Esther Phillips
From A Whisper To A Scream

With a voice that has stopped critics in their tracks, Lady Blackbird is a revelatory new talent with music that transcends the jazz scene through which the LA-based artist is rooted. Reflecting influences as varied as Billie Holiday, Gladys Knight, Tina Turner and Chaka Khan, with critics drawing comparisons to Adele, Amy and Celeste, Lady Blackbird’s distinct and beguiling talent is not one to be missed.Honouring the great's has come as a musical process to Lady Blackbird, having recorded her highly anticipated debut album Black Acid Soul in legendary Studio B (Prince’s room) in Sunset Sound, produced by Grammy-nominated Chris Seefried.Minimal yet rich, classic yet timely, the album connects backwards to Miles Davis (his pianist, Deron Johnson, plays Steinway Baby Grand, Mellotron and Casio Synth throughout) and forwards to Pete Tong (he made the Bruise mix of ‘Collage’ his Number Two Essential Selection tune of 2020) and, yes, Victoria Beckham – Matthew Herbert’s remix of second single ‘Beware The Stranger’ soundtracked the designer’s Spring/Summer 2020 Fashion show.

Sydney space funk trio, The Goods, are Badmandela, Rosario & Black Tree. With the help of some friends, The Goods capture the energy of jamming and improvisation to create music that transports the listeners to a moment in time shared together on their new album 'II'.Musically and lyrically ‘II’ is about living in the moment. Each track harnesses the mood or vibration in the room at the time of its inception. The album features 20019's breakaway hit “Let’s Roll” featuring Touch Sensitive (Future Classic), a reminder that mood is about choice...if happiness is a state of mind then why not chose it? “Last Chance” is an invitation to take life by the horns because, in these uncertain times, one can’t take anything for granted. “Voodoo” is that one flame, whose flaws you overlook because they got the mojo while “Walking On Fire” is a nod to band's 80s heroes mixing the likes of Luther, D-Train, and Jam with a future club feel. "Peach" is an anthem for sexual liberation & at the same time being a cheeky funk jam. “Shots”, the album single was born at a jam at Touch Sensitive’s studio - Disco J rocks up a drum loop and turns it into a party! The Beastie Boys meets Marvin Gaye meet Anderson Paak in “Cassandra” resulting from a hang with The Goods’ friend Elliot Hammond of well known Australian band The Delta Riggs, while “Tell Me” is a sexy late night joint for those nights on the prowl. “Che Boog” is an ode to the sleazy funk of Parliament, Funkadelic and Prince , and lastly the Black Mirror inspired “Supersonic” is a tale from a time-travelling consciousness stuck in a dystopian 2020.

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.