why she gave up her old website, which wasn’t the best designed but at least it had some personal input by Teena and was updated more often (albeit the miraculous Black Rain album never saw the light of day).

[update: and here’s the tracklisting of the album Sapphire:

01 God Has Created (feat. Smokey Robinson)
02 Cruise Control (feat. Smokey Robinson)
03 Baby Who Is It (feat. Kurupt)
04 Make It Hot
05 Ooo Wee (feat. Kurupt)
06 Sleeping With The Enemy
07 Apb
08 Love Is A Gangsta
09 Ladies Choice (feat. Queen And Gail Gotti)
10 Somebody Just Like You (feat. Gerald Albright)
11 You Blow Me Away
12 Simmer Down (feat. Lady Levi)
13 Romantica
14 The Way You Love Me
15 Ecstasy
16 Resilient (Sapphire)

Featuring Smokey Robinson ans Gerald Albright sounds good…I wish I could say the same about the featured rappers.]

Maya Azucena and Anthony David will be in Europe soon for a short (unfortunately much too short) tour with gigs in the UK, Sweden and the Netherlands. Here are the dates:

March 13 & 14th (Monday, and Tuesday): Pizza Express, Soho in London, England
March 15th (Wednesday): Lydmar Hotel- Stockholm, Sweden
March 16th (Thursday): Bitter Zoet- Amsterdam, NL
March 17th (Friday): Nighttown- Rotterdam, NL

Also read my reviews of Maya Who?, 3 Chords & The Truth and my interview with Anthony David.
For more infos visit the websites mayaazucena.com and anthonydavidmusic.com.

Good news for all Monica Dillon fans in Germany (like me for example). Monica will perform in Potsdam on March, 17th at the Nikolaisaal (and hopefully in other German cities like Hamburg) to promote her album All I Have Is A Moment, which was released by Just Records Babelsberg (who, by the way should invest a few Euros in a decent webdesigner…where’s the navigation in Firefox, folks? I mean if all fails I would do the job *grin*). For more info visit the website of the Nikolaisaal. Monica will be supported by Monica McIntyre amongst others. Monica McIntyre recently impressed me on Natural Selection’s album Come On Over but she’s also a solo artist and watch jazz-not-jazz for a review of her music and an interview coming soon.

The wonderful Martha Redbone, who impressed me almost a year ago with her album Skintalk, has signed to Dome Records and will release Skintalk in the UK/Europe on March 6. The tracklisting will be the same as on the original US release. So there’s no excuse for you this time not to get Skintalk, which is full of timeless songs like Atlas, Talk About, Future Street or God Created Woman.
Prior to the album, Dome will also release Future Street as a single on CD single and vinyl.
And if you’re in London on March 2, then make sure to catch Martha’s first UK appearance at London’s Jazz Café.

One of the joys of having a website like jazz-not-jazz is that you can be found via google and other search engines. And that’s just what Jonny Enright and Emmanuelle Shoniwa did recently. And the good news is that both Grupo X and YoYo Honey are still making music and will soon release new music.

Grupo X has previously released the album X-Posure in 2000. It was a straight ahead Latin Jazz album with the exception of Brand New Love which is a stunning soul/fusion song with Lisa Millett giving one of her best vocal performances on records.
According to Jonny Enright Grupo X will release a new album titled Food For Your Latin Soul (again with Lisa Millett on vocals) on March 20th on Loft Recordings. For more info visit grupo-x.com and watch jazz-not-jazz for a review and interview.

YoYo Honey has only released one album back in 1992. The terrific Voodoo Soul. The title track and its reprise version are still two of my favourite tunes (but please don’t ask me for the almost endless list of favourite tunes…ha ha). Most of you may be more familiar with Groove On that has been available in various remixes. Mani Shoniwa has lately been active for the Blacksugar label producing 3 Style’s Way U Move. He’s planing to release a new YoYo Honey album in April. Featured artists will include Bootsy Collins and Jocelyn Brown. So stay tuned for more coming soon on jazz-not-jazz.

R&B singer Lou Rawls has died of lung cancer in Los Angeles aged 72. Rest in peace, Lou!

Longtime readers of jazz-not-jazz will certainly remember Reel People and their Second Guess album, which gave us great songs like Can’t Stop with Angela Johnson, The Light with Vanessa Freeman or Butterflies with Dyanna Fearon.
Those who missed Second Guess the first time around will be glad to hear about Second Guess’ re-release on Defected in February 2006. And those who have the original release want to get the re-release as well since it comes with three new songs The Rain (with Sharlene Hector), In The Sun and You Used To Hold Me So Tight (both with Angela Johnson, the latter song being a cover of the Thelma Houston classic). The re-release comes with a second CD with remixes and live versions.
Here’s the tracklisting:

For more infos visit reelpeoplemusic.co.uk and defected.com.

Just in case you haven’t heard it so far. Courtney Pine has released a new album almost a month ago. It’s called Resistance and it features the fabulous Juliet Kelly on the song I Can’t Say Goodbye. If you want to know how Juliet met Courtney then read the jazz-not-jazz interview with Juliet from September.

Infracom has recently released the DVD One Week With Jhelisa - Rediscovering America to proceed Jhelisa’s third solo album Discovery Of Amazing.
The DVD contains material film director Markus Bader and Infracom label manager Jan Hagenkötter shot while visiting Jhelisa in New Orleans in spring 2005 in New Orleans as she worked on her forthcoming album “Discovery of Amazing”.
So far the DVD is only available online on the label’s website for a reasonable price of six Euros.

Dome Records will release Incognito’s new album on October 31, 2005 in the UK. The album is aptly titled Eleven with, er, eleven songs and vocal input from Maysa, Imaani, Tony Momrelle and Carleen Anderson. For more infos visit Incognito’s website.