Though it’s hard to pick a winner among the estimable Black Jazz catalog, this 1972 release from bassist Henry “The Skipper” Franklin would have to be near the top of the list. Franklin got his start woodshedding with Latin maverick Willie Bobo in the mid-‘60s and went on to play with The Three Sounds, but probably his most notable gig prior to this debut album was his stint in Hugh Masekela’s band (that’s Franklin playing bass with Masekela at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival). For The Skipper, Franklin assembled a crack outfit that included a horn section of trumpeter/flugelhornist Oscar Brashear (Bobby Hutcherson, Ry Cooder, Donny Hathaway) and tenor & soprano sax man Charles Owens (Buddy Rich, Horace Tapscott, John Mayall) along with a Masekela bandmate in electric pianist Bill Henderson and ace drummer Michael Carvin (Pharoah Sanders, Lonnie Liston Smith, Freddie Hubbard). This is such a unique, organic recording that it’s hard to make comparisons; definitely a little fusion, a little ‘60s Blue Note feel, and the usual Black Jazz journey to the more lyrical, pop-inspired (“Little Miss Laurie”) and funk-infused (“Plastic Creek Stomp”) sides of jazz, but perhaps the best comparison is late-‘60s Miles before he went electric. In any case, The Skipper is just a joy to listen to from start to finish, beautifully recorded by Black Jazz producer Gene Russell and blessed with some really fine writing, most of it by Franklin himself. Remastered for CD and vinyl by Mike Milchner at Sonic Vision and featuring liner notes by Pat Thomas, this Real Gone release is a first-time LP reissue and a must-have!
“Nahawa Doumbia is one of Mali’s defining vocalists of the last four decades. Her work journeys through progressive stages of musical evolution and sonic vogues, making it hard to summarize [...]
“Konstruktivists is the Industrial project of Glenn Michael Wallis from Kent, England. In the late ’70s Wallis was a “control agent” for Throbbing Gristle and the Industrial Records crew. [...]
Hijokaidan’s “Hijohkaidan Tapes” came out in 1986 on Jojo Hiroshige’s Alchemy Records and is not only a historical collection of material, but also pays homage to their [...]
London Records present a reissue of Happy Mondays’… Yes Please!, originally released in 1992. The last Happy Mondays album on Factory Records – reaching no. 14 in the UK chart. [...]
die Reihe is the moniker of NYC based composer and sound engineer Jack Callahan. Taken from the journal edited by Herbert Eimert and Karlheinz Stockhausen, die Reihe makes work that […]
The Awakening were the only ‘group’ recorded by Black Jazz, for which they made two albums; those two releases happen to be among the most collectible in the label’s entire […]
You can have your Big Jay McNeely, Wynonie Harris, even your Little Richard…cuz when it comes to R&B wildmen, we’ll see you and raise you with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, the […]
Airto / Seeds on the Ground – The Natural Sounds of Airto (Ocean Blue Vinyl)
Airto’s second album, and second and last release for the Buddah label, brought back largely the same crew that appeared on his debut record Natural Feelings (also reissued by Real […]
The music business is replete with stories of outsized talents who, due to label mismanagement, misguided career advice, or just plain bad luck, never got their due. But the story […]
Though the lyrics to its big hit, “F**k You,” were decidedly NOT something you would hear on a classic soul record, in many ways Cee Lo Green’s 2010 album The […]
Savage Republic – Tragic Figures (40th Anniversary, Expanded, Red Vinyl)
Welcome to the world’s first (and only) post-punk-industrial-trance-psychedelic-surf album! The fact that it took us so many adjectives to describe Tragic Figures lets you know just how unique of [...]
The Doberman crew has been relentlessly touring the U.S. for years now, existing as a traveling band of frequent collaborators and changing lineups, consisting of often radically different [...]
Recognized as a skilled and sought after collaborator, Ted Byrnes solo albums cast a wide net that capture Byrnes’ adventurous and omnivorous approach to solo percussion. An alumnus of [...]
“Language is the Skin” is the fourth full length release by New Monuments, the quartet co-led by Don Dietrich (Borbetomagus) and Ben Hall (Graveyards/Bill Dixon). Hall and Dietrich [...]
Label Description: Alex Cunningham – Two for Olivia C24 Mid-West Weird is a set of 8 cassette releases, in 2 batches, celebrating our love of improvised sound. ‘Mid-West’ is a [...]
Masayuki Takayanagi New Direction Unit – Axis/Another Revolvable Thing 1 (2020 Blank Forms Reissue)
Blank Forms is really doing “God’s work” here, first unleashing their stellar reissue of Masayuki Takayanagi New Direction Unit’s April Is the Cruelest Month for the first [...]
Generational Muse “Forty years ago a group of hipsters fled Manhattan for . . . has it even been that long? I cannot fathom for I’m still alive and so […]