Jean-Luc Ponty
A Taste For Passion

Marcos Valle’s career started with the end of bossa nova. A lifelong surfer of swells, he expertly rode out the final wave of the waning international fad, landing in the U.S. for a short stay before returning to Brazil to continue his career. A proud Carioca (Rio de Janeiro resident), Valle couldn’t stay away from his beloved hometown. This seminal artist is no stranger to Los Angeles, though. Back in the mid-to-late sixties he recorded a solo album (Samba ‘68) and was a featured member of an early, short-lived line-up with Sergio Mendes right before he landed the Brasil ‘66 deal with A&M records. He would try his luck in the U.S. again a decade later, spending a half-dozen years here, mostly in L.A. where he befriended members of Chicago and developed a prolific songwriting partnership with R&B journeyman Leon Ware. Valle never recorded his own music during those years, though.This historic collaboration with Jazz Is Dead’s Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge marks the first time he has recorded music in the U.S. in nearly 50 years.

High Pulp returns with a brand new installment of covers on Mutual Attraction Vol 2, a spiritual jazz journey, interpreting arrangements by Arthur Verocai, Cortex & Casiopea. The 8-piece fusion band pays homage to tracks and artists that have woven themselves into the DNA of the High Pulp.

180 gram LP - Re-mastering by: Ray Staff at Air Mastering, Lyndhurst Hall, LondonWeldon Irvine's debut as a leader remains one of the most fiercely idiosyncratic electric jazz outings of the early '70s. Innovative not only for its moody, nuanced jazz-funk sensibility, Liberated Brother also translates the uncommonly strong passion of Irvine's political and philosophical views into its grooves, creating music of rare sincerity and ambition. While the record's first-half features longer, more meditative songs, like the Latin-inspired title tune and "Blues Wel-Don," the second side of Liberated Brother commands the most attention. With sterling contributions from guitarist Tommy Smith, bassist Roland Wilson, and drummer Napoleon Revels-Bey, cuts like "Mr. Clean" and "Sister Sanctified" (later sampled by Boogie Down Productions for the rap classic "My Philosophy") achieve a deeply funky consciousness forged from elements of jazz, soul, and psychedelia; "Juggah Buggah" even features Irvine on Moog synthesizer, further expanding the LP's cosmic reach.