ultrafunkmag » jazz

Dirty Loops – “Covers” unofficial EP

Rune Johnsrud — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 23:15:17 +0000

Currently the boys are busy in the studio recording new original songs for their first album according to their official blog. I hope they’ll be able to use their awesome musical chops to create some unique and cleverly arranged material to follow up on their previous efforts. Until they are ready with that, here is a convenient collection of all the cover tracks released so far on their soundcloud page (6 in total):

Download link: Dirty Loops – “Covers” unofficial EP (31MB zip).

Balance and the Traveling Sounds – “Departure” free EP

Rune Johnsrud — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 11:00:12 +0000

Modern soul music played live with real instruments is pretty rare these days, which is really a shame, because when it sounds as good as this, it is truly a pleasure to be enjoyed. This free 6 track EP is an excellent release from a band that I hope will continue to bring us more of the same in the future, and I really look forward to hearing whatever they come up with next.

Departure EP by Balance and the Traveling Sounds

Andreas Pålsson Trio – “Scrabble” release concerts

Rune Johnsrud — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 16:34:24 +0000

It took well over a year, but finally the album the Andreas Pålsson Trio recorded last summer titled “Scrabble” was ready for release earlier this month. To celebrate the occasion, the band performed two great gigs last week, please read on to watch and listen to a full live recording of one of them.

Live at Helsingborgs Konserthus

The second release concert was held in Sweden at Helsingborgs Konserthus, September 9. This video is the full 2 hour show: Set 1, a 20 minute break and then set 2, including several tracks from the album, new material not yet recorded and some original arrangements of a few jazz standards:

The album front cover

Live at Cosmopolite

The first “Scrabble” release concert was held in Oslo, Norway at Cosmopolite, September 7:

Credits

Live recording and video: Helsingborgs Konserthus.

Special thanks to: The Andreas Pålsson Trio – Andreas Pålsson (organ), Staffan William-Olsson (guitar) and Lennart Gruvstedt (drums), Tom Erik Ingvaldsen for all his exceptional organizational skills. All photos and cover design by Rune Johnsrud.

Balance and the Traveling Sounds – “Won’t Do” (J Dilla tribute cover)

Rune Johnsrud — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 01:58:14 +0000

Soulive – “Cash’s Dream”

Rune Johnsrud — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 04:57:19 +0000

An outstanding track from the first album (“Get Down!”) by Soulive that was recorded back in 1999 but not released until 2002, featuring their jazz organ trio lineup: Alan Evans, Neal Evans and Eric Krasno.

Mike Clark Group – “Bone Dance”

Rune Johnsrud — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 23:02:58 +0000

This very hard to find, funky piece of east coast jazz comes courtesy of the former Herbie Hancock and Head Hunters drummer Mike Clark:

Download link: Mike Clark Group – Bone Dance (9.8MB mp3).

The Herbaliser Band – “Session One” (2000)

Rune Johnsrud — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 11:00:41 +0000

Quite possibly the finest Herbaliser album so far, and also some of the best crime movie music never actually used in any soundtrack:

“The Missing Suitcase”:

“Goldrush”:

The James Taylor Quartet – “The Template” (2011)

Rune Johnsrud — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 14:00:21 +0000

25 years and still going strong with a new anniversary release called “The Template”, and what a celebration it is! This is one of the bands finest albums so far featuring an inspired mix of new songs and cover tracks, all of it played with a level of energy and enthusiasm that is truly admirable, and it keeps getting better with each listen. I really hope that James and the lads keep going for at least another 25 years.

Down To The Bone – “The Main Ingredients”

Rune Johnsrud — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 00:00:47 +0000

Under the right circumstances, I’m a sucker for some smooth grooves as long as they are tight, funky and have plenty of soul. Down To The Bone has been providing their fans with just that for almost fifteen years, and their new album will be out in Europe / South Africa / Australia / New Zealand: June 27., USA / Canada: July 19. and Japan: July 20. Below you can preview their first single “Music Is The Key”:

Rhythm Funk Masters – “Afro-American-Arctic” (2007)

Halvor Johannes Lie — Mon, 09 May 2011 14:56:54 +0000

This is a Finnish group which most eloquently mixes Afro-beat, jazz and funk. Mostly the basic rhythm is Afrobeat, but what the musicians do on top of this leans more towards funk and jazz than Fela Kuti’s classical work. There are also some rhythms that resemble other African dialects, Caribbean ones like souk for instance and some more straight ahead soul rhythms (the song Bushman sounds mysteriously like Donny Hathaway’s The Ghetto).

Another difference compared to Kuti lies in composition, this is not as jam-based, songs are more planned out and have a modern state of the art production. All of this makes the whole album varied, sounding fresh and entertaining. The band looks back, but adds from their own background in an interesting way giving the music finesse intertwined with that thang called soul I crave.

To describe what I mean by the term soul, I’ll site Joe Bagale from the radio program On The Scene per 09 04 2010, you can find it as a podcast on iTunes and it’s good quality listening:

“You’ve described eclectic leaps in music as falling into the category of soul music: Anything from the Beatles to James Brown, Stravinsky to Michael Jackson, so can you qualify that, a statement for our listeners?”

Joe Bagale: “If it’s anything you do, and if it really comes from within, then you can immediately to me put soul as the category that’s in. I mean, not as: I ate a bagel today and it came from within. That shit is me, I wanted that bagel! [laughs] Not like that, but more as an artist. I think you’re quoting a newspaper article.”

“Precisely.”

Joe Bagale: “What the writer and I were talking about… I was just talking about why I love all these different styles of music and that I don’t really put categories on things, because you can tell when something is really meant and you can tell when it’s bullshit. There’s a lot of bullshit out there, but there’s a lot of real stuff out there too. I don’t know, I could be wrong and if Ashley Simpson or Britney Spears or somebody hears what I’m saying. I’m not discrediting their ability to write something that’s real, but there’s also that side of it that is green and it gets handed to them: We’re gonna pay you this amount of money to record this song and it doesn’t mean anything to her or him or whoever is doing it. I never been really attracted to that stuff. You know that Stravinsky was feeling what he was writing when he putting the pen to the paper writing the “Rite of Spring” or “the Firebird Suite”. You know that when Frank Zappa, and he was a conservative fellow and a very opinionated person, and it sometimes seems like he didn’t take his music very seriously, you know he took it seriously, and you know that he meant everything that he wrote. Same thing with the Beatles, same thing with Michael Jackson, same thing with Johnny Cash. Those guys really meant what they were doing and that’s soul music, because it’s gotta come from somewhere and I don’t think it comes from here: I’m pointing to your head [laughs].”

A sample track from youtube:

Homepage: Rhythm Funk Masters (MySpace)

Purchase: Amazon.com (CD)