Milt Jackson
Ballads & Blues

In May 1972, the wave of anger and the thirst for freedom that had swept the world in 1968 arrived in Madagascar. The Malagasy youth took the opportunity to exile in search of a brighter future. Several of them, all jazz musicians and often polyintrumentalists, came to Paris with their afro hair and bellbottoms. Their names were Sylvin Marc, his cousin Ange "Zizi" Japhet, Del Rabenja, Gérard Rakotoarivony and Frank Raholison.By chance, they crossed paths with pianist and bandleader Jef Gilson, who they had already met as kids during a series of concert and workshops in Tananarive four years earlier. Gilson was far from an unknown on the French jazz scene. He had played with Boris Vian and André Hodeir at the end of the forties, he was one of the first French composers to move away from the New-Orleans style to try his hand at bebop, had launched numerous young stars (Ponty, Texier, Portal...), was a polemical critic for Jazz Hot, had opened for Coltrane at Antibes/Juan Les Pins, and was part of the Double Six... But it was tough to make a living playing personal compositions and Jef, who didn’t have enough money to return to the island and continue mining the seam of Malagasy jazz, saw an opportunity to relaunch ‘Malagasy’.He had his recording studio in the Les Halles area, at the Foyer Montorgueil, where he was teaching jazz to a choir. He set to work with the new Malagasy group, working on a repertoire and reviving some of his compositions from the 50s/60s ("Requiem Pour Django", "Dizzy 48", "Anamorphose" here renamed "Salegy Jef" as a nod to an ancestral rhythm reworked in a contemporary style...), and also included more recent tunes ("Newport Bounce" which opens this current album is a reworking of a track called "Interlude", recorded in 69 with the drummer from Miles Davis’ first quintet, Philly Joe Jones). The group Malagasy 73 gigged a lot. One of their concerts was recorded on the 14 March in a club, ‘Le Newport’, in rue Grégoire de Tours, Saint Germain des Prés, not far from the ‘Kiosque d'Orphée’ where Gilson worked at the beginning of the 60s when he brought bebop and avant-garde jazz to the attention of a generation of musicians with his records imported from USA.This meeting between two generations and two cultures created a new mix between jazz, traditional music and electric funk. Jef Gilson had reinvented himself yet again, and it wouldn’t be the last time.

Cryptozoo is an animated feature-film drama, written and directed by Dash Shaw, featuring the voices of Lake Bell, Zoe Kazan, Michael Cera and Louisa Krause. The film won the NEXT Innovator Award at Sundance, and premiered internationally at the 2021 Berlinale. It will be released on August 20 in theaters and on demand.This is John Carroll Kirby’s first time bringing his talents as a composer and producer to film scoring. His score resists easy genre classification, melding together sounds from New Age, exotica, library music, and the sweeter side of electronic music, and makes for a perfect match with artist and filmmaker Dash Shaw’s vibrant animated feature.

Tenderlonious returns to his own 22a imprint with a brand new collection of lo-fi beats and soundscapes courtesy of the lockdown studio sessions from his home in South London. Lockdown allowed Tender to escape from his busy lifestyle and touring schedule, finally giving him the time to properly explore and experiment with the vast collection of synths, drum machines and instruments he’s built up over the past twenty years. Armed with an arsenal of hardware and inspired by sci-fi & fantasy movies, he has delivered an expansive opus of varying tempos that glide across imaginative synth sculptures and meditative soundscapes. The soundtrack to his quarantine - ‘Quarantena.’When COVID-19 hit the UK back in March this year the music game changed almost overnight - no more gigs, no more studio sessions with the band, many music stores and outlets shutting up shop. This drastic change offered plenty of time for reflection, opening up a new portal of exploration for Tender - he purchased his first piece of studio equipment at the age of 16 and has since then amassed a serious arsenal of studio hardware. Some people collect stamps, some of us collect records, Tender collects synths and drum machines. The lockdown period offered up the opportunity of more time in his home studio, brimming with hardware, that due to his busy schedule, had yet to be exhausted.