Grover Washington, Jr.
A Secret Place

We Release Jazz presents the first ever live performance and recording by Marc Moulin’s sought-after jazz-funk band Placebo, captured at Casino Kursaal during the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1971 and never released before. June 17th, 1971, the Montreux Riviera, its delightful microclimate and postcard scenery, its fabled music history and the luscious wines of the region. A dream setting for Marc Moulin to lead his ensemble on a 26 minutes+ jazz adventure - Nick Kletchkovsky on bass, Freddy Rottier on drums, Johnny Dover on bass clarinet, Alex Scorier on soprano saxophone, and Richard Rousselet on flugelhorn.

Tony Allen’s first 4 solo albums, recorded with Afrika 70 at the height of their power as Fela Kuti’s band, are seminal recordings in the pantheon of afrobeat history.With Comet Records’ new reissues of these records, we have the opportunity to shine a light on the sheer musicality and originality of the humble drumming giant. Tony Allen’s passing in April 2020 sent a shockwave across the world, as fans and collaborators from Lagos to Brooklyn and everywhere in between mourned the loss of a generous and powerful being, the kind of being we thought would live forever. Thankfully, we have the gift of Tony’s timeless music, starting with these 4 special solo albums, through which his musical voice guides our dancing feet and full hearts forever.Tony Allen’s follow-up solo record, Progress, showcases Afrika 70 doing what they do best: digging deep and bringing the force, but always with remarkable restraint and swagger, propelled by Tony’s steady hands and feet. The title track, “Progress,” starts with a bang and never loses steam - a performance so fierce that it stands alongside Fela’s most powerful anthems. The second track, “Afro-Disco Beat,” shows Tony Allen at one of his creative peaksTaken from Tony’s autobiography by Michael Veal “What I was saying on Progress was that instead of fighting Fela for money, I was trying to progress and create on my own. Progress is what a hard worker is looking for I had to look it for myself”

Call the dance doctor - there's an outbreak of fever in the funkhouse! And here's the reason why - after more than two decades of deletion, Ace is once again making available the final piece in the splendid musical jigsaw that comprises the Blackbyrds' Fantasy Records catalogue - the original, seminal 1978 dancefloor-aimed compilation, Night Grooves. Actually, to refer to Night Grooves as just 'a compilation' is to undersell it big time. Granted, it does collect up a bunch of the Blackbyrds most eminent club cuts, all of which were originally released across five of the six Fantasy albums that came out between 1974 and 1978. And, technically, that does make it 'a compilation'. But - then and now - Night Grooves offers the potential punter much more than merely a repackaging of a bunch of classy cuts that they could just as easily find on other records. The incentives to own this set are manifold and obvious, and none more so than the fact that three of its tracks - Happy Music (lately championed off this very collection by turntable wizard/house music pioneer Danny Krivit), Rock Creek Park and Supernatural Feeling - appear here in versions that are exclusive to Night Grooves. All are specially extended re-edits that prolong the grooves, and the running times, of the original tracks by up to three minutes. None has been legally reissued before now, so even the most ardent Blackbyrds admirers will have had problems in tracking these tracks down since they were last available on vinyl. They alone should be reason enough for any of those aforementioned potential punters to purchase Night Grooves. But there's more, as you'd expect, in the shape of four further fabulous full-length flytes of funk - including the number that's probably the group's most widely-recognised recording, Walking In Rhythm. Factor their funkiness into the equation, and you have a set that's nothing but a natural 'must' for every full-on funkateer's collection. Whether on loud-cut, club-friendly vinyl or sweet mid-priced CD, Night Grooves more than serves its threefold purpose as a suitable overview of their glittering career, a first-class collection of their finest club moments and a mini-greatest hits, featuring - as it does - six of the nine singles they placed on the Billboard R&B chart between 1974 and 1978. If it's true Happy Music Makes You Feel Good All The Time, there's bound to be a whole lot of Feelin' Good goin' on Funkland this month...

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.